My friend, Alain, from Brazil came to visit me and so we planned to spend our weekend at some resort, away from busy city life and to enrich ourselves by visiting some of the places which are blessed with natural beauty and fertility.
So, we started our trip to Coorg, misty mountains, myriad streams and waterfalls, thick tropical forests, miles of spice, paddy and coffee plantations and abundance of rare flora and fauna. I didnt want to go for trekking this week too since i just came back from trekking on Chembra peak 2 weeks back and its still itching wherever the leech has bit me. So, we changed our plans from trekking to visiting Buddha temple at Kushal Nagar, which is a tibetan colony and also spending the weekend at the Kabini Jungle resort.
Kushal Nagar (Tibetan Colony):
We started our journey on friday 17th November, 2006 around 8:30 in the night and reached Kushal Nagar at 3am in the morning. We took a room and rested till 8am in the morning so that we can be fresh and leave to Buddha Temple known as Bylekuppe temple. This is one of the largest Tibetan colony in South India and is well known for its monasteries, handicrafts, carpet factories and and incense factory.
Check out some of the snaps from Budha Temple:
[flvmovie]http://vid90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/sojeshj/Indian/Kabini/IMAG0048.flv[/flvmovie]
One thing about this temple that impressed me is that unline other temples, anyone can enter the temple regardless of caste or religion. Another thing that striked me is the gorgeous “Om Bell”. This is not a normal bell and it is just a bell without anything in middle. Its kinda hollow inside and with a rod when we circle around the bell, it emits the sound, which created this world, and this bell is made up of 5 elements the world is made up of: EARTH, WATER, FIRE, AIR, ETHER. It is said that this sound of “OM” removes negative energies and enhance positive energies leaving you in a better frame of mind to deal with things positively.
Snap of Om Bell
Kabini Jungle and BackWaters:
Finally, by 10:30 am, we started towards the Kabini Jungle resort since we have a booking there at 12pm. Unfortunately, we lost our way and ended up at Kabini Inn and the guy we met over there helped us with a short cut through Jungle. While going thru the jungle, we saw a leopard, but couldn’t take a snap since when she saw the cab aproaching, it just vanished to the jungle and the cab driver was too afraid to stop in the middle of the jungle. Then we saw an elephant on the side of the road and I asked the cab driver to stop so that we can take a snap (below).
Somehow, around 2:30, we reached Kabini Jungle resorts. Wow, it was really a great resort, quite and calm one besides the river and the rooms, resorts and tents were great. Kabini is one of Karnataka’s best wildlife resorts, stretched over 55 acres of forest and river. The lodge organizes safaris and wildlife watching treks into the forest and even has an elephant-back safari. Big city life and traffic seem so far away as you surrender yourself to jungle sounds and smells.
The food and all the service were really great at Kabini Jungle resorts. We had our lunch and then after one hour we had our tea. Then later around 4:30pm, we started towards jungle in their jeep. It was really great. We saw lot of spotted deers, wild boars, birds, monkeys, elephants etc. The way thru the jungle and lush green forest was really relaxing and adventurous.
Later, around 7pm, we reached back to the resort and we had an exquisite dinner and went for a walk around the resort. Next day morning, we started at 6:30 for an elephant ride, coracle ride and also spead boatting. It was all really wonderful.
[flvmovie]http://vid90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/sojeshj/Indian/Kabini/IMAG0086.flv[/flvmovie]
[flvmovie]http://vid90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/sojeshj/Indian/Kabini/IMAG0093.flv[/flvmovie]
We saw many animals on the side of the backwaters and also water snakes and birds, but was not able to take much snaps of those. Finally, we returned back and at 11:30am, we started back to Bangalore.
This was really a great experience and I am looking forward to similar kinda adventurous journey in future.