Kristy's Blog

Kristina and I took the suggestion of Sheeba (Stephen’s wife) to take the sleeper train to the city of Mysore, with the intention of visiting the Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, and the Elephant Reserve Kilamalai Reserve Forests.

We took the sleeper train to Mysore from Chennai, and this is a good way to go. It’s a 12 hour train ride, so if you can sleep through most of it, it makes use of time rather efficiently. Plus, you’re not wasting the day. I found the train to be very comfortable and on the way back, I slept the majority of the time, probably because I was tired.

Stephen made arrangements for a driver to pick us up (and surprise! he had a sign), and he drove us to the forest. Along the way, we saw numerous monkeys and deer. It was funny, the monkeys hung around the speed bumps (there are no speed limits and practically no traffic lights, even in the big city, so speed bumps are the only deterrent to fast driving). They knew the tourists would stop to see them and maybe throw them food.

We really hoped to see wild elephants or if we were really lucky, a tiger. We also had scheduled an elephant ride. Also, one of the fun things about this trip is that we got to sleep in a tree house. Yes, the house was at least 2 stories up in a tree, with branches through the floor. Amazingly, it even had a bathroom with a toilet and a shower. The view was nice and all of the walls rolled up so we could enjoy the breeze.

Since the town where the our resort was located was so close to the forest, almost every house and resort had electric fences to keep the elephants and tigers away. The elephants are pretty smart and know how to get through the fence: take a large tree branch and hit the fence until it’s down.

After we had lunch at the resort, we went for a mini-safari on a government vehicle which was so loud that I’m sure it scared everything but the monkeys away. We did, however, see a peacock. We then met with our hired safari driver who took us out to the Elephant Camp, where abadoned elephants were housed and cared for. One of their elephants was 75 years old, the youngest, 3.

My very first impression of Elephant Camp was the sight of a full size adult elephant, laying on his side in the river, having a bath by one of his caretakers. The elephants eyes were shut in pleasure, the caretaker was scrubbing vigorously. The elephant’s trunk lay above the water so he could breathe. We then saw the baby elephant in camp. We were told that she was abandoned by her mother. The elephant was adorable and reached out to us with her trunk.

Next we rode along the river, where we did see some wild elephants, 4 of them, 2 adults and 2 babies. The safari driver told us the next day he would take us for a safari on some private land (you can’t go into the preserve without being in a government vehicle). So we went to bed early.

During the night, we were visited by loud chipmunks/squirrels who fought loudly over a granola bar in Kristina’s backpack all night long. I briefly considered putting in earplugs, but decided not to do it.

Early the next morning, we did go on the safari, but unfortunately did not see any animals except peacocks. However, we did go on a really elephant hunt, where our safari guide bribed a friend with beer to track down elephants for us. We saw fresh elephant tracks, huge stalks of bamboo that had been bent by elephants passing and pretty fresh dung. I am sure we were only an hour at most behind them. It was a nice hike through the forest in any case.

I really enjoyed the trip out of the city, it was so quiet and peaceful and you could even see the stars. One bad thing: the pollution from the big cities hung over the forest, just as if you were in Los Angeles.