Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve
Trip Start
Feb 18, 2008
1
6
11
Trip End
Mar 10, 2008
Sawai Madhopur, India
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Ranthambhore (R from now on) is one of many tiger preserves in India. It was the hunting preserve of the princes of Jaipur until killing tigers was outlawed in the 1970s. The tiger population had dropped from over 50,000 in the 19th century to only 2000 by the time tiger hunting was outlawed. We went on a tiger safari this morning before dawn, the best time. It was a bit chilly, even for me, with the temperature in the lower 40s. This was made REALLY chilly by us being in totally open jeeps (no tops or sides) with very hard seats. The hotel gave us blankets which even I used once the jeep started moving. There are only certain times you can enter R - you have to be on a registered jeep and cannot get out of the jeep once inside. R is divided into 9 different sections and the guide has to get out of the jeep at the entry to the preserve and blindly reach inside a dish to pick out the number of the section he is allowed to go into - so you never really know where you will be able to go until you are at the entrance. You have no say as to which section you can drive into. Our jeep got section 7 and it turned out we did not see any tigers, only tiger tracks. There are about 32 tigers in this preserve. The safari lasted for about 3 hours and the road was only dirt and indescribably bumpy - even with holding onto the sides at all times, you were bounced all around - this is not for people with bad backs. We did see chital (spotted deer), black bucks (deer with very tall spiraling horns), mongeese (remember Rudyard Kipling's rikki tikki tavi or something like that) - one mongoose was stalking a cobra on the ground but we could not see the snake from our jeep, nilgai (large antelope), many peacocks, monkeys and lots of colorful birds - green parakeets, kingfishers (the bird not the beer), and others.
By the end of the 3 hours since we had not seen a tiger, our guide got quite talkative and funny - we joked that he now really working hard for his tip to make up for the lack of tiger spotting. Two Indian tiger guide jokes:
1) We passed by a small herd of deer with very horns, and he said that they were all male deer and out for a "stag party" - yuck, yuck
2) He pointed out a huge spider web in a nearby tree with no spider in it and he then said that the spider had moved to a new "web site" - yuck, yuck, yuck He got his tip anyway in spite of the bad jokes.
A little about my beautiful room here at the Nahargarh hotel : This is a huge, beautiful white, palace like building sitting down a long dirt road in the middle of nowhere. My room is huge - I measured it and it is about 40 x 38 feet with 20 foot high ceiling. There are 2 huge 4 poster carved wooden beds that stand about 3 feet above the floor with beautiful woven bedspreads. Around the room are 12 large arched stained glass windows that overlook a beautiful garden with fountains and a large pool. If I did not feel like lying down in bed, I could also choose to lounge on one of my two large brocade covered settees and get ready for dinner in my separate dresssing area with a large intricately carved dressing table with a mirror and a huge armoire in the corner. The door to my room has a large brass lock that slides shut - it is about 15 inches wide. The key is also brass and is attached to a brass bell which we have to carry around.
This afternoon we went to a women's cooperative - Dastkar - where rural women from all over can come to be trained to make handicrafts which are then sold there in the store. It is way out down a dirt road - the women are all so beautiful here with such beautiful saris on. I bought 2 beautiful hand painted bedspreads from the women who had made them and got to take her picture.
We
