Nov 25, 2008 05:26 PM
17272 Views
Bannerghatta National Park is located about 22 km from Bangalore, down busy Bannerghatta Road. It had been a long time plan to take our almost 4-year old daughter there, and one Friday, when she had a school holiday, we decided to put the plan into action.
From our house in JP Nagar, 7th phase, it took us about 30 mean to reach the park. Parking was a bit of a distance away from the ticket counter and main entrance, so if you have people who might find it a bit difficult to walk, drop them first before parking the car.
There are three options in terms of tickets - Grand Safari, Tiger & Lion Safari, Zoo only. The rates are slightly more for the weekend. We opted for the Grand Safari (100/- on a weekday; 125/- on a weekend). There's a discount for Senior Citizens, so if you have any in your party, make sure you take advantage of it.
As soon as we got in, we decided to go for the Grand Safari first - a wise decision, as even at that time we had to stand in line for about 30 min, before we got to board the bus. The bus itself is pretty ordinary - we were the last to board and wanted to wait for the next one to get better seats, but were told to go on, as the next one would take an hour! Luckily, however, we got front seats (I realized why later - along with the cleaner and driver offering to shoot my video camera for me, it was to get a tip, which I did pay).
The safari itself was Average. The bus goes down really rough tracks. The driver drove all right and I hung on to my daughter tightly - obviously seat belts or any other safety measures are not at all deemed to be necessary.
The Grand Safari first shows you the herbivores - bison, deer, wild cows, then moves on to bears, then the lions and finally the tigers. All in all, you do get to see all the animals, some of them pretty close up (a bear stood up and started peering at the passengers through the window; luckily, the windows have grills to protect passengers in just such an eventuality). As we were doing this in the afternoon, most of the animals were having their afternoon siesta.
After the Grand Safari, we came back to the main park and had our packed lunch. The park itself is neat and clean, but it's the people who visit who're pathetic - most people had no qualms at all in strewing litter all over the place. There should be a strong policing here and offenders should be fined heavily.
The kiosks inside are only fair and you get a basic menu of tea, coffee, ice-cream and some snacks. We opted only for the ice-cream, as we didn't trust the food qualty.
The zoo itself was average and we gave up after seeing a couple of different animals and headed back home.
All in all, an average experience, but as Bangalore has nothing better to offer, I would still recommend a visit.
