Hospitality, courteousness and sumptuous appetizers......well these words doesn’t describe the place Bear Mountain Jungle Resort, . On the contrary, expecting these qualities at this place is as foolish as expecting to see a dinosaur in the safari ride.
Situated amidst of plush green Mudumalai forest, in a picturesque location giving a spectacular view of the Nilgiri Mountains, it happens to be quite a good location and also is the only one nice thing to talk about it. Imagine getting stuck in a jungle in a resort full of weird staff who seemed to have never ever given a try to smile, can not understand any South Indian language or Hindi or English and since you are in a midst of jungle, you have to travel a minimum of ten kilo meters only to get a pack of biscuits or milk.
Bear Mountain Jungle Resort, (https://bearmountain-india.com/rides.htm) ”THE PERFECT GETAWAY" as the tag line read it actually means that the owners can get away with out actually giving you the value for money.
We reached there at 6:30 PM, we relaxed for a while looking at the surrounding places. By 8 we wanted to start the evening with lite drinks. We called one of
the staff to know if we could get some snacks to start off.
"Snacks only after we prepare dinner" it was a reply by one of
the staff member who made us to wait half an hour only to pass this message.
Then we requested him to get at least some pakodas or peanuts. After half an
hour, he came to us with a plate of peanuts and said that the plate has two
portions and so this is two plates. Then after 20 mins another guy came with a
plate of pakodas and told us the same thing that the content in this one plate
is actually of two plates. We were already weak and tired with the journey and
horribly hungry so we avoided getting into an argument.
It was 10 PM when they served the dinner (200 Rs) that contained 5 dishes and
only one of them tasted good that is curd rice. The saddest part of the
day was that every one was so hungry and the food was so less in quantity,
we felt like we were a bunch of Tsunami victims waiting for food. With in
minutes the food got over. We asked him to prepare curd rice. We were willing
to wait patiently for that but we returned back to our tents when the Resort
owner said "Sir, Curd rice is not a part of the dinner. Whatever I offered
you was the left of afternoon rice". Yeah it’s a sure sign of an effort
towards ensuring customer delight.
We did not want to spoil our trip by getting into arguments with the stubborn
people. More than us were some German tourists who had come there had tough
time managing their 3and 6 year old kids. The resort staff said they had used
all the milk for making coffee and tea and advised the German tourists to feed
the same to their kids. We wanted to resolve the issue for them since the kids
were starving, but the owner of the resort Mr. David was not keen on visiting
us and solving the issue. Later the German tourists managed to get some milk
powder for their kids
we decided to leave the place in advance but had to pay the full amount. It was
a pathetic experience staying in the resort. So I advice you to avoid
going any where near to this Bear Mountain Jungle resort and I assure you its
an Imperfect Getaway.
Regards.
Kris