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Published: January 30th 2007
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Hey All,
It’s been a while but we’re finally back online! The internet has yet to reach tiger country! It’s been a manic week or so but excellent all the same.
I think we left you in Varanasi, due to catch the 9.30pm train on the 19th, so this is where we’ll pick it up.
Our journey from Varanasi didn’t quite go to plan. On arriving at the station we found our train to be 4 hours late. While not exactly ecstatic at the prospect of spending 4 hours in an exceptionally busy, smelly and generally manic station, the delay was not unexpected. Fortunately, in their wisdom, the Indian’s actually have dormitories at the station for stranded travelers like ourselves and at Rs50 per bed per night, we practically bit the guys hand off. Thus this is where we waited for the next 4 hours with the snoring, muttering, farting Indians and the giant rat that scurried around them collecting rubbish as they slept (much to our entertainment). Dan thought it was rather amusing when this same rat climbed into someone’s locker, until I reminded him it was ours and made him get it out!
When at
1am (after 4 hours of fighting off sleep for fear of being eaten by the rat or having our bags stolen) our train was delayed for a further 4 hours (and there was still no guarantee it would arrive then, if at all!) we decided to embark on the mother of all road trips, a 16 hour, 700km cross country rally to Kanha National Park in a 1960’s Ambassador with a top speed of 40mph (down hill and with a tail wind!). This was a hair-raising journey to say the least! Leaving Varanasi by road is not great at the best of times let alone in the dark and in the middle of one of the biggest festivals in the world.
Unless you’ve experienced the roads in India this all probably sounds a little over-hyped but for those of you that have, you’ll understand. The roads are full of pot holes so they drive on both sides to try ad avoid them. The cars rarely use their lights and the pedestrians, bicycles and cows/dogs/goats don’t have any anyway! Despite our best efforts to get our driver to take a break, he only stopped for 5 mins during the whole
journey. We can only assume that he was in fact a machine…RoboDriver. To put it simply, we were hailed as hero’s (a polite way of saying insane) on arriving at Kipling Camp!
Kipling Camp was excellent. We had a very lovely room with en-suite, hot water, mozzie nets and heater. It was still pretty cold at night so they’d put hot water bottles in the beds which was a really nice touch. The people we met there were great fun. There was a good mix of nationalities and everybody seemed to get on really well. There were two guys, Nick and George who were volunteering at the Camp while on their gap years (not bad if you can get it!) who made us feel very welcome.
We enjoyed a very good meal that evening and everybody sang Dani ‘Happy Birthday’ (thanks Hans and Alice!), which was a nice end to a somewhat bizarre day! The following day we even had a birthday cake for lunch, which was delicious!
Kanha is an absolutely stunning park. It is made up of lightly wooded grassland and Sal forest and as such there is far more vegetation than Ranthambhore, which on
the one hand makes it incredibly beautiful but on the other, very difficult tiger spotting terrain.
Our first safari on the following morning (21st) was absolutely brilliant. We were teamed up with Johan (the Crazy Dutchman) and Charlie & Hannah (a couple from London), who were extremely lucky! On their first safari the previous day they’d seen just about every animal possible and so hopes were high for us and we were not disappointed. When driving through the Meadow area we saw our first tiger (a 12 year old female named Link 7) about 100yds away but heading straight towards us. In fact she actually ended up walking about 6ft from the back of our jeep, which was absolutely amazing but scared the hell out of Charlie! We watched her walk off for another 5-10mins but caught up with her about an hour later and once again had an awesome view (largely due to Neil the naturalist’s skillful driving!). Our afternoon safari wasn’t as successful but we couldn’t complain!
Our second day proved to be even better than our first, not only did we see another tiger (first from elephant back and later in the jeep), we also
saw a sloth bear (baloo!), especially requested by Hannah (although the male lion wasn’t so quick to materialize!). Again our afternoon was pretty quiet, possibly due to the absence of C&H who were washing Tara (the Kipling Camp elephant).
On our third day we didn’t see a tiger but we did see two jungle cats and had an absolutely brilliant sloth bear sighting (much to the dismay of James and Laria who had been sent off in the wrong direction!). The bear came really close to the jeep and you could hear him huffing and puffing as he sucked up the ants while rummaging around in the undergrowth. James is a professional wildlife photographer while Laria runs a safari ranch in Kenya. As you can imagine, we had a few questions to ask them about their professions and it’s only served to increase our appetite for working in conservation. They also had some really handy photography tips for Dani and she’s now got her eye on another lens! They’re both staying out there for a month and we can’t wait to see the shots that they’ve got. They should be on his website in March, so check them out
(puts ours to shame!): www.JamesWarwick.co.uk
We had another tiger sighting from elephant back on our fourth morning. This time it was two different females with a spotted deer kill. In the afternoon we took time out from safari to wash Tara. She is undoubtedly the star of the camp. She was rescued from gypsies about 15 years ago by a chap called Mark Shand who then rode her across India to an elephant fair where he then passed her onto Belinda, Anne and Bob Wright, who set up Kipling Camp. It was a truly unforgettable experience. Dan and the guys swam with her and helped scrub her down with bricks…helps to keep her looking young and beautiful! After her bath she even cleaned her own toenails with a stick! And she certainly enjoyed the biscuits we fed her.
Our final safari was pretty uneventful with regard to tigers, though we did see a couple of jackals and a Barasingha stag (only found in Kahna) which was pretty cool.
And then it was off to Bandhavgarh…
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Amz
non-member comment
Wow!
Hi dan, dani. Hope your both doing well. You appear to be having an amazing time and having just returned from three tedious hours in a lecture, iam very envious in reading what you have both been up to. Take care and i shall hopefully speak to you both soon. Lots of love Amie and Tim