Kanha
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2007
1
204
220
Trip End
Jun 17, 2009
Kanha National Park,
Madhya Pradesh,
India
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Passing through the few small towns, with their fresh produce stalls and ever present cows, dogs, goats and pigs wandering everywhere. At 1pm we stopped at one town for a quick bite of lunch at a food shop. After carefully checking that it was as clean as possible, I decide to break one of our rules and bought from this street outlet, it was quite tasty, as was the chai.
Having eaten we had a walk down the street, being the centre of attraction and accompanied by a group of kids. Our smiles and waves were mostly acknowledged but at one point someone threw some hard fruit at us, which was puzzling. Most of the kids wanted their photos taking, which seemed quite a novelty for them.
Continuing we reached a higher area that looked over the dry grassland before descending down to a wide river, where people were washing clothes (and a motorbike). Later in the afternoon we stopped for a drink at a restaurant and saw women carrying firewood home on their heads.
Onwards through the city of 'Mandla', where a fabulous sunset lit up the clouds in the sky. It was 6.30 and dark when we reached the small town of 'Kisli', after 9 hours driving and 250km (160 miles - yes, you can't travel fast round here). Our resort here was also named 'Mogli' and we are going to visit the 'Kanha National Park', one of the largest of India's wildlife reserves at nearly 2000 sq kms. Hopefully more tigers.
Our room was a similar style semi-detached bungalow to the other resort, basic but clean. The beds had duvets on, so we should be warm and we also had company, something was scuttling about in the roof space above the suspended ceiling, so we moved the bed away from the wall, just in case.
Dinner was in the dining room upstairs, which we walked to carefully, remembering that this was still snake country and enjoyed another spicy curry meal. Then back to the room, where our 'resident' had gone quiet for the night.
Thursday November 27th.
Alarm clock at 4.45am after a reasonable, warm, night's sleep. We have a drink before leaving for the day's safari and hear that there's been a bomb attack in Mumbai, our exit city and that there's been people killed and a hostage taken. There is no tv or radio here but a couple of the guys have smart phones and have picked up on the news. We put it down to the Indian elections, taking place in six states, which often get out of hand.
5.45 and we board the jeeps in the cold morning with the stars slowly fading. We're head of the queue at the park gates and at 6.15 drive into 'Kanha National Park', one of the biggest of India's tiger reserves at 2000 square km's but with only sixty odd tigers they're going to take some finding.
The park is similar to the others but on a bigger scale and has no surrounding cliffs, just several rolling hills in the park terrain. We drive round the park, with the sun struggling to cut through patchy clouds and dispel the mist. There are peacocks, spotted deer, Gar (Indian bison) and hyena about and we reach the 'centre point' after forty five minutes, arriving quite cold despite fleece jackets, woolly hats and a woollen blanket. Sadly the parks canteen is not yet up to speed and there is no chai ready. I bet the char wallahs would have had some on the go - so much for state enterprise!
A ten minutes comfort stop and we are out driving again on our search, still no sight although the guide sees some fresh tiger tracks. At one spot we heard the deep roar of a tiger but no sighting. Another hour and we return to centre point to prepare for a possible elephant ride, as in Bandhavgarh, the elephants only go out when a tiger has actually been located. We get the 'confirmed sighting' word and drive out again, our guide taking a ladder with him - any guesses?
At the site two elephants are doing round trips of a couple of hundred yards and yes, we climb up the ladder onto the back of one and set off. The tiger is sitting under a tree and has obviously had enough of being the centre of attention, as he jumps over a stream and goes and sits behind a bush up on the other bank. Our elephant follows him by walking up the stream and we sit and look at the young, male tiger, on a level with our eyes and some ten metres away. He looks back and then lies down under the bush, bored with this interruption to his morning nap. After five minutes we return to the jeep, delighted at having been able to see the tiger.
On the way back to centre point we get a report of another sighting, in a different location but have to drive past the spot to obtain the official 'elephant ride voucher' from the park gate. Our guide goes for the voucher whilst our driver gets some petrol from the park petrol station (I wonder if Longleat have thought of that one?) and we watch Langur monkeys hanging out in the area.
The official voucher obtained, we drive back to the sighting location and wait our turn for a ride. We can see the elephants stopped some hundred metres away in the forest, so the tiger is close. Most of the elephant riding platforms (howdahs?) are for four people but we manage one with two, there's cosy for you, although sitting back to back. In the forest another male tiger is lying down in an open grassy area next to trees and we stop less than ten metres from him. He doesn't bother with us but just lies looking up or with his head on his enormous paws. He is gorgeously patterned and must be over ten feet long. The tiger really is one of the most beautiful animals we have seen. Our elephant chomps grass as we first take photos and then just gaze at this great creature, who really gets fed up with posing for us and lies out on his side and dozes. Too soon we leave him, exuberant at this magical meeting.
The last elephant rides are at 11am and they set off down the road back to the centre. The guides have a feeling that the tiger may move, I don't know why and try to second guess him by moving our jeep down the road and parking up. We keep a lookout for any movement and after about fifteen minutes our tiger comes wandering round the corner and along the road straight towards us, unfortunately followed by four other jeeps, who get a little bit too close on the bend. He moves off the road, out of their way, into a (dry) river bed and when he is level with us rejoins the road next to us. Absolutely magical.
Some of the jeeps have passed us and keep in front of the tiger as he plods on down the road, paying no attention to any of us. It is now nearing park closing time and we leave him to go on his way and return to the park gates, completely delirious. What a wonderful morning.
We go back to the hotel for lunch and more information on the Mumbai incident becomes available. Several people dead and many hostages, in a few locations, after a terrorist attack. Thankfully our mobile phone is working, after there being no signal for several days and we send a text message to family members and friends, saying we are OK and two days away from Mumbai. On the current shortage of information there is little else we can do.
The mid afternoon was another jeep safari round the park looking for tigers. We saw spotted deer, big sambur deer, peacocks, langur monkeys, squirrel and many small birds but despite waiting in many locations - no tiger.
This wasn't too bad, as we felt the tigers had given us a brilliant morning and deserved the afternoon off. What was enjoyable was just to sit in the peace and quiet of the afternoon sunshine, listening to the many forest noises and even the sound of leaves falling from the trees and landing with a small crunch on the forest floor. A restful afternoon.
It was after dark when we returned to the hotel and more Mumbai information. Terrorists had targeted westerners in a district of Mumbai, there were over one hundred dead and over a hundred hostages in several hotels. Other members of the group had contacted home by phone but with no tv or internet here we were restricted on further details. One phone call gave us government Foreign Office advice to stay away from Mumbai, which was our next destination and exit point from India.
Discussions between the group, with Bhupendra liaising with the company India office continued. The company was advising continuing the trip to Mumbai, where they had switched hotels to one out of the city. We were mindful of the Foreign Office advice and also the risk of travelling by train into Mumbai, as a train had been bombed a few weeks ago. The concensus was to take the road trip tomorrow to 'Nagpur', where instead of taking the overnight train to Mumbai we would try to get flights to Delhi and leave India from there. Anyway we would then have another twenty four hours development of the situation and some more up to date information.
A not very settled night's sleep followed.
