Bheemeshwari

When we lived in the US we traveled a looot. We used to book flight tickets last minute, waiting for great deals and so were able to see a lot of places. Bheemeshwari was one such trip, our first last-minute trip after kids :) 

We always travel during weekends. Traveling on weekdays are so nice. We booked accommodation for one night stay at the  Bheemeshwari jungle lodges resort. Bheemeshwari is around 100 km from Bangalore. We left home around 830am. We took the Kanakapura road. There is a new MTR restaurant that's opened on Kanakapura road. It is right after "Art of living" ashram. There are lot of boards pointing to MTR, so one cannot miss the place.

We had a heavy and nice breakfast, masala dosa, ragi dosa, idli, khara bath and kesari bath. And yummy coffee and tea.

We headed again on Kanakapura road. I have always liked this road as it is country side and very scenic with greenery on both sides of the road. We took a left at Sathanur and went via Muttathi. The road wasn't great, but there was not a single vehicle or person on this road for over a stretch of 25 km. We went inside the forest area, the air was fresh and we could hear all kinds of birds. It was a beautiful drive. We had the windows down and the kids were asleep in their car seats. 

After Muttathi, inside the forest area is the Bheemeshwari jungle lodges resort. 

We usually don't travel to the same place twice as there are soo many places to see. But this was an exception. We are always on a lookout for places that are closer to Bangalore. We had been to Bheemeshwari around 7 years ago. And we had enjoyed our stay. It was too beautiful. So this time we booked the same place.  

We entered the jungle lodges around noon. We had fresh lemon juice before going to our tent. We had booked a tented cottage, which is the basic level of accommodation available there. There are log huts and mud cottages as well. But I loved the tent cottage the best. It gives us the feeling of staying closer to nature. We spent most of our time outside. We were inside the tent only while sleeping.

The kids started exploring the place immediately. There were lots and lots of monkeys, and many variety of birds. And as expected they enjoyed acting like monkeys and having fun. Kids singing "swing swing high, swing swing low..." while we lay on the hammock was one of the highlights :)

View from the hammock

After roaming around for some more time we started walking towards the dining area. Food is usually good at all the jungle lodge resorts. We had a lovely meal. We went back to our tent so that kids could rest for a while.

Cauvery river flows thru the place. One side of the river is the resort, and the other side is the forest area. We could see lot of deer drinking water on the other side. We saw wild boar running around near the resort as well.

After a quick nap and tea and snacks, we walked closer to the river. The river is very beautiful! The whole place is so serene, calm, peaceful and quiet. We went on a long coracle ride. The kids had so much fun on the "boat" as we all sang "row row row your boat". We saw 2 crocodiles lying on 2 separate rocks, basking in the sun. We all loved the coracle ride.

Crocodile!

 

Coracle ride

After the coracle we did kayaking. A took lil A alone in a kayak - he didn't have any harness, but he had a life jacket on and was very well behaved and enjoyed the ride. I took V on my lap and the guide kayaked and took us for a small ride in the river.

The kids just loved playing in the mud near the river. We spent a lot of time here, relaxing playing. We headed back to the tent as it started to get dark and began to drizzle.

We sat in front of the tent as the sun set and it started to rain. It was a different experience to just sit and watch the rain for a long time :)

As it got completely dark, we had dinner at the tent, and called it a night. The food was soo yummy, we polished everything. 

The kids loved listening to the various sounds of birds and insects and animals coming from the dark.

One more good thing about traveling on a weekday was that we were the only ones staying at the resort.

We woke up early to the sounds of nature, birds chirping and we all singing happy birthday to our lil one, and she also singing along with us :D

We had tea sitting outside enjoying the freshest air. Last time we had been on a beautiful trek, climbing a small hill. It was a 4 km trek and on reaching the top, it had an amazing view of the river Cauvery. We wanted to go this time also, but a slight drizzle had started, and our older one wasn't feeling too well, so we decided to start our trek expeditions from our next trip :)

Morning sun

To add more to our nature experience, there was absolutely no cell phone signal from any point in or near the resort.

We went to the dining area to have breakfast. After eating, we spent a lot of time near the river. The weather was perfect! We all had a lovely time at the river side.

We walked around the place, kids played for a while climbing ropes, tree branches, swing  etc.

We also climbed a huge hammock that was tied on top of 4 big trees which was super fun! 

Soon it was time to leave. We packed and started our journey back. The drive was beautiful, the lil one dozed off as soon as we sat in the car. Older one enjoyed the breeze and the villages till we reached Kanakapura road before giving in to sleep.

We did not stop anywhere till we reached MTR restaurant, we were waiting to have their meals for lunch. But they were closed as it was a Tuesday. So we had a quick one at the north Indian restaurant which was in the same complex, next to MTR.

And we got home, fully energized and refreshed! Thats what all the trips do to us! I feel new during and after every trip, till the next one :D