An outing at an orchard retreat on the fringes of Bandipur Tiger Reserve

A barren patch of land on the fringes of Bandipur Tiger Reserve is now an orchard retreat bustling with mangoes, litchis, red cherries, and a bird and wildlife haven for safari enthusiasts

“It was an uncanny sight,” recalls Vijay Prabhu, founder and owner of Littlearth chain of boutique hotels in Udhagamandalam, about spotting a tiger on a sunny afternoon.

He was driving from Udhagamandalam to his property The Mangifera located on the fringes of Bandipur Tiger Reserve. “Bandipur forests have the highest density of tigers. It was an hour past noon, and this fellow stood there by the side of the road, may be 10 feet away, simply staring. I could also hear barking deer just a few feet away,” says Vijay, a lawyer, whose heart lies in offering holiday-experiences to people.

He bought the 7.5 acre property, back in the 1990s, basically to have a place to rest as he was shuttling between Chikmagalur, overseeing his coffee estate and Udhagamandalam, where he was a practising lawyer. “It involved risky long drives during night inside the forest where elephants and other wild animals roam freely as the forest check post closes at 9pm,” he explains.

Over the years, he turned the barren patch into a retreat orchard bustling with many varieties of mango trees, coconut and as many as 20 varieties of fruit trees including litchi, red Indian cherry, regular guava, Chinese guava, chikku, ramphal, sitaphal, wood apple, and more.

An absolute calm fills up your senses on a stroll along the orchard. Bird calls streak the air. “That is the Malabar grey hornbill,” says Aswathy Elikkal Baskaran, an in-house naturalist pointing to a big grey bird as she rattles off names of migratory birds like yellow-wattled lapwing, red-naped ibis, woolly necked stork, regular visitors at the farm during the migratory season.

Aswathy is nurturing lime and curry leaf trees, hibiscus and other ornamental plants, that serve as host plants for butterflies. There are plans to build a butterfly garden. She also takes guests on a quick nature walk along the neighbouring fields, where they grow onions, marigold and corn, spotting birds and butterflies along the way.

As rains bucket down, we tuck into piping hot parathas and a fiery chicken gravy, prepared home style by the in-house cooks. They wish us luck as we set out on Bandipur Tiger Reserves’s jungle safari and tell us that tourists often do multiple trips, in the hope of spotting the elusive tiger.