Shivanasamudram

Cousin from the US is here, and so it was time for a get-together/trip. Choosing a place was easier as we wanted a place mid way between Mysore and Bangalore.

We had already been to a resort in Shivanasamudram, 3 years back and had liked it. So we just decided to head to Georgia Sunshine Village. It is a nice place if one does not want to do anything and just laze around. Its a very calm and quite place.

5 of us left Bangalore around 830am and few from Mysore. It takes 2 hours from Bangalore and 1 hour from Mysore. We took the Bangalore-Harohalli-Kanakapura-Malavalli route. The road is very good and very scenic. Country side is the most beautiful sight! We had a lot of fun throughout the drive. We took a break at Kanakapura to eat and have tea, and stopped again to take pictures near the fields :)

The resort is about 8 km from Malavalli center. I drove on the inside road for 5.5 km, as there was absolutely no vehicles :) Was fun.

The entrance

We had booked 4 rooms for 10 people. 1 room had a bunk bed and the other on just an extra cot. So after dumping our luggage in the rooms, we went out to explore the place. There is nothing to be seen near this place. It seems like we are in the middle of nowhere. There is a games area called the shack. All of us started playing games. I was hooked to Fooseball. Love this game! We played for about one hour and then hit the pool. All the boys jumped in the water, girls chilled out with just our legs wet :)

It was time for lunch. They do not have a huge spread, but the food quality is good. Simple and decent. It was around 3-3.30 by the time we leisurely had lunch. All of us found spots to relax, few on the hammocks, few near the pool, few on the lawn chairs. Then we all gathered in the garden where they had coffee and tea under a tea. Since we did not want to have tea-bag tea, we ordered masala chai which was very good. After having tea, we were all refreshed and started chatting. 2 other cousins joined us around 5.30pm. It was getting chilly slowly. They have a nice bon-fire place, with stone seats all around. We spent the whole evening till dinner-time here. Once the fire was on, we started playing dumb charades. It was crazy fun :) Finally we decided to have dinner at around 10 pm. After dinner, we again came back near the bon-fire. It was too cold and so we decided to settle down inside the room for another round of game. It was mafia vs villager this time. (the name of the game was mafia i think :)). Fun, fun!! Hung around till 12 and later went to bed.

Dining Area

Where Food was served

Bon-fire place

Woke up around 7am, it was slightly cold, had coffee, and lazed around on the hammock for sometime. Then the ordered masala chai was ready, sat on the swing and lawn chairs and had tea. Had a good heavy breakfast. I had masala chai again and sat on the swing :) We all just chatted for sometime, then the boys again jumped into the pool. Got ready and we were ready to leave. 11am was the check-out. But by the time we left the resort it was 12.45 after a lot of photo sessions.

Dining Hall

It was a super fun trip. Highlight of the trip was laugh laugh laugh :)

At 1.01 pm on Day1

At 6.14 pm on Day1

At 8.29am Day2

11.13 am Day2

Thanks R, K, R, S, C, P, M1, M2, D, S, O, A :)
Rest of the gang headed to Gaganchukki which is just 8-10km from the resort. We turned back towards Bangalore as we had another get-together to attend.

Kabini

Dec 10

After much debate on the place, we all agreed on Kabini. Next came the place to stay in Kabini. We checked many resorts and compared the rooms and cost and finalized on orange county resorts.

On our way 

I am just bursting with excitement to describe the beauty of this place - Kabini! I am wondering why it took us so many years to visit this place. 7 of us left from Bangalore at 7am sharp in 2 cars. The traffic on Mysore road wasn't too bad even though it was a weekend. We stopped at Kamath for a nice breakfast for 30-45min and continued the journey. After Srirangapatna, we took a right at Mysore entrance onto the ring road. We have to stick to the ring road which eventually becomes Mananthvadi road. We just followed this road to HD Kote. And from here we see sign boards for all the resorts in Kabini. So we just follow these boards. Its roughly around 100km from Mysore.

We reached our resort at 1230pm. We were welcomed with kumkum and dhol :) The sitting area is very relaxing with a view of the Kabini river. After freshening up with wet towels and sugarcane juice, we were briefed about the place and activities planned. After finalizing our activities schedule, we headed to our room. On our way to the rooms we saw many sparrows enjoying in the sun :) There are 37 cottages of 2 kinds - pool huts and jacuzzi huts. We are staying in the jacuzzi hut. I immediately fell in love with the rooms! The rooms are designed on tribal theme.

 

View from the sitting area

The weather was quite hot. We changed and went to the restaurant to have lunch. It was buffet style, and had a huge spread. Very yummy food! A quick nap and we were up and ready to explore the place :) Each of us did our own thing - AN and uncle went to the spa, Amma, Appa and aunt sat and chatted, A and I jumped into the swimming pool. One of the best pools, it reminded me of the pool in Gaulle, only difference being, here it was a river, there it was the ocean! It is an infinite pool. Had a GREAT time in the water, spent about 90 minutes here. The serenity of the Kabini water just does wonders to us. A mynah came by and started drinking water from the pool, a flock of 50 mynahs took off from the bank and flew! Love all these sights! The clouds above the mountains looked like smoke from a volcano.

Poooool

It was tea and snack-time. The highlight so far has been watching the sun-set!! One of the most beautiful scenes I have seen for 30min. We must have seen all shades of colors in the sky during the 30minutes. I cannot describe the beauty in words. Appa and I enjoyed each and every moment of watching the sun-set :)

We had tea and chilly bajji on the river bank. We went to a sit-out kind of a wooden structure on the water, and the view from this place is amazing! India is definitely one of the most beautiful countries in the world!  We spent sometime here, till it got dark and headed to the ayurvedic spa. We got the foot massage done here which was again extremely good- Padabhyanga.

Today being a total lunar eclipse day, we got to see the moon (huge moon) getting covered by earth gradually with bare eyes. The resort people had also set-up a telescope where we could see the details of the moon! Just beautiful.

There was tribal dance at 7.30pm, where we also danced with them in the end :) Dinner at 8 - huge spread with all kinds of variety. Eat, eat, ate, ate :)

Dec 11

I really slept like a log last night. Woke up at 540am, and went out. We sat near the pool for sometime and got ready for the nature walk at 7am. We were given binoculars to see the birds. We were accompanied by a very knowledgeable naturalist, Venkat. We saw lot of different kinds of birds during our 2 hours walk. Colorful and beautiful! Eagrets, mynahs, 2 huge montreal wood owls etc. My favorite bird of the trip is kingfisher!!

Back to the resort by 9am, had a heavy breakfast and tea, returned to the room. Chilled out in our balcony. 11am was our appointment at the spa. I got something new, an ayurvedic specialty - Shirodhara. It was for one hour - head and neck massage with oil first and then they pour hot oil, herbal decoctions and medicated milk (1litre) over the forehead for about 30minutes. Then they wash the hair. I loved this particular massage!

Went to the pool and spent 1 1/2 hours here. Lunch and later a 5min nap on the pool chair. And it was jacuzzi time for me :)

330pm boat safari - 2hrs 45min. We saw 24 elephants, loot of birds, spotted deer, sambha, wild pigs, beautiful peacock. All the elephants were kicking their right front leg against the grass, pulling it out and cleaning the mud from the grass. Our guide Arjun told us that they were doing this to clean the grass and eat them. Sunset from the boat was again very beautiful, more pictures, back and masala chai with snacks. Forest video at 730pm, dinner and sleep :)

Eagret

Dec 12

Woke up at 530am, love waking up early on trips, to experience the morning freshness of this place. It got bright only around 615am. Had tea in the room and went out to meet the rest of the gang.

It was cold at this time, so finally got a chance to wear the thick jackets we had carried :) We walked down to the river. Its amazing how different the river looks during different times of the day. The mountains were covered with mist. We could see the mist moving just above the river. A beautiful sight. There is a jetty (wooden platform) few feet in the water. We spent sometime here, watching the birds and sun rise. I didn't expect to see sun-rise as we were on the opposite side. But there was a small clearing that let us see the sun-rise! The sun rays started clearing the mist slowly, I loved watching it :)

Sun Rise

The people who had booked for morning walk cancelled and so the naturalist from the resort was free and he started chatting with us. We spotted a beautiful Oriole which is very rare to spot in open. Its seen only in the wild (is what Venkat said). He took us on a bird watch walk again for one hour. Thanks to Mr.Venkat, we got to learn so much about birds. And each and every bird is so beautiful. Few birds were migratory birds that had flown from colder places like the Himalayas or Antartica. We saw Westwood, Jungle lodges and Serai resorts on the other side of the river bank. He narrated so many stories about the place, forest, animals, birds. Very interesting. Thanks Mr.Venkat :)

We came back and had a quite breakfast by the river side. Went on a coracle ride for 15-20 minutes. The water was so calm.

Overall a GREAT trip! LOVELY place, on the banks of river Kabini, between Bandipur forest and Nagarhole forest. And GOOD family time. Thanks Aunty, Uncle, Amma, Appa, AN and A :)

We saw these birds (so many :-)) - 
Barn swallow
Eurasian Golden Oriel
Motteled wood owl
Lil egret
Open billed stork
White breasted water hen
Coppersmith barbet
India robin
Plum headed parakeet
Brahmini kite and mynah
Common mynah and jungle mynah
Purple sunbird female
Grey heron
Asian koel
Black drongo
White browed wagtail
Laughing, spotted, eurasia ring dove
Greater cormarent, lil cormarent
Black headed ibis
White browed bulbul
Common and white browed kingfisher
River tern
Grey wagtail