Tiger Safari

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We left Jodhpur and the busy city life behind us to spend a few days Ranthambole, a National Park known for its relatively large tiger population. If you want to see a tiger in the wild in India, this is the place where the odds are highest.

Access into the Park is highly restricted. The Park is divided into 5 geographic zones; each morning and afternoon, the Park allows 3 jeeps and 2 open-air busses into each zone. The jeeps and busses are driven by Park staff, with a local guide in tow. We were booked for a full day jeep safari on the first day, and a morning bus safari on the second day.

The full day jeep safari was amazing. We spent the whole day driving around the wilderness looking for wildlife. The morning was fine: it was very cold in the early morning, the jeep was unbelievably dusty and windy, and while we saw sambar deer, axis (spotted) deer, mongoose, monkeys, crocodiles, peacocks, and oodles of other birds, we saw no tiger. We lunched in an enclosed campsite area, and then headed out again in the afternoon, sure a tiger would be resting in camouflage in the sweltering afternoon heat. We eventually stopped at a guardman's campsite up on a hill in the Park, and sat and listened and sat and listened. Finally, after about an hour, we heard monkeys in distress, so we zoomed off in their direction, just in time to see an amazing tigress wandering around. She got very close, probably 30 feet from us, unfazed by the jeep and the crying human baby in the next jeep. She seemed to be doing nothing in particular: walking, sitting, laying down, walking some more. After she left us for the roadless wilderness, we happily headed back to the hotel.

The second day bus was a bust: more crowded on the bus, much shorter excursion, an obnoxious tourist group, and no tiger.

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