*Sojourn at Nilgiris-4
Flaying, fleeing, feeding, feeling, following whatever but not flying Elephants is what you will see in herds and herds in the Mudumalai forests formed at the pivot of the three Southern states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Sojourn at Nilgiris will not be complete without exploring Mudmulai Sanctuary at the hub of Nilgiri Bio reserve being the first Wildlife Sanctuary in South India. The roads entering Mudumalai from both sides of Nilgiris either through the ghats falling down through Masinangudi from Ooty or the circulatory Gudalur road & the huge Bandipur reserve coming from Mysore have their own unique forestation which beckons you to explore the picturesque green arrays nature has to offer.
We took the Masinangudi route into the forests expecting to behold ourselves to the wonderful night drive that we undertook on the way up when we caught up two Few Jumbos oblivious of us in the dark. It was too early in the morning just to catch up with the elephant Ride at Mudumalai at 7.00 AM in the morning.
We reached the Thepakadu Junction at the office of Sanctuary at 7.10 just to be told that booking was over. We waited for the Dakota Safari Van to take us through the 45 minute ride into the semi arid smidgen part of the Jungle.
Nilgiri Tip 7**:- When you want to explore the Jungle, never expect to see any animal and the unexpected will expect you. It is not a zoo where you need not zoom at the animals. So take binoculars and or Handycam which will come handy.
The vehicle started and the sound resembled a combo of flour mill and fluid less oil Generator enough to keep all animals away from Man made machine. The kachcha road took us through the half vegetated part of the forest and our first glimpse was a medium sized Elephant which loved showing us its back as soon as it heard us, (Video). As the vehicle moved on, we spotted the Spotted dears(Chital-axis dear) in good company enough to hold on to a close Video, The next elephant was in great moods, but being on the wrong side of the Van meant that it had small impact on my historical capture. The same was the case with the langurs. Beauty has no bounds when Peacock spread their feathers but this one was quite as the summer,
The greatest action came when the herd of Gaurs(mistaken identity of Indian Bison) ran at great speed across us on hearing the Van’s rat a tat It was a wonderful sight which could not be captured because of the confusion that prevailed in this amateur nature photographer who took the Video in off mode,
It was better luck next when they were gazing across the small marsh which resembled an oasis in Desert. Poor gaurs gave a meek smile to the camera as we clicked on to them.
Then came my moment. The van stopped just for me to have a close look at the mid sized Pachyderm which was little wild. Sitting on the rear most seat, I took the pleasure of pleasing my eyes more than the camera when it suddenly rushed towards me. The driver started the engine rat a tat again and it retreated.
We happened to see scores of more Jumbos in their own quite fashion looming in the bushes before our Vehicle came back to a thud.
What was this, it ended even before it started by 9.00 AM in the morning.
Nilgiri Tip 8**:- To explore the Jungle in the wild, you need to travel in the months of December-March when longer jungle rides are allowed on toll and rupaiya to Forest officials who resemble Veerapan.
What we missed in the process was to find the wild cats of the panthera origin which it looks like are spotted only once in a month’s drive.
Now it was time to have some great fun with Feeding Elephants after the fleeing ones at the Feeding Centre. The children had close brush with the pachyderms trying to hold them by their tusk with great cheer and enthusiasm as they were gulping Huge Ladoos of Ragi, rice and ashtachoornam.( 8 choor gram). Some of them were huge well behaved gentle Giants with which we spent couple of good hours.
Nilgiri Tip 9**:- Avoid Sound and noise in the Jungle to enjoy the sights and sounds of Jungle.
Thanks to the disappearance of Veerapan, elephants are moving freely in Mudumalai and they are even taken care of since Jayalalitha elephantamma’s drive to protect the Maharaja of India-Asian Elephant. Elephants across the border in neighbouring Kerala have been treated like slaves with hardened workload enough to make them wild and frenzy on human population several times. It is here that we learnt as to how much care is to be given to Elephants with lot of cooling time.
At the museum, we spent some time to see how big an elephant pelvis could look as well as those amazing varieties of horns and tusks. Thanks to my kid, he found a cute tiny little Orphan in the adjoining room under special care untouchable by humans of any kind because its mother left him in lurch in the Jungle due to its natural bereavement.
It was some time to grub at the Tamil Nadu tourism hotel across the river and we left the older H. sapiens to rest and went down the gushing river with wet dreams. Lots of Toda young tribal girls and the dirty water spoiled our dreams and my engineers were bent on getting in. So we moved to a quieter place across the bridge where they tested and tasted the sullied water. In the process, one lonely tribal girl who was fishing in the river ran off to protect her fish and her own.
Jungle’s moral police came in after sometime asking for mammool from the guys by which time I had come back to rest on the grass admiring the thickly vegetated arborous large trees and the wild squeals of langurs and twittering of birds with the gushing sound of the river in the backdrop,
It was just getting warm in the afternoon compared to the icy cold climate of Ooty and was time to pack up when we had the nice glimpse of another Pachyderm given a ceremonial bath in the River by the Mahout. As it went past our grass camp, the mahout told us to be careful as the Huge Jumbo had gone wild for three months and happened to kill few humans and was being cooled and treated now.
Nilgiri Tip 10:- The more the time spent in Jungle, the more chances of spotting animals.
As the huge footsteps traced back from us, it was time for us to pack, shoo off a group of monkeys on our Tavera and take our ride back to the Town of Wodayars, Mysore.
As we crossed the Bandipur forests to Nanjangoud, what we realized was that we were leaving back the green behind to enter Concrete jungle once again.
The memories will always remain green.
Thanks for watching and reading.
Accomodation:- Budget-Tamil Nadu tourism hotel
Value-Jungle Home with towers and elephant ride
Bamboo bank Farm(We drove from Ooty early morning and the grassland was our accomodation)
Travel:- Please follow from first rev on Ooty