Pykara Lake

After Pykara Falls, our next visit was Pykara Lake. Again we thought of skipping boat ride to catch Bandipur safari. But my daughter's wish made us enjoy the boat ride. As they say, it is indeed paradise on earth. It was cold and windy, but we had jackets to face the wind.

This place seems to be famous for film shooting. Of course, its beauty is serene and worth capturing...

 

 

Pykara Falls

After Doddabetta, we had lunch and thought of skipping Pykara falls as we were running out of time for Bandipur Safari. But our guide insisted us to pay a visit. Pykara falls is approximately 1km from the main road. On the way, we were greeted by the monkeys trying to smash plastic bottles. Even monkeys know that it is plastic-free zone and they were trying their best to protect the nature ;-).

 

And then we were greeted by local people who told us the best time to visit Pykara falls is from July through December. We were disappointed to hear that there is not much water in the lake. Anyways, we continued our walk and enjoyed the fresh air. We had to pay around 2 rupees to enter the falls area. As we started walking down, the nature was unveiling its great beauty, the scenic view is worth watching.

And there is this poster with the warning "DON'T VENTURE IN TO WATER AT THE RISK OF YOUR VALUABLE LIFE". There were no whirl pools, so I went down to touch the water.

This place is worth a visit. Hope we'll visit again when the water is in its full strength.

Doddabetta

On January 6th early morning, we headed to Doddabetta (big mountain), the highest peak in South India. The drive is scenic and the tea plantations attracted our attention to take some snaps.

But curvy roads made my daughter sick. To be safe, in case if she throws up, we wanted to grab a plastic cover from one of the roadside shops. But Doddabetta is a plastic-free zone and people strictly adhere to the rules set by the government, I could see GO GREEN spirit flying high. Glad that they had Dry Amla fruits to rescue my daughter from motion sickness. Ultimately, we all ended up eating the yummy dry Amla and bought some more ;-).

We reached Doddabetta at around 11.30am. Tamilnadu tourism welcomed us with this board that said "WE LOVE NATURE AVOID PLASTIC TORTURE".

The weather was awesome and we were surrounded by fog in no time. Couldn't resist to treat ourselves with hot boiled peanuts.

We had to walk up a little bit and had to pay 5 rupees to reach the telescopic house and enjoy the lush green nature view.

You better click on the pictures to zoom-in ;-)

 

 

After that, we made a move to Pykara Falls. btw, click on the link to see 360 view of Doddabetta.

Greenwoods nature camp

During first week of January, we started our journey from Hyderabad to Bandipur national park. My husband took the honor of booking the resort online. After lots of browsing and reading reviews, we settled with Greenwoods nature camp.

Thought it is just a place to stay, but after three days of staying there, this camp itself became a place for us to visit again. The service is great. When we reached Mysore, Vinay (our guide and driver) came to pick us up. It took around 3 hours to reach the resort from Mysore railway station. On the way, we saw a big bison, our first wildlife darshan in Bandipur national park.

The camp itself has breathtaking view of nature. It is surrounded by electric fence. We were bit scared when Vinay told that a Black Panther was roaming outside the camp the night before. Anyways, felt good to be inside jungle with wildlife stories :-).

 

 

And the garden outside the cottage is very refreshing.

Kids had fun collecting the fallen coconuts :-).

And the most memorable feature of the camp is the time spent with kitten and dog. Kids had lots of fun running around and playing with them and I was taken back to my childhood days.

Highlight of the camp is the great food service. Felt homely conversing in my broken Tamil language with Lakshmi(cook). Really admire her smile and hospitality. Never felt the need to buy anything outside, packed meals followed us wherever we went.

Our stay ended with campfire and then we headed to Banglore to meet friends.

I must say, this is a place to visit and enjoy the open armed nature's beauty.