Bangalore to Mudumalai Tiger Reserve | Road Trip with Elephant Sighting
Written in 2021. Prices, timings and routes may have changed since; check before you go.
When to go Mudumalai through the year
Easiest: Dec to Feb. Hardest: Jul to Aug. Tap + for the month-by-month weather and where these numbers come from.
- January: Easy. Daytime about 28°, night about 15°. Rain: some.
- February: Easy. Daytime about 31°, night about 16°. Rain: dry.
- March: Mixed. Daytime about 32°, night about 18°. Rain: some.
- April: Mixed. Daytime about 32°, night about 20°. Rain: some.
- May: Mixed. Daytime about 28°, night about 20°. Rain: wet.
- June: Mixed. Daytime about 25°, night about 19°. Rain: wet.
- July: Hard. Daytime about 24°, night about 18°. Rain: very wet.
- August: Hard. Daytime about 24°, night about 18°. Rain: very wet.
- September: Mixed. Daytime about 24°, night about 18°. Rain: wet.
- October: Mixed. Daytime about 25°, night about 18°. Rain: wet.
- November: Mixed. Daytime about 25°, night about 17°. Rain: wet.
- December: Easy. Daytime about 26°, night about 16°. Rain: some.
Ten-year averages (2015 to 2024) from NASA POWER satellite data. Conditions change; check before you go.
Where do these numbers come from, and how far can you trust them?
The figures come from NASA POWER, a free NASA project that publishes weather estimates for every point on Earth, put together from satellites and weather models. We took every day from 2015 to 2024 for this place, and averaged each month: the usual daytime high, the usual night low, and the rain.
We compared it with official weather-station figures for a few places. Over flat land it matched closely; in the hills and on islands it can be a few degrees out, and then the strip says so.
In very wet places the satellite data tends to run low in the rainy season, so the rain is drawn as bars, from the driest to the wettest month, without millimetre figures.
Easy, Mixed and Hard are our rule of thumb, not a forecast. Hard means days above about 37°, rain of about 250 mm a month or more, or nights close to freezing. Mixed means days above about 32°, rain over about 100 mm a month, or cold nights (below about 8°). Easy is everything else.
An average is not the weather on your dates, and it knows nothing about festivals, crowds, road closures or this year's monsoon. Check a forecast a week before you go.
Bangalore to Mudumalai Tiger Reserve– Little did we know that it will be an adventurous drive. It was a republic day weekend so we thought of going to Mudumalai National Park( from Bangalore) for one night stay.
Story of Our Mudumalai Forest Trip
Mudumalai:— Bandipur and Mudumalai are same green area but being on the border of Karnataka and TN, in Karnataka it is known as Bandipur and TN it is known as Mudumalai.
We chose Mudumalai as I have heard that you can spot few animals(of course if you are lucky) while passing through these Tiger Reserve ( which is a highway and open to the public from 6 AM to 9 PM) and it is only 6 hrs drive from Bangalore.
Our Stay in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve
Lucky Drive/Stay: — We stayed at Deep Jungle Home which is on the outskirts of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, surrounded by jungle on 2 sides and a quiet water stream on the other.
We opted for this place so that we could cross the whole of Bandipur and Mudumalai and to our surprise we were lucky to spot a few dears at first, monkeys and langoors were, of course, many and last but not the least an elephant, yes an elephant on one side of the road which wanted to cross the road to reach his mother which was on the other side.
Family Road Trip with Kids
Kids were excited above all we could not suppress our excitement as it is for the first time that we were seeing them while traveling in our own vehicle. And immediately after that, we saw a group of dears crossing the road in front of us. Everything happened so quickly.
We have been to many jungle jeep safaris in the north, but nothing was as real as this. We started from Bangalore at 6 in the morning, stopped for the breakfast break at Hotel Harsha (Family managed the hotel with mouth watering south Indian food cooked by the lady).
This hotel was after crossing KFC, Mc D, CCD all top food joints at the midway and we decided to stop at a calm and serene place to explore the local taste of food. And it was worth as the break was very refreshing. We reached our destination by 12.30 noon.
Experience of Staying Inside Forest Area
The day at the treehouse:– Checked in to our tree house which was facing the stream and the jungle, had our lunch which was simple home cooked food. There was an open area in the center where you can play badminton/volleyball/football or cricket for fun.
As we were sitting in our balcony in the evening we could see something jumping on the trees, at first we couldn’t identify but then my son identified it as great Indian squirrel (he studied about this endemic species in science a week back). It’s a pet-friendly hotel.
Another Suggested Stay
We have another great stay review on our blog for Jungle Hut Masinagudi, Do check out our experience of staying in the middle of the forest!
At night we were taken for the night walk towards the jungle and guess what we spotted —- dears grazing around that was something which was WOW. We slept and were woken up by a bunch of monkeys playing around in our balcony and jumping on the tree house roof, an yes we had our bed tea with them.
We went for a walk around the place, played few games, had breakfast and when we were about to leave that place we spotted 2 deer in the jungle from our balcony and we jumped with triumph.
Back to Bangalore
We left the place at 12.30 noon expecting that being noon we hardly see anything but apart from spotting dears which were as close to us that we could take selfies with them we spotted a group of elephants, bit inside the jungle just as we’re about to exit Mudumalai.
As we headed back to Bangalore we stopped to see Papaya farming. It was 20kms after exiting Bandipur, towards our right side. We then had our lunch and reached home at around 8 to end our wild adventurous trip.
Best Time to Visit Mudumalai
Although the mornings were misty, the day was hot and the night was cold, it is said that the best time to visit Mudumalai is during monsoons as animals are active and easy to sight.
Travel Community
Join me and 200+ like-minded people who are sharing and reading travel stories from India and the globe. Join today TravelEscape Facebook Group now.
7comments
7 conversations from readers on the earlier site.
Very informative ?
Awesome
Good read and best guide to prepare for this trip ..
Good,,,,,, informative. Keep going ??
Amazing..... looking forward for more ...!!!?
Very informative and must visit locations.
Nice Article..Looking forward to experience this..Thanks for sharing?