As usual, some high­lights from the week­end trip.

The route:
Ban­ga­lore — Mysore – Bandipur (Day 1)
Bandipur — Gopal­swamy Betta – Mudu­malai – Ooty (Day 2)
Ooty – Ban­ga­lore (Day 3)

• We have break­fast at the beau­ti­ful Lalith Mahal Palace hotel in Mysore. It looks new and freshly painted and the gold in the domes glint in the sun­light. The food is okay, but I am hun­gry, wolf­ing down the rather large masala dosa in no time. And besides, it’s not every­day that I get a chance to sit and eat where the kings once did.

• Sun­flower fields on the way to Bandipur, after we cross Mysore. Yel­low expanse against the bril­liant blue skies, and the green veg­e­ta­tion – the con­trast cre­ated a pic­ture per­fect sight. I get to take over the wheels a bit, a nice drive with no traf­fic, which suits me just fine…
• In the evening, we head out on a safari in the Bandipur for­est – we spot sam­bar, chee­tal, wild bison, pea­cocks… lots of beau­ti­ful but­ter­flies and birds (still not very famil­iar with birdie names) but no elephants.
• At the place we stay in Bandipur, we dis­cover Boost (don’t know why it tastes so good!) I think we are hooked :)
• I get pho­tog­ra­phy lessons in the evening – a primer on aper­ture and shut­ter speed – and I learn a few things too…
• We drive through Bandipur in the morn­ing, a beau­ti­ful pea­cock preens beside the road, shows off a lit­tle. Then strolls across the road to the other side, right in front of the car (while I try and scram­ble for my cam­era, but too late!). It dis­ap­pears into the for­est before I get a chance to click. Drat.
• The view from atop Gopal­swamy Betta (about 20 kms from Bandipur and the high­est point of the park). One side is the for­est area, and on the other is a huge expanse of plains. An absolutely amaz­ing view. We park the car and try to walk up a hill with some inter­est­ing rock for­ma­tions, but a for­est guard turns us back. Not allowed!
• On the way down from the hill, two lit­tle boys on the road­side shout – ele­phant, ele­phant! We are skep­ti­cal and can’t see a thing in the wide expanse of the for­est before us. With the help of a pair of binoc­u­lars, we spot a pair of tuskers in the dis­tance. Finally!
• The ride to Ooty, nego­ti­at­ing 36 hair­pin bends. The car sounds decid­edly unhappy, but we finally make it. At the 36th hair pin bend, we get rewarded with car­rots from the nice peo­ple who live in a house beside the road.
• The sec­ond day comes to an end with vodka and tasty pep­per chicken at the guest house we stay for the night.
• Next morn­ing, we do start off early and stop at the Kalatti falls on the way down from Ooty. Not much water, but a scenic place.
• Swarms of blue tiger but­ter­flies that flit along the way with us through the Mudu­malai and Bandipur forests.
• A pit stop at a water body beside the road. Dif­fer­ent birds loll about in the sun­shine includ­ing the lit­tle com­morant, pel­i­can and the painted stork. We get busy click­ing. From a bus pass­ing by, a guy shouts, “Wel­come to India.”
• Bril­liant blue skies (and I haven’t seen that blue in a while) and cot­ton candy clouds stay with us all the way back on the drive from Ooty till Mysore.
• A lazy lunch at a resort by the river. The noo­dles would put a Chi­nese to shame. The ham­mock was much welcome.
• I sight a rain­bow some­where between Mysore and Ban­ga­lore. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one. And then they say it’s lucky…
• The sky looks par­tic­u­larly beau­ti­ful on the drive back — bright azure blue with pink tinged clouds. In the dis­tant hori­zon, between the trees, we catch a glimpse of the sun as paints a cor­ner of the sky in a vio­lent orange. The end of yet another day.
• Kitna pyaara hai yeh pal (from the album Strings) – the theme song that kept play­ing in our heads (and on the tape).
• Ban­ga­lore. 9.00 pm. Sun­day evening. And immense relief for the one who drove most of the 600 km plus journey!

I must thank my trav­el­ing com­pan­ions:
a) AB — The one who did most of the dri­ving and put up with all my crib­bing. He was sur­pris­ingly cheer­ful I dis­cov­ered, espe­cially while lis­ten­ing to Kan­nada songs! But it could have been the Boost. :)
b) PV– The usu­ally chatty one who turned into a silent Dev­das, for rea­sons we could not fig­ure out. The trip obvi­ously didn’t bring out the best in him. We are think­ing it was the vodka, but it could have been the fact that we didn’t climb any rocks or scale any moun­tains…
c) SP – She found us a really cool place to stay in Ooty when we had nearly given up hope. And after mak­ing a few rounds of Ooty town! And for the pep­per chicken she got the guest house peo­ple to spe­cially pre­pare for dinner.

The film rolls are still lying in my bag. Will hope­fully man­age to drop it in today or tomor­row. Mean­while, it’s back to business :)