A great weekend in Bandipur Forest and the Blue Lagoon Island

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[This article has photos]
I had a great weekend this time. When the weekend started I had no idea what was in store for me!

It looked like the continuous rain which has hit Bangalore badly this year has finally stopped. So, I decided that this weekend I am going to Mysore on Bike instead of train (which I started using after the rainy season started).

Saturday morning I got up early & the weather was looking great. I zoomed towards Mysore on my RX. On the way to Mysore I it suddenly occurred to me that it has been quite sometime that my old friend Natraj got posted to Gundlupet near Mysore. He has been inviting me to Gundlupet from the time he got posted there. This time I decided that I am going to give him a visit. After a short halt in Mysore, I went to Gundlupet on my bike.

The geographic location of Gundlupet is just too good. It is located in the border area of Karnataka. Both Kerala & Tamilnadu are less than 40 minutes drive from Gundlupet! From Gundlupet, Natraj and me went to the Bandipur forest. We could see Deer (various kind), elephants, monkeys (various kind) & lots of birds during the safari. Couldn’t really spot Bisons & Tigers (Tigers are very difficult to spot during Safaris).

Monday was another surprise for me. My friend Ravindra was apparently having holidays after his semester exams. So, we decided to visit the Blue Lagoon Island (which I am sure is not the official name for the island, but this name is used by the Mysore youngsters) on Monday. Since I am not having much work recently [should be very much evident if you look at the no of blog entries I have made recently ], I decided to put leave on Monday.

Ravindra & me went to the Blue Lagoon Island on my Bike. Blue Lagoon Island is located on the back waters of the famous KRS or Krishna Raja Sagar Dam (Brindavan Gardens) near Mysore. The amount of water which gets stored near a dam is just amazing. Area of land covered by the water of KRS is bigger than the Mysore city itself! This unbelievable fact (at least for me), I had realized after checking the KRS dam on Google Earth. For anyone who loves water this place is just fantastic. I and Ravindra had a good swim in the clean Cauvery water. After that we sipped little Bacardi & had a nice sleep in the shade of a tree & there were hardly any people there to disturb us! I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Warning: The water here is very deep & for people who don’t know swimming that well, this can be a dangerous place.

Click here to have a look at the location of Blue Lagoon Island. Blue_Lagoon_Island.kmz
Click here to have a look at the location of Bandipur National Park. Bandipur_National_Park.kmz
[Google Earth application must be installed to view this]

Myself on my bike at Gundlupet