Advertisement
Published: February 9th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Sisters
During a lunch break on a hill in the park The road to Bhandavgarh.... possibly the 7 most grueling hours of my life. Until the return trip.
We drove on windy roads, up hills, down hills, through bumpy, dusty town roads, speeding past trucks, cars, cows, whatever might be in front of us, swerving like mad men and honking the horn as frequently as back and forth motions would allow. I was NOT a happy passenger. With one forced stop, a la me, to get my legs back under me and remind my stomach of what it felt like to not want to vomit, we finally arrived in Mahua Kothi Lodge in Bhandavgarh National Park in the early afternoon. We had our bags brought to our adorable wooden cabins (overlooking fields of possible tigers and other wild animals) and then headed back down the wood chip path to the main lodge for lunch. Conveniently the 2 furthest cabins from the central lodge were allocated to us sisters, were they trying to tell us something?
So we had a massive lunch served, after which we went on game drive #1 of many. We drove through the park, in an open top 4x4, with blankets to cover us as it got
Deer
Not a tiger progressively colder in the early evening. We saw several deer, many species of bird, but no tigers. Day 2, morning and afternoon game drives, more deer sightings, several beautiful park scenes, and we heard many alarm calls- which we chased to try and get to where the tigers might be, but still no sightings. This went on during our whole time in the park! Once or twice we even saw the paw prints, or heard the babies calling to their mama to return to them, but those darn tigers just didn't want to be spotted. We spent one afternoon up on the top of a hill in a park, visiting an old fort. Here we saw some really cool falcons, that flew by us and broke the sound barrier! It was an amazing sound! The park was beautiful to see, and interesting to compare to the parks I've been in here in Tanzania. Despite the lack of tigers in our days, we had a wonderful time during our 4 days in the park.
We LOVED our hotel. The service was outstanding, and so personalized! We would come back from our evening drives, to have some tea or coffee and
Us in the Truck
Hoping that this would be the lucky drive... warm up by the fire in the lodge. When we got back to our cabins, a hot bath would already be waiting for us, with candles lit beside the tub and everything! The morning wake up call consisted of a butler coming to the door and bringing in a tray of tea and nibbles! On our last night there, our bath even had a tray of drinks beside it, and not just any drinks- our drinks of choice that we'd been drinking during our stay! That's how well they got to know us! We spent our New Year's Eve first partying outside around a big bonfire- the outside bit put a damper on the cute sparkly outfits that we had originally planned, but slap on some sweaters and a pair of leggings and the outfits still had sparkle a plenty! We danced around the fire with the original tribespeople from the park area, and they sang some songs. Following this, there was a massive buffet dinner for all of the guests. We brought our own party poppers, so we popped those and made ourselves stand out even more by not only having sparkly outfits on, but now also paper crowns
Paw Print!
We were so close!!! and whatever gifts we received in our poppers! After dinner, us girls retreated to the main lodge to sit by the fire and play games with the guides. We played some great rounds of pictionary, and listened to all sorts of music, ringing in the new year with hugs and kisses all around. It was a relatively calm, but super fun celebration.
On New Year's Day, we headed out after breakfast for the return drive from Bandhavgarh back to Khajuraho in order to fly to Delhi for the night. Enter Alex's personal Hell, part 2. Another windy, hilly, honk-filled, crazed-mad man of a drive... this time I was joined in my terror by most everyone in the family, Kim even opting to clutch a plastic bag in her hand for the whole ride, "just in case." I went with the pass out before the car gets moving, method. It worked for about 2.5 hours. We finally arrived at Khajuraho and flew to Delhi, where we stayed at the Trident hotel once again. The next day we flew up to Udaipur, where we got to see the state that our guide, Shiv, was from!
In Udaipur, we met Shiv's
Peeking Creeper
These creepy monkeys looked like gremlins... new wife, from an arranged marriage, and even had a lovely dinner at her grand parents' house, with her parents there as well. We toured the City Palace, and did plenty of damage shopping in the markets for crafts, fabrics, saris, etc. It was so interesting to see that the cows and elephants really do just wander in and out of the streets like the cars, people, and motorbikes do. We went into small local stores and got treated like beautiful celebrities once again, as we shopped for bangles galore to wear with our saris.
We, keeping up with the yearly tradition, then donned our new saris and went out on a boat in the middle of the lake, to take photos in various theatrics for our New Year's Card. It was loads of fun!
Sadly, on January 5, the family left me. They went on for another week of exploring around India, while I flew to Mumbai all on my lonesome. Not to fear though! Billy Meyers happened to be in Mumbai for a week's worth of wedding festivities, which were on their last night when i arrived! So, I got to my hotel, threw down my
Bath tub with drinks
Note: flowers in tub is cute and all... but not so good in actual practice. bags, and caught a hilarious little old fashioned taxi cab out to the other side of the city to meet up with him and various other UVA people! Turns out that the cab had no idea where he was going, even though when I got in at the hotel I asked him if he knew the place, and then had the door man ask him again... no idea. We drove around for 1.5 hours while he stopped every few blocks to ask someone else where the place was. Turns out, we had passed it about half an hour back. So when we finally got to where the party was, I refused to pay him the full amount, since the extra driving was his fault. We had a little "discussion," but clearly I won. I hopped out, and went to a really cool, waterfront bar to meet up with Billy for the evening! We hung out and had drinks, catching up on life, until I left around 11 to drive back to the hotel in time for my 12:15 pick up for the airport! Turns out, my hotel was right around the corner from 3 big Bollywood actors' homes, and there
Sparkles and a Bonfire
Key to any good New Year in a Tiger Park was a massive party in the hotel that evening, where several celebrities were expected to attend. I didn't see any, but it would have been cool.
I made it to my flight on time, totally cutting the 3 hour long bag security line at the airport because my guide and I lied and said I was flying business class and that I had an e-ticket so there were no papers to prove it. So we put the bag through and went straight to the check in counter! My flight was uneventful, and then I spent my 5 hour layover in Dubai using the free internet kiosks and drinking good coffee while reading a book, afraid that I'd otherwise fall asleep and miss my connection! As you can see, all went well and I'm safely back in good old Dar now!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.104s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0766s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
kim
non-member comment
no life....
without wife!