[Dr.AD]

Summer Weekend in Bandipur Forest

This weekend, we drove to Bandipur and had a nice summer weekend in the forests. We saw dry and dusty landscapes (which I love as much as I love lush green landscapes), drove on parched mud roads full of stones and highly uneven surfaces (which was an adventure in itself for my 3-series), enjoyed a gorgeous sunset, and saw some beautiful birds and animals. And to top that all, experienced a rather unique place of stay right in the middle of the forest, and enjoyed great hospitality and food there!

The place we stayed in is a boutique homestay aptly named "Dhole's Den" (https://dholesden.com/). It is a beautiful and modern bungalow right in the middle of the forest (requires about 1.5km of mud-road to reach the remote location). The place is big, spacious, extremely well furnished, nicely decorated, offers all modern amenities and luxuries, and to top that all, offers fantastic jungle views and experiences. It is a perfect combination of luxury and jungle experience at the same time!

The most striking thing about this place is their love for dogs. The place has six big dogs (all hounds), and the entire decor is themed around dogs. The owner, Mr. Karthik, is very passionate about dogs and we could see how he treats the dogs like family.

The other thing I really liked is that the place has only five rooms. The vast and spacious bungalow premises with just five rooms makes for a quiet, secluded and peaceful experience (exactly what you would expect from a jungle stay). We absolutely loved the experience and the nature around.

Coming to our travel group, we were four people. I and my wife in my BMW 320d, and another couple (our family friends) in their XUV500 W10 (unfortunately I missed taking photos of their car for this travelogue). We had taken the two independent cottages there, called the "Garden Mansions". Each "Garden Mansion" was a 1200 sq.ft. of suite with lot of open spaces and open windows, and offered a great stay experience. Apart from these two independent cottages, they have three more rooms in the main bungalow.

By the way, it was quite hot and dry there. It was already summer, even though it was just March. The summer experience in Bandipur forest, which otherwise offers soothing greenery and cool landscapes, was a bit different than our usual Bandipur experiences. You will see this dry and hot summer theme through the pictures I will post below. But to give you a teaser, here is one representative photo of the "summer in the forest" that we experienced this weekend.

Summer in the forest:


Apart from enjoying the place and the experiences there, we did some nature walks around, got a Jeep ride to their organic farm, watched sunset from a vantage point, and spotted some birds too. Let me cover all of that in a few short posts below.

[Dr.AD]

Getting There and Exploring the Place

The drive to Dhole's Den from Bangalore was a short drive of about 250km that took just 4 hours and a few minutes. We took the usual Bangalore-Mysore expressway, and then the two-lane state highways to Bandipur. Very straightforward and routine drive!

While the roads till Bandipur are great, the 5km of local road after Bandipur is a quite broken road with potholes, and the last 1.5km to the destination was total off-road, mud track!

Hot summer drive! Somewhere at the onset of bad roads after crossing Bandipur:


And then the real bad road (non-existent road) started. This road was fun if you had an SUV or a high ground clearance vehicle. But for a low-slung sedan, this was a proper adventure. I really wished I had a SUV while driving on this stretch. The XUV500 zoomed ahead of me and left me behind in dust, quite literally. I crawled my way through this section, carefully avoiding the stones and the massive ruts in the road.

The road was worse than it looks in this picture:



The red BMW adding to the colors of summer:



Finally, after very carefully crawling on this track for about 1.5km, I reached here, the beautiful bungalow surrounded by green trees (the pains of driving on that mud road are all forgotten once you reach this place, which is like an oasis in the middle of this dry brown forest):



A side view of the main bungalow:



And this was the "Garden Mansion", our spacious independent cottage a bit away from the main bungalow (they have only two of these cottages and we had taken both those cottages for our group of four):



The bedroom in the cottage was nice and well decorated with traditional theme, and paintings of wild animals (we also had a separate living room in each cottage):



Spacious bathroom, open to the sky:



Shower with a view:



This big french door, which looks almost like a painting in this picture, opened to a big veranda and nice views of the forest:



This was the veranda with unobstructed views of the forest. We spent evening hours here watching deer pass by, and then watching the stars in the sky in the night:



The elegant and charming dining area in the main bungalow:



Very clean and spacious kitchen:


The food was really nice. We were served fresh hot food, mostly local cuisine, and using locally grown organic vegetables (they have their own organic farm a km away from the bungalow). We had delicious home-made food for all three meals. I did not take photos of the food as such, but could not resist taking a photo of one special dish that was made at lunch. Specially for "Holi", which was around the corner, the chef made a special Gujrati dish called "Dudhpak Puri". It was delicious. I still remember the taste of that in my mouth. Loved it.

"Dudhpak Puri", on the special occasion of Holi:


As I mentioned, this is a place for dog lovers. They have six big hounds, and two of them stayed in the main bungalow with the owner. The owner Mr. Karthik told us so many passionate stories about dogs in his family. His love for dogs was very evident.

This is Jabu, a 3-year old boy who was very friendly:



And this is Simba, more than 12 years old if I recall right:



Simba enjoying the unobstructed forest views from his seat in the balcony:

[Dr.AD]

Evening and the Sunset

In the evening, we first took a Jeep ride to their organic farm (we got a guided tour of the farm and saw the vegetables grown organically which are used in daily food preparation there), and then enjoyed sunset views from a vantage point.

No forest trip is complete without a Jeep ride:


After the tour of the farm, we came back to the Dhole's Den, and then within the property premises, they took us to one amazing place for watching sunset.

This is a small house within the campus, very aptly named "Ekant" that was our sunset point. We watched sunset from the terrace of this "Ekant", and that was really a perfect spot with unobstructed 260 degree views of the forests and hills around:



There we were served hot evening tea and hot pakodas, perfect accompaniments for watching sunset:


Right next to Ekant, they have a small plunge pool. They put chairs for us there, and we enjoyed spending the evening there watching the sunset, enjoying views from the terrace as well from the plunge pool, sitting there with out feet in the pool, and sipping hot tea and eating pakodas. It was surely a great evening experience!

View of the skies and the landscapes as the sunset time came closer:



An abstract shot of the sun setting behind the trees:



And the skies turned colorful just after the sunset:



Interestingly, at the time of sunset, on the exact opposite side, we saw moon-rise behind these trees (you can see the golden sunset light on the trees):



A view of "Dhole's Den" in the evening light, just after sunset:

[Dr.AD]

Birds and Nature

Next morning, we took a leisurely stroll ("nature walk") around the place. We saw more dry, dusty mud roads (which had their own charm), parched trees, and more importantly, some fascinating birds including a family of owls!

Charming mud roads with corners like these:



A temple and a small lake nearby:



These two trees that I felt like photographing for no special reason:



Spot the baby owl on this tree (nice camouflage too; the owl looks very much like a part of the tree):


The couple of trees there had a family of five owls residing there. Actually not owls, but "spotted owlets", to be more precise. Here I got a chance to take out my telephoto lens and photograph the owls.

Spotted Owlet:



One more:



Another one looking at me curiously:



I loved their bright yellow eyes:



We also saw this Eurasian Collared Dove, puffing out its neck to make its characteristic sounds:



And then it flew off:


While the landscapes were in general dry and brown, it was not all dry and grey inside the property premises. They had many beautiful and colorful flowers inside the property. The flowers added a nice touch to the ambiance.

A flower shot to remind us that it was not all dry and brown:

[Dr.AD]

Epilogue

After that short and sweet weekend stay at Dhole's Den, it was time to return to the busy life of Bangalore. Of course, for us that again meant the adventure of driving slowly on that mud track, while the XUV500 again zoomed ahead of us reminding us all the usefulness of SUVs in such conditions.

My car on that terrain where an SUV would have been more at home:



A view of the path ahead (I had to be very careful here to avoid underbody damage due to those stones jutting out everywhere):



Finally, a parting shot of my car of that track which was tricky, but nevertheless charming in its own right:


Once this mud track was cleared (and thank God it was cleared without any damage or even a single hit to underbody anywhere, after some very careful and slow driving), the rest of the drive was again the usual and uneventful drive back home.

Overall, we had a fantastic weekend. Dhole's Den is indeed a very nice place, and offers an unique experience! The stay was fantastic on all counts - the rooms, the ambiance, the hospitality and the food. This place will certainly be a magical place to be in during monsoon when the forests would be lush green. We spent a good amount of time talking to the owner, Mr. Karthik, and he told us stories of the magic of monsoon in that place. We promised him we will be back there during the monsoon, and we definitely mean that.

Of course, I can not drive my 320d on that mud track in the rains. No chance of that. That track would become a proper slush track in the monsoon, and we will surely need a 4x4 to reach there in the rains. But again, the place and the experience is so wonderful that it is absolutely worth it to take the efforts to traverse that mud track and reach there. I am surely looking forward to the next trip there.

Coming back to my car, it impresses me trip after trip. The car handled the challenging road without issues (although at the cost of having to drive very slow there; but that is fine with me), and was an absolute joy on the rest of the highways. It is really a very capable machine that can do fast highway runs all day and all night, and then also handle some bad roads as and when required. I did wish I had an SUV when driving on those mud roads for just about 1.5km. But that SUV will never be as much fun as the 3-series on the otherwise fast highways for the rest of 250km.

Anyways, that is all from this short weekend trip. Thank you very much for reading!

[vb-saan]

Thread moved out of the Assembly Line.

Another brilliant travelogue, and thank you for sharing!

[anandhsub]

We too stayed at Dholes Den in January and I completely echo everything you have written including the heart in the moment feeling when driving a low GC Sedan through the mud track to reach the place.

I managed to scrape my Octavia's underbody twice though :(.

The return was thankfully uneventful.

[jkrishnakj]

Super one AD. Nice clicks. I’ll mark this place for a trip sometime.

You all didn’t do the safari inside Bandipur/Mudumalai?

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by anandhsub

I managed to scrape my Octavia's underbody twice though :(.

That road is indeed quite challenging for low slung sedans. I had to be really watchful and stop and judge the path ahead many times before driving on. I did not scrape anywhere, but that came at the cost of driving excruciatingly slow. I had to tell my XUV500 friend to go ahead and leave me alone so that I could drive at my own pace there without worrying about the XUV. Somehow with all that care, I managed to drive on without any underbody hit at all.

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

Super one AD. Nice clicks. I’ll mark this place for a trip sometime.

Thank you @jkrishnakj! You should definitely go there. You will love this place. Take your Innova (and don't even think about taking your A6 there ). Perfect place for a family vacation in Innova!

You all didn’t do the safari inside Bandipur/Mudumalai?

No, we did not do the safari. Just the last weekend (the weekend before this) we had done a safari in Nagarhole. And this time, we were with another couple (our family friends), whom we were meeting after a long time. So the idea was to just chill and catch up with each other. We ended up using this peaceful time to have long chat sessions and catch up on life. So we skipped the safari. Jungle safaris are great, but they are also very hectic and time-consuming. They do not leave much time for anything else. Also, in this hot and dry weather, the dusty safari can be quite painful too. So overall, with all these reasons, we skipped the safari this weekend and instead had a nice relaxed evening in Dhole's Den.

[jkrishnakj]

Makes sense AD. Sometimes, all you need is a good drive, some ‘quiet’ time and some good food. And that’s exactly what got me to Malnad today, to our tried and tested GreenPastures Homestay run by Hemanth.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

Makes sense AD. Sometimes, all you need is a good drive, some ‘quiet’ time and some good food. And that’s exactly what got me to Malnad today, to our tried and tested GreenPastures Homestay run by Hemanth.

Oh nice! Have a good time there. That is a great place. Say Hi to Hemanth :-)

Actually that place was on our shortlist for this weekend too (instead of Dhole's Den as an alternate plan), and I was in touch with Hemanth. Maybe we will visit that sometime soon.

[On4Wheels]

Thanks for posting. I have added this place to my bucket list. Great photos .

[anshu1101]

A fantastic travelogue as usual Dr. AD. Your travelogues are always a treat to read.

I completely echo your views about the property - Dhole's Den. I and my wife stayed there over the weekend of 25-26 Feb.

We finalized the place after reading through the amazing reviews and found the place to totally justify those reviews.

Everything from the location, aesthetics, hospitality, food just wowed us. We were taken on a farm visit and to sunset view point for evening snacks and Chai in the very same Jeep as in the picture above.

Also, there was a pack of 80-100 spotted deers right beside the property (close to the barbeque area) in the evening and it was a quite a sight.

Would love to go back to this place if we plan a visit to Bandipur again.

[rGT]

Great travelogue, usual Dr.AD affair. The red Bimmer looks striking as ever.

[4WheelPilot]

Very nice log Dr.AD. I have been to Bandipur 2-3 times and all those were one day trips.
I had been to Bandipur 2 weeks back and visited Mudumalai Elephant camp(Netflix - Elephant Whisperer one)
The property you mentioned looks good and must be having nice sunset views and starry night barbeque setups..