Finally I sit down to write about my visit to Antharasanthe and I don’t even remember what dates we travelled. So I pick my trusted K810i, scroll through the photos and get the dates. :-)
I went to GV’s house on the morning of 2nd October 2008 and the plan was to leave Bangalore by 10am. But the loading of the “stuff” to his jeep took quite a time. We had to be extra careful as it was an open (soft) top Mahindra 540. GV was making this trip to install few solar powered lamps for the Anti-poaching Camps in the Antharasanthe range.
I won’t detail about this whole solar stuff and GV himself…that will be another blog entry by itself.
We finally started around 11am. Tip: have some cotton to stuff into your ears and eye gear to protect from dust when travelling in an open jeep
20kms after Mandya there was a blockade by locals. A Volvo had hit a two wheeler and unfortunately the rider had died. And finally when the police arrived and cleared the jam, our jeep did not start. We just parked it to the side and tried all the things. We got a mechanic’s phone number from a nearby petrol bunk. The number was scribbled on the window sill in a pencil. Talk about being lucky!
The mechanic turned out to be more proficient with two wheelers. But he tried his best to put up a show; checked the fuel pump, pumped some diesel out… and finally gave a solution...to push and start :-(
We had to get this “starting” problem rectified. You see pushing a jeep in a forest is definitely not a good idea. We managed to reach Mysore without anymore problems and drove to the first garage that we saw. The guy narrowed down the problem to the solenoid. We got it replaced, had lunch at the Country Club and drove along the ring road to join the HD Kote main road.
We reached Antharasanteh gate around 6:30pm. GV had spoken to the range forest officer (RFO) about the visit and he had sent one of his men (lets call him the “forest guy”-FG) to pick us at the gate.
Just as we made our way into the forest we could see something rolling in the grass nearby. The FG before seeing closely concluded that it might some deer which was hurt by dogs. He thought we could get it some water. We all got down and were carefully closing to the spot where the “animal” was rolling left and right as if it was in a hammock. And voila!! It rolls to a sitting position and what wee saw was not spots on the orange-brown skin but.. STRIPES…it was a very rare tiger sighting…we could only capture the image in our eyes…it stared at us for a few seconds…and ran off...we could never know whether it went away or was just hiding behind the perfect camouflage of the bushes. That really was a good welcome we got.
Night 1: Rest at the guest house
Day2 Morning-noon: Installation of solar steet lamp and in door portable lamp at Hoskere Camp
Day2 Evening: Replacement of solar lamp module at JLR Kabini. I got to see
Papa there.
Day2 night: Stay at Hosekere camp and testing of the solar installations- a success of course
Day 3 Morning-Evening: Visit to other camps in deep forest for feasibility study for solar lamp installation
Day 3 Evening: This got to be one of the most memorable experiences. We went for elephant chasing. The Antharasanthe range is dotted by villages along the periphery. The villagers grow cotton and sugar cane. During October there is standing sugar cane crop. The elephants cross into the villages and feast themselves on the juicy sugar cane. The villagers think it’s the duty of the forest dept to keep the animals at bay. But restricting the elephants is not an easy job, it has to be a combine effort. The RFO strives hard to involve the villagers and this cooperative venture is working.
Every evening starting 6:30 till 10:30 into the night the forest guards patrol around 10km of the border. They carry fire crackers to scare the elephants and drive them into the forest. Trenches are dug around the border but you will be amazed how easily an elephant can cross a 5 ft deep 4 feet wide trench. The villagers sit across the border on tree tops and burst crackers when they see a herd a crossing.
We patrolled in the jeep and reached one the crossing points at the right time to scare the elephants. Fortunately there were no crossings that night. But the villagers and forest guards are not lucky all the time.
The elephants use particular crossing points for quite some time…but when they see that it is being blocked…they find another and it becomes difficult for the guards to find exactly where the new crossing point is.
It was a night of bursting crackers, yelling, screaming and we were pretty exhausted.
We went to Balle camp for the night stay
Day 4 morning: We went to he beautiful Kaimara camp. The Antharasanthe range was one of the hunting grounds of the Maharaja of Mysore. And they had taste. They built beautiful camps deep in the forest for overnight stay. GV and I almost tried to find a real estate deal in that forest.
We left the forest at around 3pm…made a pit stop at my house in Mysore and drove to Bangalore. For GV this is very routine, but for me I had loads of beautiful images captured in my eyes, host of chirpy sounds of birds embedded in my ears…and the silence which you can almost feel and touch….
Our lungs were so accustomed to the relatively pure air...by the time we reached Bangalore both of us were coughing and next two days had cold…We were back to the civilized world…… :-) :-(
The photos are in the entry below….
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nrohit's journal
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