KABINI

    Thanks to my brother, ten of us in our family enjoyed a four day stay at Kabini Jungle Lodges and Resorts from 24-Dec-2024 to 27-Dec-2024. The time spent together was memorable.

    On 24-Dec, a Tempo Traveller picked all of us from our homes. My wife and I were the last ones to board, being closest to Mysuru road on which we had to travel. The vehicle was clean and well maintained. Our driver drove steadily, speaking only when he was spoken to. We stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. The crowd was pretty heavy. Since there were ten of us apart from our driver, finding a table for all of us together took some time. Breakfast was relished. I notice that whenever there is an early start, I feel hungrier earlier than usual. It was the same here: all of us were ready to savour breakfast. A couple of days ago, we discussed about visiting Srirangapatna or Mysuru on the way, but on 24-Dec after breakfast, all of us felt that going to Kabini directly was a better idea.

    Exiting the Bengaluru Mysuru expressway, we passed villages in the H. D. Kote taluka. Due to the good rains, there was a lot of greenery. By 1:30 p.m. we were in Kabini. The resort used to be a hunting lodge for the Mysuru Maharaja. The bungalows he built bring about the charm of a bygone era. The operations in Kabini owe a lot to Papa John Wakefield. The web page https://thebetterindia.com/245850/colonel-john-papa-wakefield-british-karnataka-kabini-river-lodge-nagarhole-ecotourism-conservation-india-nor41/ describes his role and his involvement in making Kabini a benchmark for other "green" resorts and eco-tourism in general.

    There is one bungalow in Kabini Jungle Lodges which contains articles about Papa John and interesting photographs that document the evolution of the resort. My brother led me to the bungalow during a walk. It was a delight to see articles on Kabini and Papa John by travel writers like Bill Aitken and Hugh and Colleen Gantzer. The photographs in the bungalow describe the development of the resort.

    Our first safari on day 1 was with a guide, who would continue to drive us on all our four forays into the jungle spread . Ten of us fitted into an open jeep. We reached the beginning of the reserved forest area passing a couple of villages at about 3:15 p.m. The forest officials check the jeeps to see that there are no cameras (there is an additional fee to be paid if cameras are taken in), allocate a zone that the jeeps can travel in and give a GPS tracker to confirm that the vehicles do travel in the zones allocated. The process takes about 15 minutes, since all jeeps from the resort come at the same time. The maximum speed in the forest is 30 kmph. Our guide respected the speed limit at all times and asked us to keep our phones on silent mode.

    And we were off! There was a lot of energy and excitement in the jeep. The descending sun glimmered between the leaves of trees. Our guide named the trees: "This is 'matthi'", "This is teak" and also pointed out birds. The first big animal that we saw was a herd of spotted deer. We took pictures of the deer. Over the next couple of days, we must have seen 400 spotted deer. "In this jungle, the spotted deer is the most common type of deer. The larger sambar deer is less common while the barking deer is a shy animal. The mouse deer is a small breed and the rarest.", informed our guide. Near a watering hole that evening, we saw a sambar deer. On the evening of 26-Dec, it was fitting that we saw a sambar deer in the evening to round off our trip.

    Our guide took us a couple of times into the edge of the Kabini backwaters. Fifty years ago, in 1974, the Kabini dam was inaugurated. The highway across the state was submerged along with 33 villages. Our guide showed us Bandipur, Wynad and Nagarhole across the backwaters. We headed to the elephant fencing. Near the fence, we saw wild boars, several peacocks playing with peahens and peafowls and the giant Malabar squirrel. The highlight of the evening though was an elephant, a magnificent tusker that stood in solitary splendour across the water. By 6:15 p.m., we were back in the resort satisfied. We ate delicious fried bhajji followed by an equally delicious dinner. Almost all of us enjoyed the vegetarian dishes and the dessert on offer. For Christmas, there were cakes prepared which were also tasty. The meals in Jungle Lodges Kabini were a treat.

    One regret at the end of day 1 of our stay was that we had not seen the tiger, but on the bright side, we did see an elephant. Kabini is famous for the tigers. "There are 149 tigers in the forest", informed our guide and leopards. He told us that there was a black panther but it was old and had not been observed recently.

    Day 2 was Christmas day. Morning safaris in Kabini begin at around 5:45 a.m. This means that I had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to grab my first cup of coffee. Christmas morning began dark and cold. Our guide greeted us and took us to the beginning of the forest area. To assemble all ten of us took a few more minutes than expected. By this time, the other jeeps and buses from the resort had reached the forest area already. Our waiting time was more than what it was on the evening of 24th. Our guide told us that a few minutes can make a lot of difference in terms of waiting time for allocation of zone and GPS tracker. It was a lesson well learnt: for the other safaris that we took, we were well on time!

    As we sped into the jungle and the morning breeze blowed into our faces, it felt distinctly colder! My smartphone showed a temperature of 22 degrees Celsius but the location was not updated perhaps. To all of us, it felt like 12 degrees or perhaps even colder! Some of us had jackets on and a shawl to keep the hands and palms warm. I had told my wife vainly as we got ready in the resort "You had better bring your sweater." She needed no more urging. Like a hero, I had only the vest and my shirt on. On the misty and foggy Christmas morning, with the wind blowing strongly, I missed warmer clothing! At times, I shivered and my teeth chattered!

    So was this drive only a misery? The answer is a loud "No"! I drove a motorcycle for eighteen years in Bengaluru. When it drizzled/ rained while other motorcycle drivers stopped, I would prefer to ride in the rain. There were two reasons for this: first, the traffic would become worse when the rain reduced. The rains in Bengaluru rarely last for more than 30 minutes. If I drove in the rain, it was quite likely that I would be home by the time the rain stopped. To me, getting wet was a small discomfort compared to driving in heavy traffic. The second reason was the sensation of driving in the rain itself: the sound and the feel of the rain on my helmet, the spray of water hitting my face and body made me feel alive in a complete way. A mild shock to the system serves to sharpen it!

    The Christmas morning safari drive into the Kabini jungle was another such experience. The sensation of cold was a shock to my body. At the same time, my alertness increased, perhaps boosted by the morning cup of coffee ! The visibility had reduced that morning. The previous evening, I had seen trees and the jungle all around me. On Christmas morning, a grey morning mist turned the distant tree tops and hills hazy. I heard the drops of mist or dew condense and fall on the jeep. I felt a few drops on my face as well. We went down a raw road and saw an Indian gaur. There was a herd of these powerful beasts.

    Our guide showed us webs of the funnel web spider on the ground, which looked white due to the mist of the early morning. There were several of these white webs that adorned the floor of the forest. We saw many herds of spotted deer and a majestic eagle perched on the end of a branch. Near a temple (actually, we never saw the temple! We heard our guide refer to the road as the road to the temple!), a surprise awaited us. As we sped along the jungle road, a small darkish animal suddenly leapt across the road from left to right. Our guide shouted "Leopard, leopard". We saw the beast run with feline grace on the right past a couple of tall trees and into the bushes. Some of us continued to track it in the bushes, but I lost it. What I remember is a longish cat like animal, which sprinted across the road and quickly disappeared. Like the tiger I spotted in Corbett National Park in 2004 (https://fewidlethoughts.blogspot.com/2006/05/uttaranchal.html has all the details), all of this happened in a few seconds, before we could get our smartphones ready. Those few seconds are etched into my memory.

    We took a bio break after our sighting of a leopard. Curiously, all of us felt a little warmer now. The sun had risen a little higher on the horizon, but our excitement at seeing the leopard contributed to it in my view. The birds were beginning to sing. The jungle came alive as the sun rose. As the morning mist disappeared, we could see the green forest and the wild flowers. I felt refreshed as we completed the morning safari.

    After breakfast that morning, four of us went for a ride on a coracle. This was just a ten minutes ride and it was fun. The captain of our coracle told us that the water was about seventy feet deep! He spun the coracle clockwise and then anti clockwise, almost making us dizzy at the end of the ride! After showering and changing, my wife went for a walk along a nature trail marked along the edge of the backwaters.

    Since we had been to the evening safari on day 1, we opted to go for a boat safari. There was a small debate if it would be advisable to go for the jungle safari and may be see the tiger, but the idea of a new experience on the boat appealed to us more. The boats in the resort are named after animals in the forest. Our boat was called "Black Panther"! I remembered the Avengers superhero when I read the name. The boat chugged along with the loud sound of its engine providing a constant background noise. The swaying of the boat lulled us into drowsiness - and a few naps! The boat captain took us to the middle of the backwater and then to the edge of the river bank, pointing out birds. At times, he would stop to let us take pictures. We saw egrets, grey herons, many cormorants, a couple of kingfishers and a playful family of otters. Initially, we saw a couple of otters. As we watched, we saw that there was a whole bevy of otters ! They entertained us well for a few minutes with their antics!

    We were fortunate to see a crocodile - or at least part of it! Our captain spotted the light brown snout of the crocodile move in the water and pointed it out for us. We moved along with it parallel to the bank. It never emerged out completely, but it was still a spectacle to see its snout emerge clearly and then disappear partially into the water.

    It was twilight by the time we headed back to the resort. By this time we could see the classy looking lights of the private resorts on the Kabini backwaters well. There was also a peaceful, calming sunset on view for us. In the water we found a dried tree with several branches sticking out, on which cormorants had nested. The backwaters were once part of the jungle. Following the construction of the dam, the jungle was submerged. The tree on which the cormorants perched was one such tree. We learned that precious trees like teak were auctioned by the Forest Department.

    Dinner on Christmas was sumptuous as usual. The other guests told us that they had seen a tiger with its kill. One of the guest said: "It stood there for many minutes until we got bored. We went away to let other buses see it! We also saw a leopard!" You can imagine our envy. We had opted for the boat safari that evening. If only we had gone for the jungle safari!

    Lamenting our luck, we assembled in our room to play a game called "Fishbowl". The essence of the game is described at https://fishbowl-game.com/. We used paper chits to identify topics/ words and kept a time limit of 1 minute for guessing. It was a lot of fun, though it is clear that I have a long way to go before I can play it well !

    The morning of day 3 was also dark, but it was not as cold as Christmas day. The mist or fog was also lesser. We saw the Indian Gaur again, a giant Malabar squirrel climb up a tree and a mongoose move away from us. Our guide pointed out a herd of spotted deer. While the herd usually grazed unconcerned about tourists, this herd was different. All the deer looked poised to run and almost all of them were looking at us. "The deer are in the 'Alert' mode.", informed our guide. He continued: "Leopards move quickly, so there is little time for the animals to sense them. With tigers, it is different. Bird, deer and monkeys send warning calls." We waited there for a few minutes, but it was futile. "Sometimes, it is a false alarm, sometimes the tiger is deeper within the forest", said our guide.

    We moved ahead. We were in the same zone as where the tiger had made its kill the previous day. Our guide looked down as we drove to see for pug marks. One interesting feature was the networking between guides. In an earlier visit to a safari, I had seen walkie talkies being used between jeeps and buses to inform about locations of animal sighting. This led to overcrowding and disturbance. The usage of walkie talkies has been discontinued. When two vehicles crossed each other, the guides would halt, exchange notes about what they had seen and if required change the route. I found this fascinating as it showed how communication can help transmit ideas and information in a very basic manner! We got to know that further ahead, the animals were on alert and that a leopard had moved into the bushes.

    We moved ahead. There were already three or four vehicles on the road looking on our left. Our guide cut the engine and asked us to be silent. We whispered among ourselves now, eager to spot the leopard. We heard the high pitched call of an animal. "That is the warning call of the langur", whispered our guide. The sense of anticipation and excitement in our jeep was very high by this time. We heard the langur calling out regularly, a few birds twitter - and then we saw it. My cousin was the first to spot it: "Tiger, tiger", she said pointing ahead and to our left.

    There she stood and walked - yes, "it" was a "she" since it was a tigress that we were seeing! For a minute or so, I lost the tigress as it disappeared behind the branch of a thick tree on the left. My cousin, who was in another row in our jeep tracked it continuously. "Look, look it is climbing a tree!", she exclaimed excitedly. "There are two, there are two. This is a baby tiger cub.", she continued. This was a matter of huge debate later that day and the next. Two among our group including my cousin said that there were two tigers, one a tigress and another a tiger cub. By this time all our smartphones were busy capturing pictures  and videos of the tigress. When we watched all of our videos and pictures in the resort, we concluded that there was only one tigress that we saw. This was a young female tigress, who was about six feet long, if that (our consensus!) who climbed a tree, probably in search of a leopard. According to our guide, the leopard was also seen in that area the previous evening. The tigress may have wanted to challenge the leopard - or the other way around.

    The tigress moved fearlessly unbothered about the vehicles full of tourists. She ran on the left from well ahead of our jeep, jumped to climb a tree (which I missed), descended quickly, strolled across to behind our jeep and then crossed the road! Our excitement knew no bounds as she walked on the road for a few seconds and came to our right. She urinated to mark her territory and drank water from a small water hole near the edge of the road. Then she moved about, sniffing the trees. It was unbelievable: I was watching a tigress in the wild.

    The tigress graced us with her presence for about seven minutes and disappeared into the jungle after that. Our morning was done - in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the stay in Kabini was done! However, that is an immature and "bucket list" type of conclusion. The jungle is so much more than the leopard, the black panther and the tiger! Our guide showed us a tree whose bark was paler than other trees. "This is the tree that Veerappan the poacher used for cooking in the jungle. It does not emit too much smoke like the others.", explained our guide. The jungle is full of marvels like these. Having said that, seeing the tigress for seven minutes was certainly the jewel in the crown of our Kabini stay!

Here is proof to show that I saw a tigress in the wild :-) !

    Breakfast was full with our chatter of reliving the sighting of the tigress. Some of us opted to go to the spa. I spent time in the balcony of our room, beginning to re-read "Walden" by Thoreau. The key word in the previous sentence is "beginning". I must have read a few screens when birdsong in our resort interrupted me. I went for a leisurely walk around the resort. Near Papa John's bungalow, I heard two birds exchange songs. It was a magical feeling.

This is a wonderful bungalow - and an apt memorial for Papa John Wakefield.

    Our final lunch was eaten leisurely. For one last time, we went for the evening safari on day 3. It was overcast at 3 p.m. Our guide was not too hopeful of seeing many animals due to the weather. It drizzled a bit during this safari. As predicted, there were not many animals that we saw. Still, we did see spotted deer, another elephant, a mongoose and birds including a resplendent kingfisher. We saw barking deer and almost at the end of the safari and a sambar deer that seemed to be bidding us goodbye. On 24-Dec, which seemed to be quite some time ago, we had seen a sambar and an elephant. It was apt that a sambar deer ended our last safari in Kabini.

    We slept longer and skipped the morning safari on our final day. After breakfast, we checked out. There was one stop near the resort to pick up souvenirs and then our next one was Mysuru palace. I had put on my headphones to listen to a podcast, but I dozed through it. The Kabini resort had a lot of space and promised solitude if needed. There was no hope of getting any solitude in Mysuru palace. There was a sea of people including students from schools, tourists on tour packages and people who came to see the flower show also. We hired a guide who introduced us to some of the marvels of Mysuru palace.

    We ate lunch at Old House in Mysuru and topped it up with excellent South Indian filter coffee at King's Court. It was a pleasant surprise for me to meet a colleague and a friend at the Old House. My wife and I were home by 6:15 p.m. or so.

    While the highlight of the trip was the sighting of the leopard and the tigress, I have understood something else though: the benefits of forest bathing or shinrin-yoku, as described in https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202108/6-surprising-health-benefits-of-walking-through-a-forest. Just being in a jeep in a forest made me aware of positive changes. One, I was away from my smartphone unless I was taking pictures! Two, the fresh smell of the jungle was refreshing. Three, in my eagerness to see an animal, my eyes and ears became more attentive. In fact, I thought often that the thick branch of the tree that lay on the forest floor looked like an Indian Gaur ! Similarly, the rustle of leaves made me feel that there was a tiger in the bushes ! My brother spotted birds perched high up on trees that the rest of us struggled to locate. It was my cousin not our guide who spotted the tiger first. I believe that all our eyes became keener in the jungle. While waiting for the tiger, my hearing was also focussed. I felt that my breathing was too loud and I could hear distant birds. Four, the greenery refreshed me like nothing else.

Here is the jungle - or at least a part of it!

    Above all I will remember the mist draping the trees of the jungle in grey on a cold Christmas morning and then see the mist gradually dissipate to reveal the green jungle looking fresh in mild sunshine. I know now of one sure way to recharge myself: take a trip to the jungle!