Kabini River Lodge: Experience the refreshingly wild nature!

“I’m tired of this wild, maniac Bangalore traffic, I need a break!” I was sharing my “typical day’s frustration” with my friends. “Then why don’t you try real wild life holiday break at Kabini. River Lodge is a good place. It’s little costly but surely worth” recommended one of my friend. I made a mental note of place name and then we collectively and enthusiastically attacked back on hot issue of Bangalore traffic.

I googled this place name and found quite a few results. Went to Jungle Lodges and Resorts link : http://www.junglelodges.com/

My first reaction was: Oh! But these are government resorts. Aren’t there any private resorts around? I’m not sure if I really want to try this. My friend assured me with positive feedback and I made up my mind to “try it” though there are couple of other private resorts around.

Called up Jungle Lodges for an inquiry and got a very good response. There are 3 kinds of accommodations: cottages, rooms and tented cottages. We wanted to try tented cottages but only one room-type acco was available for particular date so we opted for that. Package is per person and I found it bit expensive. Nevertheless I got the “blocking” done over the phone (is this real?! Blocking of booking over a phone in govt office? I kept wondering). Next, I’d to go and collect my reservations. I had a very warm welcome at their office and I was given all the required information about Kabini, its route, their schedule, etc. Staff is very professional and has kindness/warmth that’s usually missing in all commercial travel agents. Why can’t all government offices really learn and be like this office?

Recommendation: make your booking well in advance especially if you are planning to go on weekends or during festive season. Otherwise it’s difficult to get bookings. Anyway, required information is also available at online: http://www.junglelodges.com/resort_overview.asp?resort=Kabini

I couldn’t wait after such a good start of the trip.
We started early morning on Saturday. It’s around 220Km from Bangalore.

Route is: Bangalore to Mysore ( 140 Km)
(After crossing Mysore, you’ll consistently get River Lodge directions, so there’s little chance you’ll get lost )
From Mysore take Mananthavadi road and reach Handpost. (45 Km)
From Handpost to Antharasanthe.

I don’t remember exact Kms. Ask for Karapur Villege just in case you feel lost. From Karapur villege River lodge around 5-7 Km.

Want to take a breakfast on the way? Best places would be after Ramnagara, there’s one Kamat restaurant and one MTR just after Kamat. I personally like MTR place. It’s kinda small but food is excellent here.
Roads are quite good until you enter Jungle roads. Then it gets little bumpy. Drive is scenic. Once you enter Jungle roads and before you reach Karapur villege, you might have already started seeing wild animals, mostly deer.

If you encounter any wild animals, especially group of elephants, don’t try anything wild and stupid. They might not entertain that Warnings are posted throughout the Jungle road of not getting down from the vehicle.

We reached River Lodge reception well in advance, where we got our room allocated and were briefed about the program for that and next day. We checked-in to our room and pleasantly surprised by room conditions. Quite well maintained and equipped with required items that includes mosquito-repellent. Offcourse there’s no TV, radio. If you think you are going to miss TV, news paper, I don’t think you deserve this holiday package.

River Lodges are located at the bank of river Kabini and it’s other side of the Nagarhole forest. After a quick fresh-up, we walked towards Tree houses behind the Gol-Ghar. It’s overlooking point for river Kabini. We spent around 2 hrs laying there lazily at tree house and overlooking river Kabini and its scenic surrounding. It’s mediating experience.

Then we were called up for lunch buffet at Ghol-ghar. Food was ok: not very tasty but no bad either. Available, both Veg and Non Veg. Post meal, we were grouped into smaller groups and were assigned a guide and vehicle for Jungle Safari after being instructed of do’s and don’ts. We were lucky to get open jeep. Different groups/vehicles went in different directions once entered into jungle area.

Safari was a very good experience. Guides were experts and could locate wild animals, birds we failed to note in first glance despite of mentioning where to look for them. I found them very passionate about wild life and very enthusiastic to get wild nature explored as much as possible. All the groups had good communication channel over radio so if any group sights anything worth to see, others could join them. It’s month of Nov and hence forest completely green, thick and serene. Just beautiful!! But the same time, this makes sighting of wild life difficult. You’ll see hundreds of deer without an exception. We also saw wild dogs, Chittals, Gaur and Sambar. Sighting elephants get difficult during this time of the season. We couldn’t see any of them during the safari. And sighting leopards, tiger is purely matter of luck. We witnessed a killing of a deer by a pack of wild dogs, which as per our guide was kind of rare sight. Animals sighting is purely matter luck and there’s no guaranteed sighting. But if you don’t like/approve this uncertainty, going to Zoo is your best bet Safari was really enjoyable and lasted for around 2 hrs.

After returning back, there was a Wildlife film show. It’s good and though not at the level of Nat Geo documentaries, it’s quite decently picturized, informative and message was about importance of wildlife conservation. Guides provided additional information proactively. We had a good dinner and then little bit walk around the rooms in the night.

At nightfall, jungle was bound into indescribable silence with occasional roars of various wild animals (and not honking sounds on roads around my apartment throughout day and night. What a great change at least for one night!)

Next day morning around 6.30 am, we drove back to Jungle. We were supposed to be headed for our river ride. But since we had not sighted any wild elephants, we asked our guide if we could try little bit more and he happily led us to different part of the jungle before going to river trip. We explored for around 45mins but again no success of sighting elephants or leopard or tiger. Nevertheless, each of us experienced the morning beauty of peaceful jungle. It’s purely refreshing. For river ride, there are two options: coracle ride and motor boat ride. Coracle ride goes for a very short distance so we opted for motor boat ride. We were driven into dept of Kabini river and it’s such a wonderful, picturesque sight. I don’t have enough vocab capability to even describe it. “Picture is worth thousand words”, so let me picture do the work. Just remember that what you there is 100 times beautiful than what you see in these pictures. We could sight couple of crocodiles and plenty of other birds.

I started feeling jealous of those guides who are spending their almost everyday in this heavenly jungle

On the way back, we had an elephant ride. It’s a short ride not into deep jungle.

After spending around 3 hrs, we returned back to lodge and had a breakfast. It’s difficult to depart from such a wonderful place but we had to. We started our journey back my promising ourselves to return back sooner and for longer duration (hopefully we’ll get good company bonus this time so that we can afford longer stay )

Kabini River Lodge

My recommendations/suggestions for the trip:
- It’s completely Paisa Vasul package. Go for it!
- If you want to have a peaceful, scenic, close-to-nature, away from hectic work schedules holiday, this is for you!
- Book well in advance and try tented cottages.
- Go during Oct to Jan if you want to see beautiful, green, thick forest. If animal sighting is your priority then better visit it during month of Feb to April, when Kabini river is the main source of water for them.
- Lot better than Bandipur and Nagarhole.
- Don’t wear dark clothes, strong perfumes during safari ride.
- Refrain from doing anything stupid and wild. You are supposed to be sensible, intelligent humans and animals are supposed to be wild; not vice a versa.
- It’s peaceful, mediating holiday package. Not for people who want to go for modern resorts.
- Camera with battery charger/backup is a MUST!