If You Haven’t Seen A Gaur, Pack Up and Leave Home

I usually don’t write vacation reviews. But this one had to be written.

Finally, we did take a holiday! But we had to wait till Dushyant was done with school. Yes..DONE. His senior year at school was stressful – not to him but to Shanthi. Between her incessant travel, she found time and space to fret over D’s school work, his examinations, his college apps, his photography, his fieldwork, his cricket, his…. you get the picture. Dushyant of course, is a cool customer. Nothing ever bothered him – he would do stuff at a leisurely pace, quite unperturbed by a mom who was willing to tear her hair in frustration. He would go to school, get back home to rest, watch his fave movies and shows he downloads from torrent, chat with friends, order in food every once in a while when he gets ‘fed up of your chapatti and rice meal’, and get down to studies once he put his parents to bed!

Spotted Deer in the Jungle Hut property

Weekends therefore were busier than usual for him, catching up on things and doing that extra bit with the books. Vacation was pretty much out of question. So finally, when he was done with school, we found a 3-day weekend for a trip to Masinagudi, just across the border into Tamil Nadu, beyond the Bandipur National Forest in Karnataka. It is nestled under the foothills of the Nilgiri mountains, and Ooty is just 30 kms away.

There is enough and more written about Masinagudi and available on the net, so I will skip on the details. The Jungle Hut, where we stayed, is a sprawling 22 acres property at the edge of the Mudumalai forest, run by Vikram and Anushree Mathais. The rustic beauty of the place is retained without compromising quality. The tented rooms spread across the entire property (called machans) are super sized and well appointed. Thankfully, there are no TVs in the rooms. Ours was at the edge of the forest, and the calls of the wild at night were bone chilling yet mesmerizing. With dozens of deer grazing inside the property at night, leopards apparently show up sometimes to get their food supplies!

The white-stockinged Bison or Gaur

The beauty of the Mudumalai forest is breathtaking. On an early morning guided trek into the forest, we spotted white-socked bison (aka gaur), elephants, jungle fowl, barking deer, peacocks, sambar, and dozens of beautiful birds. The trek itself was awesome – a ‘spotter’ walks ahead of the trekking group looking for signs of danger, our guide walks about 20-30 yards behind him, and we follow the guide single file through the dense forest. Each of us are instructed to stay completely silent, instructions are whispered ear to ear, and when he comes upon an animal or bird, he points you to it, and gives you the full story in a very tone, when he is sure he is not disturbing the peace of the wild. The three-hour walk was steep at times, wet and slippery most parts, and included a small river crossing. Somewhere along the way, we came upon an open space near a large flat rock where the remnants of a very large kill lay –apparently a tiger killed a three-year old elephant about a month ago.

Nilgiri Ranges in the distance

I could of course go on and on about this place, but the idea was to goad you to get to Mudumalai and Masinagudi if you have not already been there. Jungle Hut is a fantastic place, and Vivek, the GM made our stay very memorable.

On the drive back, we took a short detour to Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta – a 4,500 feet hill with a temple at the top. It is an awesome place – extremely cool, and wind speeds of over 120kms literally sweep you off your feet. It is fun to watch your hand disappear in front of you as the rolling fog just envelopes you completely.

Before I get too boring, let me stop. But yes, do get yourself some time off and get to Masinagudi and Gopalaswamy Betta. NOW!