Hi all

I was at Ooty y/day and drove down to Masinagudi and Bandipur to check out the scene. Most of the resorts in the Bandipur area are empty, while those in the Masinagudi have very few visitors hanging around. Safari's at both the places (theppakadu in the Tamil Nadu side and Bandipur on the Karnataka side) have been called off. The elephant camp at Theppakadu (Mudumalai) is out of bounds for tourist.

However, covered private jeeps carrying few visitors do ply on the main roads (not the safari routes), looking out for wildlife, for there is no ban on vehicle movement on the Gudalur - Bandipur - Gundalpet stretch. However, the whole place looks deserted and non lorry traffic on the stretch has considerably come down.

There is quite a bit of animal movement on the main roads. I drove past this place around noon and saw Elephant, Indian Gaur, Cheetal, Malabar squirrel, a pair of Wild Dogs and a variety of birds . . . right on the roadside!!

On a lighter vein, the moral of the story seems to be . . . if tourists don't go looking for the wild animals on safaris into the jungle, the animals come out to the roads looking for people :-) Just kidding . . . .

regards
Rajan