Bannerghatta National Park, Bengaluru: Travel review

A visit to Bengaluru City is incomplete if you don’t plan a trip to Bannerghatta National Park (referred as BNP hereafter). Located 25 Km south of Bengaluru city, BNP is one of the most exotic national parks in the country.

New Review!!!  Bhoga Nandeeshwara Temple, near Bangalore. A must visit place  

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I made my first visit to the park on Feb 13, 2012 (and numerous visits after that) and had one of the best “wildlife” experience in my life. I update this review every three months, with the latest update on July 26, 2017. In this review, I include all the details a person should keep in mind while visiting the park, details on amenities present at the park, photography tips, fee and other details and FAQs. I have not discussed in detail the flora and fauna at BNP,  which any way you are going to experience once you are at BNP! If you have some specific questions about the park, unanswered in this review, then please feel free to ask the same via the comments section at the end of the review. Also, do leave a comment if you find the review helpful 🙂

This review as on July 26, 2017 has been read by 70,681 visitors! 

Part 1 of this review deals with details on reaching BNP, car parking and ticket details, facilities outside the park and other details, while Part 2 deals with what is inside the park and safari details with photography tips.

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PART 1

Reaching Bannerghatta: 

If you plan to travel by bus or you are new to Bengaluru, the best thing to do will be to start from Kempegowda Bus Station a.k.a Majestic Bus Station (Opposite to Bangalore City Railway Station). The most convenient way to reach BNP is to use the BMTC Vajra AC bus no: 365 from Majestic station, platform 4 (This bus passes through Shanti Nagar bus stand as well). Make sure you board 365 itself and not any other similar numbers like 365A or 366. You may get ordinary, non-AC buses too (same, 365 number), but taking an AC bus has its own advantages. First of all, the journey from bus stand to BNP will take around 1 and half hours in non-peak hours and up to 3 hours in peak traffic. So it’s better to travel in an AC Bus. Also, the AC bus will be less crowded (during non-peak hours) and you will have a bus conductor who can understand English/Hindi.

The cost of a bus ticket for Vajra 365 is 80 rupees one side. If you are planning to come back all the way to Bangalore city then DO NOT buy the ticket itself, instead get daily VAJRA bus pass. It cost 140 rupees ( As on Oct 18, 2015), but the advantage is that you can use that pass to travel for the day in any bus including non-AC buses (except AC Vajra to airport a.k.a Vayu Vajra and Hop ON Hop OFF service ) So if you are planning to go anywhere else the same day other than BNP, you don’t need to pay the bus fare! You will need a valid ID proof with you in order to get a daily bus pass in any BMTC buses.   BNP is the LAST stop for the 365 bus. Many people will get down at the penultimate stop, which is Bannerghatta Junction, hence don’t get confused and follow them, the bus will take you all the way to the BNP.

Uber and Ola to BNP

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Until last year, Uber and Ola were not having service to BNP, but recently they have started the same. However, since the location is far away from the city, the trip would cost anywhere from 200-800 RS depending on your location and timing, but if you are going as a team of 4, then Uber/Ola will be to some extent economical.

For people coming by private car, taxi, bikes so on…

For those who are planning to reach BNP using their own vehicles, there is ample parking space available at BNP.  The parking fee will be collected just outside the parking spot, by BNP officials itself (Which is on the way to the new gate). There are 2 or 3 spots where you can park your vehicle, all of which are walking distance from the entry and exit gates of BNP. I didn’t find any security persons at the parking places monitoring the parked vehicles, but generally, it is a safe place to leave your vehicle and go, provided you lock your vehicle properly!

Below is the picture of the ample parking space avaialble at BNP.

Once you reach BNP:

The best time to visit the national park is when it opens! REMEMBER: The NP is closed on Tuesdays The official working hours for BNP is from 9 AM to 5 PM.  But the ticket counter opens only around 9: 30-9:45. With time, the crowd increases exponentially and if you are lazy enough to reach only around, say 11 AM, then come ready to stand in queue for a long time! Get up early, reach the bus stand by 7-7:30 AM, you will reach BNP before 9. If you leave from bus stand anytime between 8 AM and 10 AM, the traffic in Bengaluru will be beyond your imagination. The outside of BNP will look deserted(in the mornings), you have the BMTC BNP Bus stand, a state govt “promoted” hotel and “Dosa camp” and a few shops which mainly sells “Lays”, bottled “desi” water and cigarettes. (Don’t expect to get Kinley/Bisleri water or 3-star quality food anywhere near if you go in the morning). Better buy a bottle of water and a packet of biscuit before you begin!  By the time I reached (at 8:30 AM 🙂 ), the hotel was not yet open but the Dosa stall was, and trust me, the “Dosa” was good! The inside of BNP is a PLASTIC FREE ZONE so PLEASE  don’t throw away any plastic wrappers or bottles inside the park. Carrying a bottle of water is okay but remember to keep it inside your backpack, or the guards will ask you to leave it at the entrance.

“Mayur Vanasree Restaurant” is a hotel at BNP run by the Karnataka State Tourism development corporation. It opens around 11 AM, and it is the only hotel at BNP where you can get good food at reasonable price. The hotel serves both Vegetarian and Non-veg food and their menu includes almost all food items which you get at a multi cuisine restaurant like Rice items, Noodles Items, Soups, Veg curries, Veg dry fries, Chicken curries, Chicken dry fries, Tawa times, Snacks, Tea, Coffee, Juice, Ice creams so on…. I had my lunch during my second visit from there and the food was good. 🙂 Packed drinking water is also available.

The shops outside BNP in 2012 (Above) and in 2015 (Below)

The purpose of my consequent visits to BNP was to collect more details about the “life outside BNP”. During my first visit, I reached BNP at 8 AM, and the place was quiet and lonely. But the second time, what I saw was a totally different atmosphere. People were flocking around the kinds of shops and stalls outside BNP. Different variety of food and fruit juices are available at the local stores. You can find shops selling fruits, juices like Mango juice, sugarcane juice so on, shops which sell local vegetables, shops selling corn, kinds of baked food items so on. Other than shops selling food related stuff, there are a lot of shops which sell fancy items like caps, dolls, a variety of children’s toys, locally made craft items.

Near the “Dosa camp” there is a pretty big children’s play area which offers a variety of  “joy rides”.  It can be called as a mini amusement park with rides like Giant wheel, a small merry-go-round so on. Horse ride facility is also present there. Do note that, this facility is not that of BNP but is a privately run park, and hence safety and reliability of their services cannot be guaranteed.

The BMTC bus stand at BNP has a shopping complex along, and a lot of shops which sells standard consumer items are present there. Another important facility at the BMTC  bus stand at BNP is a clean, spacious, well-managed TOILET. It is a pay-and-use toilet, but as a result of which, it is maintained in a proper way. Drinking water filling facility, both cooled and ordinary is also available inside the bus stand shopping complex.

All the buses towards Majestic and other parts of Bangalore leave from here.

Also Read: This should be your next travel destination… 

WHAT’S “IN STORE” AT BNP

The BNP has 3 sections to visit The Zoo, The forest (Grand safari) and a Butterfly park. The most important obviously are the trip to the forests where you can come across the “wildlife” in its natural habitat. The ticket fare for the Safari is 260 rupees for Indian citizens which also include the admission to the zoo. (For children and Senior citizens, there is concession, see image below). You may read other reviews that depending on the day, the fee changes, but it does not. Every day, whether it be Sunday or Monday, it is 260 per head. You need to take a SEPARATE ticket for your camera, which is 25 rupees per camera. The ticket to the butterfly park is available at the gate of the butterfly park and not at the main ticket counter. Regarding what is inside the zoo, forest and park, I won’t go into details, because almost every animal whose name a common man knows is found inside if you visit all 3 sections of the park.

AC bus safari is also available now at BNP, but unless it is summer, I would suggest to take non-AC bus itself for the grand safari! The price details of AC safari is given in the screenshot below!

A visitor wrote in comments section regarding timings for AC safari which I am yet to personally verify

 “The timings were 11:45, 12:45, 14:45 & 15:45. (Please note 13:45 is not there as it seems it is lunch time)”

PART 2

Inside the park:

The safari starts only around 11 AM and hence you will be “advised” by the guards to visit the zoo till then if you reach at the time of opening. You can do that, BUT the only demerit I find in that decision is that, during that time, i.e 9 30 to 10 30 or so, the morning cleaning work around the zoo will be on its course and hence it will be very chaotic. The upside is that you can see the zoo animals having their breakfast (Which is a pleasure to watch 🙂 ) for instance like the bear in the picture is eating its daily dose of sugarcane!

So, the zoo is like any other zoo, animals are caged, (but properly taken care of), some animals look at you in total despair ,some like the leopard doesn’t care whether you are there or not and keeps fighting each other while the zebra would love to get a touch of your hand on its forehead! Again as all zoo administration say, let me remind you DO NOT feed the animals. An out of context point here, if any of you really want to know the life of animals in a zoo and how a boy survived a long sea expedition with a Bengali tiger in a boat, read the Novel “Life of Pi” by Yann Martil (Which eventually was made into the movie). It’s a Booker prize-winning novel, and it’s an awesome read!

Some Zoo pics!

Safari Buses

Safari Buses queued outside BNP

In case you missed, read my travel Review about heaven on Earth: Gurudongmar Lake, Sikkim 

Photography Tips:  It’s time you buy a DSLR Camera!  (Open in new tab)

The authorities take you for the safari in a completely “iron grilled” bus, but beside each seat, there will be a 10 cm diameter circular gap through which you can put your camera lens out! It doesn’t matter, on which side you sit on the safari bus (but try to get a side seat, if you are a photography addict), it’s all up to the animals to decide when and where to appear, eventually, you will find animals on both sides of the bus!  If you have an SLR camera then you “may” get some “respect” from others while taking pictures, but if you have just an ordinary compact camera (like I had) then you will struggle a lot, to capture images, as you and your camera will get surrounded by mobile phone photographers! The only thing which you can do is be attentive, spot the animals before others do!  So like “hit and run” it is “spot and run”  to the nearest view hole in the bus grill and click the pictures.SLR camera owners, don’t forget to bring your tele-zoom lens (if you have them)!

Sometimes the animal will neither come to the left of the bus nor to the right! Instead, they will come and rest right in front of the bus, on the road! So be quick to reach to the front of the bus if you are sitting in the middle or behind. The bus glass is usually clean and hence you will get good pictures, but all that counts is whether you can make it to the front of the bus in time before other cameras flood the area! I managed to get the photo shown here by standing on one leg and leaning forward, I was almost horizontal to the ground when I clicked this! Please do visit my Facebook photography page for more photos taken with my compact camera during the trip and other pictures I have taken. REMEMBER The way in is NOT the way out. So don’t think that you can take photos when you come back. There is no coming back! Hence if you find some real photographic moments just click! click! click! Another note to professional photographers; the NP is also a place of unbelievable natural beauty! Some landscape locations are beyond words. But unfortunately, the bus stops only when they spot an animal and NOT at scenic “hot spots”. So be bold enough to ask the driver to stop the bus and reverse if necessary (they do the reverse the bus when they spot animals) and take your shots at such locations. (End of the day it’s up to the driver to listen to you or not 😛 )

HERBIVORE  ANIMAL SAFARI

 Initial few square kilometers of the park is dedicated to animals like bison, deer and other non-flesh eating animals. You can see them very closely, eating their food, or playing around. They generally do not come near the bus, but still, you will have plenty to see around during this part of the safari. A large number of the deer family are found here.

BEAR SAFARI

Not just at the zoo, but even inside the forest, you can see a lot of bears. I saw around 15 bears and they are really friendly! They come near the bus, pose for you and even give a shake-hand if you put your hand out through the viewer (Warning: Do not try it, I was just making a point!)

TIGER SAFARI

You can see a lot of tiger and tigress including white tigers. It is a pleasure to watch the Tigers coming near the bus! There are some “attitude” Tigers too, who even after seeing the bus will not give a look at us, at least for a photograph! As I mentioned before, if you are lucky some tiger will come on the road and lie there for some time! (The bus does not honk them away, it’s their place and we are the visitors!)  Inside the tiger safari area, there is a special zone dedicated to white tigers including artificial space for recreation!

LION SAFARI

During my trip, I was less fortunate to see the lions at close distance. It may be because, it was the wrong time we chose, or they generally do not come closer, but none of the lions came near the bus, even though we spotted many lions. In fact, all the lion which I saw was taking rest at their bamboo parks and some lioness was taking a bath!

BUTTERFLY PARK

Once you finish with the safari, the bus will drop you at the gate of the Butterfly park. As the name suggests, they do have a lot of butterfly and a few monkeys too! As I mentioned before, you need to take a separate ticket to enter the butterfly park. The ticket cost is 30 rupees per head. Here also you need to take a separate ticket for your camera. Unless you have a DSLR, don’t bother to take the separate ticket for your camera provided you keep your compact camera or mobile phone inside your pocket.

Once you get inside the park, a pathway will lead you to the “real butterfly park”! What I mean is, along with the pathway, you will find monkeys jumping around and butterflies flying but the real park is a few meters down the way. You will find a big building which looks like an abandoned building from outside with a semi rusted door (as on Feb 13, 2012!). Open it! Inside is the real butterfly park with thousands of butterflies swarming around!

Outside of the artificial butterfly park, there are benches for you to rest. Have a seat, listen to the twittering of birds, watch the monkeys playing around and squeaking, take a 10-minute break and then leave for the bus stand. The way out from the butterfly park will lead you to the BMTC bus stand. There is a shop inside the bus stand shopping complex where you can get CCD coffee (during my second visit, the coffee machine was not working 😦 )! You will find ordinary buses, which ply towards the majestic but wait for the Volvo Vajra 365 to come, enjoy a relaxing ride back to the city! Don’t forget to show the pass to the ticket examiner!

With time, everything changes! By the time you plan to visit BNP things may have changed a lot. Those who visited once should come again. A photographer who forgot to take his tele-zoom lens should come again, people who decided not to go to safari should come again. After all, it is “nature at its best”. We don’t know how long the park will survive the way it is and most importantly what if the world ends on Dec 21, 2012? 🙂 (Oops…It didn’t end on 21-Dec-2012 😦 )So, hurry up, plan a trip to BNP! Wish you a happy journey and a fabulous time ahead!

Pictures of amenities at Zoo

This post has received a lot of international visits (data from WordPress statistics), hence I have added an extra paragraph with some more information exclusively for foreign visitors!

FOR INTERNATIONAL VISITORS:

The nearest airport is none other than the Bangalore International Airport and for reaching Majestic Bus station or any other important place in Bangalore, use the “Vāyu Vajra” AC Volvo bus service. The ticket fare from airport to the majestic bus station is Rs: 240 and the bus number is BIAS-9. List of airport bus service to other destinations in Bangalore is available here. Remember, you cannot use the Vajra Daily Pass in Airport services, so buy the one day pass only when you go to BNP. At BNP, there is no difference in entry fee for foreigners or Indians.  For foreign nationals, the price for safari is 400 rupees for adults and 300 rupees for children. A tour guide is present in each safari bus, and you should pay them separately if you use their service extensively. I leave it at your discretion, whether you have to seek their help or not. I suggest a 30 minute Google web and image search about Indian wildlife before you begin as it may save you a few dollars! At the zoo, there are a few food courts which serve standard junk food! You may decide what to eat and what not to, once you reach there! A pay and use toilet are available at the zoo, but I suggest you use it only if your nature’s call is so unbearable! (You can ask me whether this point is applicable for everyone. Well; No is my answer. If you are coming from an extremely clean hygienic environment, then even a slight change in hygiene will affect your immunity, so is the case with drinking water!). Summers in India are really hot and hence do bring a magazine along with you, which can be used as a “portable fan” if your visit falls when the sun is out bright and strong! In the safari bus, if you are the ‘”lone foreigner” then you may get a chance to sit in the front seat beside the driver and in that case, you will have a fantastic journey. For that to happen, do a simple thing, ask the guide whether you can sit at that spot! They will generally oblige!

Who should NOT visit BNP:

People who hate animals, who like to find fault in every state-run institutions, who likes to scream and shout when they see something beautiful and interesting, who like to have animals respond when they say “hi” to them or anyone who thinks they own this world, STAY OUT from this beautiful place, it is not for you!

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