August 2-3, 2008 - Weekend
Saturday morning, 6:30 a.m., on the Chennai-Mysore train. The countryside is lush with palm trees and rice paddies and dirt roads. Men are out in the fields and villages. Women wash clothes below rocky rapids. An immense granite boulder several stories high rises abruptly from the flat land. Oxen pull a blue cart with murals on the sides, driven by a grey-haired man with a switch. Stephen says they speak Kannada here, a completely different language than Tamil or Hindi. Oxcarts line up at the rail crossings, then kids in school uniforms on bikes, then oxcarts again. We pass agave, fields of sunflowers, pools with egrets and ibis.
We arrived in Mysore, a pretty colonial looking city, met our driver, had breakfast and left town for the uplands. We climbed into the foothills of the Nilgiri mountains to a high plateau and into Bandipur National Park. The park is in Karnataka, while Mudumalai Tiger Reserve is adjacent, but back in Tamil Nadu. We were greeted by monkeys at the entrance bridge and warned to shut the windows. We saw many spotted deer; the stags have huge antlers. We saw langurs, a different species of monkey with black faces. And peacocks!
Our lodgings are called “chalets”, little brick buildings with red tile roofs. Karen’s has solar panels and cisterns on top. We walked to the river, admiring the majestic mountain views and bright green valley. After lunch at the chalet’s outdoor pavilion, we took a Jeep safari and saw bison, sambar and spotted deer, a bear and 2 elephants from a distance. After a rest and dinner we took another Jeep safari in search of elephants. We saw civet cats and several huge buffalo near the road, but no elephants. We ran out of gas in the pitch dark, but our guide managed to coax a few more kilometers from the engine and coast down the last unpaved pot-holed grade to a petrol station far from home. All were ready for bed long before we arrived after 11:30.
Sunday we rose at 6:15 for coffee and a final Jeep safari. Still no wild elephants but we got to ride a tame one through the jungle on a quiet sunny morning. The driver sat on the elephant’s head and used his feet on the ears to direct the elephant’s turns and speed. We sat in a metal frame up top, and the ride was more comfortable than the Jeep on unpaved back roads. After breakfast we trekked through the forest from the lodge for a couple of hours. Following the sounds, our guide almost got within sight of an elephant a couple of times. The first time it was a male in a brushy thicket – hard to see, not safe to go in. The second time we had circled our way around a female and young to their downwind side in a more open area. Suddenly a herd of goats and three goatherds appeared, bawling and hollering and beating the bushes with sticks. So long, elephants. We did see a herd of spotted deer, water buffalo and a rat snake.
After cleaning up and having a great lunch in the outdoor pavilion, we headed back through the park and down into the valley to Mysore. We visited the raja’s palace, a huge late Victorian exuberantly ornate structure set in formal gardens. It replaced one that burned down. Amazing columns, staircases, a whole Moorish palazzo with turquoise arches and columns, a wedding hall with a stained glass ceiling with a peacock feather theme, and silver doors with ten panels depicting the ten incarnations of Vishnu.
We met up with Jim at his hotel and had a group reunion over Stephen’s idea of snacks, courtesy of George. We shopped at the Karnataka government store before going back to the palace for the Sunday evening light show. Despite the packed crowds straining to funnel in to the metal detectors and the aggressive street vendors, it was great. The palace and all the temples on the grounds are covered in golden lights, and the result is breathtaking. With fountains playing, balloon vendors, a live band and the huge crowd of people strolling around, the Disneyland in India effect was complete. Finally, we said our farewells to Jim and headed for our train back home to Chennai.
Quote of the day: Before me peaceful, behind me peaceful. Above me peaceful, below me peaceful. All around me peaceful. Native American song lyric.
Ricca Slone
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