Monday 29th November

A short drive of only 117km, and a late start.

During the morning we explore the nearest part of the City - by 10.00 the City is coming alive with small shops opening, market traders selling their produce, and cars, taxis, tuc-tucs, buses and trucks competing with people, ox-carts and cows!

We are away by lunchtime, out of the City via the busy Mysore Road and the bypass until we reach a point where we can relax, but not until after a bus that overtook me and cut in, causing me to brake, is seen later with its windscreen shattered on the road after it rear ended a truck. Justice!

We pass from Karnatika into Tamil Nadu and into the Bandipur National Park, tiger and elephant reserve. We drive slowly, stopping to photograph monkeys at the roadside - until one looks as though it is about to leap through the open car window, and we are off smartish!

A little later we see two separate parties of wild elephants, one with up to seven in the group, and both with babies, on the roadside and crossing the road. We slowly stop and photograph them, but one of our colleagues is not so lucky. We hear later that one of the mother elephants is upset by their camera and kicks the car, leaving a dent!

Soon we are into Jungle Hut: the group is in two separate locations: we are close to reception and the restaurant in a canvas sided steel framed building.

For dinner we are taken by jeep to the other site - after dark, there is NO walking outside the hut: indeed, on our return, the night watchman escorts us back to our front door.

As we return to the compound in the jeep, a large herd of spotted deer are grazing all over the compound: we are told that they come into the compound to escape the leopards, but that the leopards have now found a way to get in.

We DO NOT go out of the room until daybreak!