Visit to Bannerghatta National Park

Finally the day had arrived to visit Bannerghatta National Park (Further will abbreviate as BNP).  It was on Sunday 13-May-2012, we planned to visit BNP along with my elder sister and my nephew.  We started pretty much late (around 9:00AM) from Koramangala and reached Majestic at 10:00AM. There we had to wait for some time for the bus.  15 minutes past we got a VOLVO bus to BNP. We reached BNP arounf 11:30AM. BMTC has a fine terminus in BNP that looks really posh as of now.

Since it was sunday, BNP was jam packed. We could get tickets easily however had to wait long time for safari ride. There was huge  crowd waiting for safari ride. The resting place is really good. When our turn came, it was around 12:30PM. The buses are  arranged by KSTDC and had protection cover also. The helper told us that safari ride is around 15kms. There was deer safari, bear safari, lion safari,  tiger safari and peacock safari. Huge trench surrounds each safari so that animals do not cross. The animals are manually fed.  The white tiger is isolated from usual tiger since they fight. The travel through safari is really scenic and  has three or four water bodies along the way. Fortunately I got the front seat beside driver.

BNP Entrance

We could see all  the animals along the way. We had close look of deers, tiger, lion, bear and peacock. Peacock was visible earlier closely however  as we neared him, it ran away. I managed to get some good shots and also the driver took very good shots for me. Most of thw animals  were resting on the right side of the road and I was sitting on the left side of bus. However, driver helped me to get good shots. Between every entrance of Safari, huge gates are erected to prevent animals mixing up. The driver and helper were too good. Whenever animals  were spotted, the driver stopped vehicle for considerable amount of time to have view and take snaps.

Safari Bus

Collage of animals in Safari

After 30-45 minutes of safari ride, we came back to national park, had lunch and visited zoo. The zoo is well maintained and has small  park for children to play. It is not as extensive as Mysore Zoo but wonderful to watch. The only problem is, there is no proper  instruction or walk path boards to guide you as in Mysore-Zoo. Nevertheless, it seemed intuitive. You can also have elephant  ride with some cost.

Crocodile

Some bird

Leopard

King Cobra

It was around 3:30PM the sky opened up and started pouring heavily. We reached bus stop before it started  to rain heavily. Due to this we could not visit butterfly park. The buses towards bangalore were ample, however there was also ample crowd.  Every bus was jam packed and we finally found a private bus towards K.R.Market. We got down at Jayadeva to reach home.

How to reach:

From Majestic, you can catch VOLVO or ordinary BMTC buses which will take directly to BNP. The cost of volvo is Rs.50/head.  We thought we would not get seat, if we start from Jayadeva. It is not true since there are buses originating from places  like Shivajinagar (AC-4), brigade road (G-4) which go via Jayadeva. You can catch from Jayadeva too. If you are travelling via  KR-Market area, you have private buses which directly go to BNP. You can also travel till Bannerghatta and take an auto.  Even though distance is only around 3-4kms auto people may charge more. If you own four wheeler, it is best option. You will  also need to pay parking charges. however there is ample parking space.

Food:

There are hotels and ample snack outlets nearby. However they charge more. Everything is costly here. Better to carry  own food and drinks rather than buying. Even inside zoo you can find snack and ice-cream outlets.

Timings:

PARK + ZOO: 9:30AM to 5PM
SAFARI: 10AM to 4:30PM (Depending on tickets available, timings may vary)
WEEKLY HOLIDAY: TUESDAY

Expenses (In rupees):

Still Camera: 25 (Not sure whether same is applicable for Butterfly park)
Video Camera (Handycam): 200 (Not sure whether same is applicable for Butterfly park)

Safari:

Adult: 210
Children: 100
Senior Citizen: 140
[The same ticket can be used for ZOO entrance also]

Zoo:

If you want only to visit ZOO, here are the charges.

Adult: 60
Children: 30
Senior Citizen: 40

Butterfly park:
This requires separate ticket. Not sure about price since we could not visit.

When to go:

Start early. Atleast reach by 10AM so that you need not have to wait for SAFARI. At around 11-12 (AM-PM), animals will be resting  near-by road. You can have good look at them.  BNP is completely plastic free zone.

Some Negatives:

1) People were seen throwing plastic waste on to the floor despite having ample  dustbins around. The dustbins were really good and well maintained.

2) The patrol people had to really struggle to maintain discipline. Some people were seen sneaking into the queue despite good  patrolling. It is really annoying that educated people do such things.

Just a request for people who visit not to spoil these places.

The Video!!

At the end the SAFARI video. The video is composition of Safari ride as well as still images of animals. There are no videos of animals. The video was created using KDENLIVE. I initially chose HD-720p with 29.97fps. Since the video was distorted 25fps was chosen with same progressive scan rate. H.264 encoding was used with 12k bitrate and AAC 384kbps. The video is bit shaky but still watchable. Enjoy the video!