Camp Gladiator - 1st camp

There is a general understanding that exercise is a must and everyone must spend a few hours a week on exercise. Some prefer to hit the gym, some like running and some do like to have exercise machines at home and some crazy ones like me try out Camp Gladiator.

I had tried all the above mentioned before giving the camp a try and I admit I am not the first crazy one in the family, I took motivation from the fairer one.

So what is Camp Gladiator or better known as CG amongst it's ardent followers, in my thinking it is a boot camp but without the boot camp structure of trainer yelling in your ears, instead you will be doing exercises to nice loud music and constant encouragement from the fellow campers and the trainer itself. Of course the sound track varies from trainer to trainer (in my 8 classes, I have heard from GNR to macarena).

CG claims you can get unlimited workouts but in my 4 week experience, I was happy to get 2 in a week. Each workout is an hour long with non stop activities for the whole duration, be it running, jumping, walking side ways or backwards and so on. To an extent it reminded you of all the games we played as kids, only difference being, then we used to do in the name of playing and now in the name of exercise :). From what I could gather the trainer's aim is to keep you moving every single minute of the full hour. 

For me personally, as I stated earlier I got motivated to try it out from Sandhya and secondly my home machine workouts were getting boring at some level as I couldn't incorporate new exercises and in turn I was losing my motivation. Thanks to Sandhya, she got me a free 4 week camp to try out and loaded me up with all tips and tricks that I needed to be successful. 

I wouldn't say it was a breeze of 8 classes but it was well worth it when I surpassed my own benchmark (set during the 1st class) in the last class. I could see a big improvement with just 8 classes.

I would be doing injustice if I don't thank Julie Burns our trainer for keeping us motivated, following up after the workout, giving us tips on stretching and other exercises we could be doing to help ourselves during the recovery between workouts. 

Dubare elephant camp

I had heard a lot about this place and by the time we finalized our trip to India, this one had become a must see places in our vacation. I was told the ideal way to visit is to book a day in jungle lodges Dubare and I say, yes they were right.

This was my first experience with jungle lodges and I have all praises for them. They had very clean and spacious cottages, wonderful food and friendly people. I must emphasize when I say clean, I mean not a single piece of paper or cigarette butt or any such things that don’t belong in the forest.

Our journey started from Mysore in the morning and we reached Dubare by afternoon, much to my surprise we took a boat to reach Jungle lodges, in essence we were a captive audience till we checked out next day.

After lunch and tea we were taken on a safari in the evening, lasted a couple of hours and we were lucky to see a bunch of peacock, a jungle cat, few elephants and a Gaur (Indian Bison). Returning from the safari there was camp fire, followed by dinner.

Next day started with a small guided walk through the jungle and a coracle ride followed by breakfast and Elephant interaction. Thanks to government of Karnataka for organizing “Tipu’s birthday” and which led to Coorg Bandh, we almost had exclusive access during elephant interaction. Avni had a blast bathing the elephants and feeding them.

All in all, it was a well planned 24 hours at jungle lodges Dubare. One can stay for more than a day but the activities would be the same.

I wouldn’t do justice if I don’t talk about the elephants in the camp. Some of the elephants are born there and most are caught/tamed to prevent human and animal conflicts. I was told the males do get into fights sometimes and it is a common thing. One interesting fact I found was that the medium of instruction for the elephants is Hindi. 

My recommendation for people visiting Dubare, spend the money and stay overnight and appreciate the nature.