Kanha National Park, MP – 5th to 8th Oct 2015

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Kanha National Park, MP – 5^th to 8^th Oct 2015

We are at the mercy of Club Mahindra to decide our travel plans. So, first week of September, we ended up choosing ‘Kanha National Park’ in Madhya Pradesh. We had heard a bit about it, but certainly didn’t know enough to block the dates and also book flight tickets within an hour (not putting any effort to get additional information). We wanted our kids to experience flight journey, so we went ahead and booked the tickets to Jabalpur which is the nearest airport, yet 150 kms away from our resort. That’s our (rather mine) habit ‘Take test from life and then learn’. Following lessons were learnt this time…

· Overall travel is 6 times costlier by flight (for 5 people)

· Our flexibility is totally lost (Anagha had to give up representing her school in badminton)

· Usually Kanha is open only from 16^th Oct every year. We are really lucky, they opened it on 1^st Oct this year.

· Safari has to be booked well in advance, again we were lucky to get morning safari for 6^th and 7^th Oct.

At least we could realize, we are lucky, such a nice feeling!!! My friend Indranil, who’s been to this place last 2 years, helped us during the preparation, thanks to him! He narrated few incidents involving bison, tiger etc. which made us look forward to the trip with lot of excitement!

5^th Oct – journey by flight + road
At least we enquired the parking charges at airport and decided to go by our car than booking a taxi. Anagha and Amogh were all excited about their maiden flight journey. Our flight took off on time @ 10:25 AM. Their thrill lived on till the flight took off and few mins after that. Half an hour later, both were bored. No room to move around, uncomfortable seating which didn’t allow them to sleep etc. All the things they were used to during a car journey were missing. Flight didn’t seem exciting any more (-:. Landing generated some excitement again, but not a great deal. We landed in Jabalpur ahead of time @ 11:50 AM. On the way from Jabalpur to Kanha, it was quite familiar road journey and they were fast asleep. Our cab driver Nandu was a chatter box, but gave us lot of information (Jabalpur, Kanha, Bhandavghad etc.) We stopped at MP tourism hotel for lunch, which was beautiful place. He also gave us information about how naxalism is vanished from this region through free education etc. Indeed, we saw lot of schools and school-going kids in this forest area which is border of Chhattisgarh, dominated by naxals few years back. The road condition wasn’t good, but according to Nandu, it is much better than earlier. We reached the resort @ 5 PM. I was using GPS, which took us on the right path but indicated that our destination is reached on the road in the middle of forest 3 to 4 kms before the resort. If you’re entirely dependent on technology, we will certainly end up on the road!!!

We ensured our next day morning safari to ‘mukki’ zone is on track. There are 3 zones ‘kanha’, ‘kisli’, and ‘mukki’. Kanha zone would only open from 16^th oct. Kanha and Kisli are closer to the resort and mukki far away, however all the time we’ll be in the forest and will not really be able to differentiate the zones ourselves.

Evening activity had singing, caroms and TT.

6^th Oct – Morning safari @ mukki zone

Driver Santosh Yadav was waiting in ‘open maruti gypsy’ at the resort @ 5:30 AM and we started our Safari on time. It was very cold, thanks to Indranil we had right clothing. Guide Aravind Bairagi got on to the gypsy @ the forest gate exactly @ 6 AM and we started our safari with several other vehicles. One has to go on these designated vehicles only, there is no provision to take own vehicles. They also allow only a limited number of vehicles/safari, and that’s the reason why we have to book it in advance. Advance booking can be done @ ‘mp tourism’ website.

Within 5 mins into the safari, we saw the bisons, deers, monkeys and even tiger’s fresh pug marks. Our excitement had no bounds… The guide explained how animals co-exist in the forest helping each other. We saw monkeys helping the deers by plucking leaves from the trees and throwing them down. Our guide also explained us how monkeys alert the deers about the danger (approaching tiger etc.) We stopped several times to listen to calls given by ‘wild hen’ etc. It was indeed a very deep and thick forest, which can scare you to death if the guide and driver aren’t around. Just their presence gave us lot of comfort even though even they didn’t have anything to defend in case of attack by any wild animal.

In the first couple of hours, we saw bisons, deers, monkeys, barasinga (endangered species of deers only found in this region), samabar deers, peacocks, big spider nets and wild spider etc. But the most sought after, the ‘tiger’ was still missing. Our spirits were high because, we still had 75%!o(MISSING)f safari left (including the next day). We had a break between 8 and 8:30 AM were many others also gathered together. There was school batch of students who had spotted the tiger! Waaw, we felt very happy and started off to that area. Immediately we saw couple of wild dogs right in front of our gypsy (which according to the guide was a rarity). What a pity, we couldn’t capture the picture…they were off to the wilderness within no time, even the next gypsy had no luck. It’s all about luck! Our driver and guide tried everything possible, but next 2 and half hours didn’t excite us much. There were many other animals that we saw earlier, but now our focus was only on spotting the tiger. It’s quite interesting, how fast we get bored of things! Amogh was mostly asleep after initial 1 hr or so, and towards the last couple of hours Anagha also slept. Grishma, my MIL and I were peeping deep into the woods all the time to try our luck!

Spent rest of the day at the resort, relaxing, swimming, playing housie in the evening (which again was profit making for usJ). Another family that went to mukki zone for evening safari was quite lucky to spot the tiger right in front of their gypsy for 10 mins or so. Next day our safari was planned for ‘Kisli’ zone.

7^th Oct – Morning safari @ kisli zone

Next morning we had the company of Rajesh Yadav and Mallu Singh as driver and guide respectively. Since we had seen most animals, the decision was to focus on spotting the tiger. Within 5 mins into the safari Anagha spotted a bug pug marks and we followed it. There were several pug marks going either way and Mallu Singh kept giving explanations about male and female pug marks etc. 2 hrs were went quite fast as we eagerly looked around for the tiger in the deep woods, but the hopes on spotting the tiger also was waning away @ twice the speed. I started wondering if tiger was spotting the gypsy tire marks and hiding just like we try to take clue from its pug marks!!! For next 2 hrs we did repeat of the same route where it seemed that guides were 100%!s(MISSING)ure of its presence. We did ‘short wait’, ‘long wait’, ‘slow movement’, ‘standing up’, ‘praying’ and what not…sight of tiger seemed as rare as seeking god! Motivated by the experience of other family previous evening, we thought of taking the evening safari, but no luck there as well. There is no evening safari on Wednesdays. There was one consistent view emerging from all around, i.e. summer is good time to spot the tiger as we can wait near a water source and it will certainly appear to quench it’s thirst. YES KANHA, INDEED WE WILL RETURN!

To sum it up, the whole trip had good balance of excitement and relaxation! People are warm and really committed to their duty. We had Nandu drive us back, but interestingly he was quiet during the return journey. Return flight was delayed by 30 mins, but it wasn’t bad. In the end we have made a conclusion, we’ll drive anywhere within a distance of 1000 KM, and take other modes of transport if it’s above that. Huhhh! What a relief!!!

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