Advertisement
Published: October 24th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Day 11 - Kanha-Agra
We arrived at 5.45am and had until 10.30am to spot a tiger which is when the park closes for the morning. The unlucky bus was split up with Dan and Nicky going in another jeep, and Mark coming with us instead. We drove straight to the midway point to register our jeeps for the tiger show, if their was going to be one, and we were jeeps 13 and 15 which the guide said was an okay place to be in. We seemed to spend the first part of the morning driving to different parts of the park where tigers had been previously seen and spent 5-10 minutes waiting for the tigers to come to us. No surprises then that they didn't. We didn't know what was more frustrating, driving round looking or sitting and waiting. Occassionally, a group of other jeeps with Indians in would turn up and talk so loudly that a tiger would have never come out of the undergrowth. It looked like our luck was continuing.
We then split from the other jeep and went off in a different direction from them, and when we stopped at the breakfast stop, we
didn't see them. We wondered whether this was because their luck had changed, and they we actually sat next to all the tigers in the park whilst we were still looking and hoping. Time was running out, and we asked our driver and guide whether there was going to be tiger show that day, and they at first said maybe, which raised our spirits. Breakfast was a slight improvement, with cheese and tomato, and pepper, eggs and juice. We got back into our jeeps, and asked again about the tiger show, and they said no. We had reached the last chance saloon with approx 1 hour left, and the driver set off. Each jeep we passed we asked if they had seen a tiger, and no-one had, until we reached a crossroads where we pulled alongside two jeeps. The guide asked, and the driver said yes and our driver then set off at speed along the path they had just come down. We were unsure as to what was going on as it was now 10.15am, and we assumed that we had missed our chance and the driver was heading for the exit.
We rounded a corner, and in
Tiger Cub
(you can just make out mum behind) the path were a group of elephants one of which came round the front of our jeep and Kathryn and Emily stroked it thinking this was a nice end to the safari. The mahoot beckoned Russ to climb aboard, and put down a wooden step for him to climb up to off the back of the jeep. After sitting down, he motioned Kathryn to come up as well. Unfortunately, Kathryn missed her footing and slipped and is now sporting a substantial bruise on her leg. He then said there was room for one more, so Emily joined us. Adam and Mark got on another elephant and they set off into the jungle. With massive beams on our faces, we thought this was a great end to the holiday. We soon realised that in fact they were hunting for a tiger in the area and the elephants spread out to look. The mahoot had a walkie talkie which seemed to be quite animated, and the elephants were guided by a combination of him patting the elephant constantly on the head with his feet, voice commands and a pole. The mahoot distinctly asked the elephant to go right, but not in time
Sleeper Train to Agra
(Russ,Adam,Emily,Nikky,Dan,Kathryn and Jackie) to avoid the tree it flattened in it's path. He also used the pole as a means to move the huge spiders webs that were in the way, and some of the spiders fell onto the head of the elephant. We hadn't been going very long when Mark and Adam's elephant stopped and we noticed Mark was tkaing pictures. The mahoot manouvered the elephant round and to our amazement there was not one but two tigers, a mother and her 1 year old cub hidden deep in the jungle under a bush with the remains of a spotted deer kill. We could clearly see the cub, but the mother was laid down resting and briefly rolled over. We got the chance to get pictures and then headed back out of the jungle to the jeep. On the way back, Kathryn had a brief fit when a massive spider dropped between her and the mahoot and ran between them, and Russ had to brush it away.
By the time we got back to the jeep, more jeeps had arrived, and some people had boarded elephants and were heading into the jungle with beaming smiles as we gave them the thumbs
up. We headed back to the exit, and passed lots more jeeps heading to our tiger sighting, none of which were our other jeep. We could only hope that they had managed to see a tiger themselves, as we knew how disappointed Dan and Nicky would be. As we were getting towards the exit, a yellow jackel crossed the road, and the guide said again this was another rare sighting. We laughed, as everything was rare! We arrived back at the hotel and tentatively asked one of the other group member if they had seen a tiger, and to our relief they had. They had seen a large male cross the road in front of them.
We had a quick turnaround, just enought time to shower and repack, as we were catching the overnight train to Agra which was a four hour bus ride away. The first part of the bus ride was taken up with the showing of each others photos, comparing tigers seen and recounting every move. Although we were the last group to see a tiger, we felt that the elephant ride had been one of the highlights of the holiday so far.
We stopped at a hotel for a late lunch, and they also provided a packed meal of sandwiches (not pepper) for our train journey as there was no buffet car. When we arrived at the station, our train was waiting and we quickly found our seats for the journey, and someone commented that it looked like prison! We were booked into 2nd class sleeper which has 6 bunks per section, and the bottom ones are the seats duing the day. We passed the tikme by playing "parlour games", chinese whispers and charades much to the amusement of the rest of the Indian passengers. At about 8pm they came round with sheets, pillows and blankets for the beds, and at 9.30pm we settled down for the night and went to bed.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.219s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 16; qc: 92; dbt: 0.1877s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb