Drive to Nagarahole - Coorg : Second event

In this event there wasn't any direct involvement though [ as the previous one ]. But the it was the chain of thoughts, which followed later is the need for the blog.

we, atlast made it to the day's last safari trip. Travel around, consisted of a rickety mini bus with 19 occupants, completed with a driver and a forest guide. The safari's sighting turned out to be good [ compared to our bandipur one, probably, it was dusk (?)] sighted a herd of elephants with 2 babies, bisons, peafowls, wild boars, the usual set of deers (chital, sambar, spotted) and a lonely tusker.
This lonely tusker was wandering close to the tarred road, he [ the tusker ] tried shooing/scaring us away with a trumpet and a mock (?) charge. Well most of us in the bus let out screams [ Probably this too must have scared him ] and later did see one/more camera flash blubs glow.

Now the questions which later haunted me were

what if we had ventured back on this road in the car, in the dark and landed up in front of this tusker?
Well, eariler, atleast we were a group, accompained with a forest gaurd, atleast had some kind of an assurance [ which could have been false ]. For sure, we [the three of us ] would be more chaotic when alone. Remember the scene from Jurassic park [ I know wrong analogy for the situation, kahan Raja bhoj aur kahan gangu thaili ] where the kids, finding themseleves alone in the mobil try some antics. One thing quite evident was we were not prepared for this kind of a situation.

What should be the right approach from us?
Agreed, none us [ Yep, including the elephants! :D ] have a "Red book of conduct between an elephant and a human" or the old jungle sayings.... :)
Googling when back to bangalore, found some links of a Kurger National Park.
And some funny (unrelated) one. Was wondering how, a reflector some 10 feet above would bounce off light from a 5 foot high truck head lamp.

Did we do right flashing lights? making sounds?
Certainly not! was the answer and spoke with one, who was in a similar situation. The things which they did were
* Stopped a couple of metres away.
* They switched off the head lights, (they too sighted it in the dark).
* Moved the gear stick to reverse and ready to back if the elephant charged
* And lastly prayed.

So, ending with the question, can we follow the stuff spoken for kurger from the above links? Hope it is applicable to the asiatic cousins too or atleast a link from the Indian forest department speaking about how prepared or how to react to such kind of situations. Or do u guys have some information on this.

next : third event

Drive to Nagarahole - Coorg : First event

Disclaimers : The events which I am going to share across, are or could be one of the most commonest ones seen or came across by others, But the very fact they seemed odd in the evened out trip of ours :D, requires them to be blogged about.

The first one, was on Bangalore-Mysore road and during the day (Thank god!). First would want to take this as an opportunity to thank the Gov of karnataka for the proper tarring of "this" road, 90% stretch of this road is done, but has some pot-holes, half done bridges, untarred (as on 14th April 2006) along. [ I know it is their duty to lay and maintain it, but looking the that state of the roads back 5 years and now compared, the only fear is we don't limp back to that again] Coming back to the road, this is four laner, two lanes for either direction of the traffic. But the two-laner at some stretch becomes a one-laner with both the direction traffic narrowing onto the same road acting as bottle necks [ The above 10% stretches], well most of these conversion have a some kind of a diversion sign, warning ahead(?) or atleast close to the diversion about these.

Now, I think I have provided enough data buildup on the roads ;D and now getting into the scenario build up :). At some two laner [ dead sure of this!! ] stretch towards mysore, we approached a entourage, trucks, two, on left lane, one behind the other with speeds around 70s-80s and a ksrtc bus. When I was about the overtake this line of mamoths, the ksrtc break aways from the tail and move beside (overtake) the trucks, thus leading to something like the pack on two rungs, with a truck and the bus in a row, followed by a truck and me. So, my sight is blocked with the bus in the front and the lorries at my side for a minute or a couple. Getting frustated I began honking at the bus, the bus too lets out a shrieking honks [which i didnt realize, at the moment ] and of all a sudden, moves to the left lane ahead of these trucks. As soon as this bus exits out of my lane, to my utter shock, I find a truck coming (?) in my lane [ Now this might similar to scene from BI where Douglas following Stone ;), minus the sea, the curvey roads, Stone and importantly the music!! ]. With the sighting, applied brakes bringing the speeds from 100, the car reacted quite benevolently and gracefully slowed down [ thought it might skid, would miss my control as shown in "most" bollywood movies ], the seat belts pulling us back and could heard the tyre screeching and bringing us speeds of 20 in seconds and stopping 20 Ft in front of the truck. But this time, the left laners had too slowed down in anticipation.

Well thank god we had no tail followers... Or we could have landed in a more a mess.

My first brush with... Though there was no flighty images of the past, but was could feel the adrenaline rush and the pounding heart. The sight of the truck held my breath and all of us swore and in the side glance saw som with hands in air [what was ur reaction bhatta?]

Swore at the truck driver, when passing by [ though he (the opposite truck driver) had stopped his vehicle could not comprehend why he entered into this lane] and moved along.

Trying to recollect, I still can feel the heated tension, shouts of that second, wide opened eyes, breath struck in throat, an open jaw, gripping of the handle, "Oh shits",......

That was a really an hair raising moment.

Next : The second event

Drive to Nagarahole - Coorg

Two days and two nights, a drive of 600 odd kms, four major places of visit, three bachelors (one situational), an approximate spending cost of 2k (some costs were just pardoned... We could have budgeted it close to 1200) and lastly but not the least four worth remembering events in this unplanned trip.

Important things for the next trip
1. Rain coats/ umbrellas
2. A torch with backup cells
3. Ear plugs, to avoid piercing snores

Things lost on the trip
1. A Nokia charger
2. A day's wear + wet towel
3. Trip's first night sleep, due to point 3 of the above list
4. Trip's second night sleep due to the travel

Things learnt/ (safely) brought back
1. New idioms for r dictionary
* Air bubbles are coming from all places
* Put the head light
* Say cheese in the dark
* "OHhh Shit" & "OHhh no" been indiscriminately used.
2. Four 2 litre bottles (three emptied, one still filled with water), two empty 1 litre bottles , Two empty 1/2 litre bottles (previously contained pepsi), and one 1/2 litre bottle of pepsi with some heady mix. One empty "lays" potato chips packet and an apple.
3. And yep! The car and its tired occupants.

Summary (against time)
Woke up at 6.30 am friday - Started from home at 7.30 am - picked up bhatta at 8.00 am - out of som's home by 10.15 am. On the blr-mys road at 11.15 am - brunch at Kamat loka ruchi, ramangaram around 12.30 pm - Reached Nagarahole around 5.00 pm, in time for the evening safari - Stayed as a paying guest with a coorgi family near kutta, slept around 1.30 am. Woke up the 7.00am saturday - Iruppu falls at 10.00 am - lunch at Orange county at 3.00 pm - watched the elephants bathe and fed around 5.00 pm at dubare - golden temple at kushal nagar at 6.00 pm - dinner at the out skirts of mysore at 10.30 pm - bangalore, som's place at 2.30 am sunday.

Nagarahole is quite unchanged, but the road to base has worsened. It and Iruppu falls turned out to nostalgic with faces and .......

tomorrow : The first event.