Dubbare- Jungle Lodge

This happens to be my first post. A trip planned to Dubbare- Elephant training camp on the way to Coorg. First trip planned with two of our closest friends.
24hour stay at Dubbare was a good trip to remember. August 15, 2006- August 16, 2006. With the season of rain ending, River Cauvery was full...rather overflowing. We parked our vehicles on one side of the river and the motor boats were brought in to take us to the other side which had the Camp & the cottages. wow!! it was almost like river rafting...with Cauvery river flowing in full swing. This place had been kept quite natural, with no pathways.

Nice 2 bedroom cottages with all the modern facilities in the room. The way to room was about half a kilometer walk..all muddy path full of Elephant dung. Not prepared for the dung all over, we had to keep our pants rolled up all the time. Good food at the cafeteria, did match the taste of home food. Luckily kids did not fuss too much and had whatever they wanted. Chilled beer & Breezers served for the crowd along with Onion & Potato bajjis. Some Non veg stuff for the non-veggies. Night just passed by. Pitch dark with no lights...with just one candle in the room and noise of elephants, wild boars walking outside...ensured that ears weer kept wide open. Eyes open...but it was so dark that I couldn't see my own hand which was right in front of my face. It definitely was a eekie feeling then. Sun came up..and we got to see a beautiful morning. We were taken for a trek to a nearby village and into the forest. Guys chose to stay back. Self & my friend decided that if we have come this far, might as well enjoy what nature has and decided to go for the trek. Since it had rained the whole of previous night again it was Elephant dung all over. Luckily we got to see some wild and tamed elephant in the forest. Every morning the Elephants there are got to the camp to feed close to 10kgs of Ragi balls for each elephant for each meal! We got to feed a few elephant..we found the baby elephants to be the hungrier lot :-) All the elephants would be sent back to the forest before they were brought in the next day again. We wondered how someone would track where the elephant went in that dense forest. Found the trick :-) Each elephant had a thick fat chain put on his leg and these chain often left mark on the walking path. The heavy chains left such deep marks on the path that even if it had rained heavily the previous night, there would definitely some traces left for the mahout to track them. The Mahout had to just follow the direction of the chain marks and he would find his elephant in his path. A nice & easy way to track or check if we were on the elephant path :-)
16th afternoon we were taken on a short elephant ride in the camp and we also got to see the huuuuge elephants enjoying their bath in the fast flowing river Cauvery. What a sight! And some of these elephants trained here are also a part of the Mysore Dussehra Festivity. We were lucky to see one of the participants... the tuskar :-)
Dungy experience it was...but a trip worth remembering :-) Looking for a place to chill out in the wild with the elephants...this is it. DUBBARE- The elephant training camp.