Dont stay at Tiger Ranch. Review on Bandipur National Park

I know I have to write reviews about Bandipur National Park here however I cant find a suitable place to write a review about Tiger Ranch. Moreover those looking to stay at Bandipur can be informed.

I have stayed at Tiger Ranch twice. First time out of ignorance and second time out of force from friends.

The place is located just outside the Bandipur forest range. The surroundings are good. There is a watering hole just outside the premises where animals(wild) come to have a drink.

The bad part is the rooms are dirty and stinks. The beds and sheets smell. Good luck if you wish to bathe or try using the loo. If one has to go the loo, the others have to leave the room as the doors are see through(not because of design but because of the poor state it is in). The water is dark brown in colour. I was told the water is drawn from a nearby watering hole.

Nights are nice here as there is no electricity. Generator runs from around 6 in the evening to 11 in the night. The bonfire keeps you warm.

I have to mention an incident which happened which made me lose respect for this place. This incident happened many years back when there was no night restriction in the national park area. We drove to Gopalaswamy Betta in a Qualis and were returned after it got dark. On the way as we just entered the park area our vehicle broke down. There were six of us. Since it was late, there was none on the road that run through the park. 3 of us decided to walk to Tiger Ranch and get help from the owner to get the remaining 3 back to the so called resort. The 3 who stayed back were too scared to walk back. Moreover we had to keep someone with the car so that nothing gets stolen by passers by. We used our phones as torch lights and started walking. Some catholic nuns who were passing in a tempo traveller felt pity and offered to drop us till the road that leads to the resort. The driver refused to take us to the resort as he claimed there were elephants on the road which means danger. After we got off the vehicle we walked some 7 kms to reach the resort. The walk was quite scary as we knew there were elephants and one leopard(Baby) in that area. We heard an elephant feeding on the road so we took a small detour from the road and came back to the road after passing the elephant. Luckily without any incident we reached the resort. We reached just before 11:30 pm. We asked the owner to help us in getting our remaining 3 friends back. The owner refused. Despite we literally begging him saying they are in danger as they are still stuck in the park he did not budge. After contemplating on what to do next we decided to just stay in the resort till morning. The next morning just before 6am we started walking back to where the vehicle had broken down. On the way we were lucky as jeeps from Tusker Trails(at that time it was not part of Windflower) passed by. One of them offered to drop us till the broken down vehicle. We reached the Qualis only to find the 3 uncomfortably but deeply in sleep. Woke them up, had some laugh and then went about getting to find a mechanic to fix the vehicle which is a different adventure altogether.

So moral of the story. Do not go there as the place is dirty and they will not help up even if you are in danger.