Around Mysore – Bandipur – Ooty - Mysore in 6 days

Today I came back to Hyderabad from Bangalore after a short and energetic tour. My tour was started on 22nd December 2008 evening after I had taken early leave from office. Booked my ticket with “Diwakar Travels” @ Paradise, I would recommend that “Diwakar” has a good service on Bangalore-Hyderabad route because it gave three halts and reached almost by scheduled time, 8AM, at Anand Rao Circle, Bangalore. Shuttling between Bangalore’s Majestic bus stand and Mysore, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation’s (KSRTC) Volvo buses take two hours and thirty minutes to reach at Mysore, cost 225 per person and run in every thirty minutes. Plenty of ordinary and AC deluxe buses are also available for Mysore. Train service is also available on this route, though it is less preferable because of ample availability of road transport.

Mysore, called Palace city, resides various palaces, parks and temples and serves tourists with its ample availability of restaurants, hotels and lodges. If you are looking for accommodation, I would suggest you to take an auto, which costs 25 rupees from bus stand, and go to dhanavanti Road (behind Stone building, IKR Hospital). Try to avoid any generous assistance from local hotel dealer at bus stand. One of the markets is situated near Dhanavanti road so fresh vegetables are available nearby as well as plethora of hotels and lodges. In Mysore, Places of interests are Mysore palace and Museum, which consists photos of infantry, arsenals, cavalry accessories and dresses those were used by the Emperors of Mysore, Birds Sanctuary (I didn’t see any bird except crows and crocodiles (?)), Chamunda devi temple, which is located on the top of nearest chamunda hill, National Park, Zoo, Tipu museum, Tipu palace (demolished), Brindavan Garden, which has musical fountain show that started at 6:30PM every day, government emporium and lots of other attractions. Only thing surprised me is too high charges for camera; somewhere even fifty bucks for still camera is ridiculous. Although you could spend your days in local sight seeing and evenings at local shops, it is not needed to stay at Mysore more than three days; we stayed at Mysore only for two days: 23rd and 24th December.

Bandipur Forest - on the way to Ooty

Bandipur Forest - Evening Time

On 25th December morning, we started around 5:30AM for Ooty via Bandipur National forest. We decided early to attain Jungle Safari on the way to Ooty, therefore we, hired a TATA indica cab previous day of our journey, and reached at Bandipur around 7:30AM. You could attain any Jungle Safari either between 6AM and 9AM or between 3PM and 5PM by paying 75 rupees each for bus safari. Whole forest is spread over the Nilgris range and is devided between two states: Karnataka (Bandipur national forest) and Tamilnadu (Mudumalai National Forest). Tiger project has been started since 1973 at Bandipur national forest. You must be lucky enough to observe big cat here; Bison, Deer, Elephants, and with various birds are ancillary attractions at Bandipur National Forest. You could avail the jungle safari at Mudumalai national Forest also; please check timings and costs from respective website before travel. Otherwise if you plan to stay at Bandipur Forest Resort for 1 day and visit Gopalaswammy Betta, which is around 10 Kms from Bandipur forest resort and is the highest peak in Nilgris region, you will feel real thrill and adventure of jungle.

On 25th December, we reached at ooty around 12:30PM; Ooty is the only hill station in southern part in India so you can expect to meet with lots of people from southern part of India and with IT professionals from Bangalore as ooty is accessible by 6-7 hrs driving from Bangalore. Several tourist places are the attractions of ooty such as Ooty Lake, botanical garden, Pykara falls, Catherine Falls, Doddabetta peak, lamb’s rock, dolphin’s nose, Ketti valley view, Wellington golf view, Tea factory and museum to name a few; Ooty - coonoor travel through toy train is beautiful and picturesque for visitors. Ooty has lots of tree plantations which enrich the beauty of the city. Coffee and tea packets are available directly at local shops as they process all beverages in their own shop and obviously prices are very less. On your way to local site seeing you can take several swallows of tea of different varieties such as masala tea, chocolate tea, ginger tea, almond tea, and lemon tea etc. All varieties are available at local tea stalls so you can test any flavor before you decide to buy them. I have bought lots of tea packets and coffee packets to gift my cousins and neighbors and indeed nothing could be more splendid and momentous to give to your relatives than nilgris’s original brands. We have booked tata indica for local sightseeing on coonoor side. It is wiser to book a cab from ooty and inform cab chauffeur to pick you up from coonoor rail station and show you all the local sightseeing, because firstly ooty- coonoor railway is worth to enjoy, secondly all travel companies have divided their detour in three sectors – coonoor/ooty sightseeing (day 1), film round(day 2), Mudumalai (day 3) but last two sightseeing cover same point except mudumalai forest safari which you already will cover if you come to ooty as I did, and thirdly you will save one full day for long distance travels outside ooty. Enough cab services and hotels are available at ooty but make sure you do negotiation on prices and qualities before you agree to pay for some services otherwise you might be goofed up. Foods are costly though you have to eat as Romans do while you are in Rome.On 28th morning around 5:30 AM we started for Mysore; this time also we called the same travel agent from Mysore and booked the cab. We found that cars were very good and drivers were expert to drive on hill areas. We reached Mysore around 9:30 AM and booked AC chair car tickets for Bangalore. We could have come back by KSRTC bus but we found that train journey will be more enjoyable and less hectic. Around 1:15 PM we arrived at Yeswantapur Station at Bangalore and took a good north Indian veg-lunch at a restaurant opposite to station. Well, taste of foods was really better than any other foods I have taken so far from any other same kind of restaurants in south India. Same day I took my bus for Hyderabad and reached my home by next day morning.