Bangalore to Mudumalai Tiger Reserve– Little did we know that it will be an adventurous drive. It was a republic day weekend so we thought of going to Mudumalai National Park( from Bangalore) for one night stay.

STORY OF OUR MUDUMALAI FOREST TRIP

Mudumalai:— Bandipur and Mudumalai are same green area but being on the border of Karnataka and TN, in Karnataka it is known as Bandipur and TN it is known as Mudumalai.

We chose Mudumalai as I have heard that you can spot few animals(of course if you are lucky) while passing through these Tiger Reserve ( which is a highway and open to the public from 6 AM to 9 PM) and it is only 6 hrs drive from Bangalore.

OUR STAY IN MUDUMALAI TIGER RESERVE

Lucky Drive/Stay: — We stayed at Deep Jungle Home which is on the outskirts of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, surrounded by jungle on 2 sides and a quiet water stream on the other.

We opted for this place so that we could cross the whole of Bandipur and Mudumalai and to our surprise we were lucky to spot a few dears at first, monkeys and langoors were, of course, many and last but not the least an elephant, yes an elephant on one side of the road which wanted to cross the road to reach his mother which was on the other side.

FAMILY ROAD TRIP WITH KIDS

Kids were excited above all we could not suppress our excitement as it is for the first time that we were seeing them while traveling in our own vehicle. And immediately after that, we saw a group of dears crossing the road in front of us. Everything happened so quickly.

We have been to many jungle jeep safaris in the north, but nothing was as real as this. We started from Bangalore at 6 in the morning, stopped for the breakfast break at Hotel Harsha (Family managed the hotel with mouth watering south Indian food cooked by the lady).

This hotel was after crossing KFC, Mc D, CCD all top food joints at the midway and we decided to stop at a calm and serene place to explore the local taste of food. And it was worth as the break was very refreshing. We reached our destination by 12.30 noon.

EXPERIENCE OF STAYING INSIDE FOREST AREA

The day at the treehouse:– Checked in to our tree house which was facing the stream and the jungle, had our lunch which was simple home cooked food. There was an open area in the center where you can play badminton/volleyball/football or cricket for fun.

As we were sitting in our balcony in the evening we could see something jumping on the trees, at first we couldn’t identify but then my son identified it as great Indian squirrel (he studied about this endemic species in science a week back). It’s a pet-friendly hotel.

ANOTHER SUGGESTED STAY

We have another great stay review on our blog for Jungle Hut Masinagudi, Do check out our experience of staying in the middle of the forest!

At night we were taken for the night walk towards the jungle and guess what we spotted —- dears grazing around that was something which was WOW. We slept and were woken up by a bunch of monkeys playing around in our balcony and jumping on the tree house roof, an yes we had our bed tea with them.

We went for a walk around the place, played few games, had breakfast and when we were about to leave that place we spotted 2 deer in the jungle from our balcony and we jumped with triumph.

BACK TO BANGALORE

We left the place at 12.30 noon expecting that being noon we hardly see anything but apart from spotting dears which were as close to us that we could take selfies with them we spotted a group of elephants, bit inside the jungle just as we’re about to exit Mudumalai.

As we headed back to Bangalore we stopped to see Papaya farming. It was 20kms after exiting Bandipur, towards our right side. We then had our lunch and reached home at around 8 to end our wild adventurous trip.

BEST TIME TO VISIT MUDUMALAI

Although the mornings were misty, the day was hot and the night was cold, it is said that the best time to visit Mudumalai is during monsoons as animals are active and easy to sight.

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