Advertisement
India and Nepal
Sally Evers & Nick Griffith The lure of spotting tigers in the wild was the draw to Ranthambore National Park, just a few hours from Jaipur by train. Ranthambore is supposed to be one of the best places in India to see Tigers in the wild and we were not disappointed!
Our arrival meant we could do a safari that same afternoon, despite the truck arriving a little late we got to the park and started the search. Ranthambore is an old Maharajas hunting area and is overlooked by another amazing fort and has various lodges and ruins around the park. The old hunting lodge is now lived in by the "Lady of the Lake" - resident tiger and her 3 cubs. Quite ironic really.
We saw the tigers from accross the lake and only with the trained eye could you make out that they were tigers! Still it was pretty cool to see them straight way on arrival into the park as some trips are completley futile! Having looked at the tigers lying down for awhile we persuaded our driver to move on and search for more!
The park has hundreds of deer, birds, monkeys, a lizard or two
and plenty of tigers wo had all decided to hide for the rest of the day! We headed back to our hotel and just before the entrance/exit heard there were tigers right around the corner. The only problem being our truck did not have the permit to go into that part of the park! Nevertheless he drove in and out quickly - not enough time for a picture but we both got a glimpse of tigers close up in the bush!
The next day meant another opportunity for a safari - the same thing happened as the day before, the "Lady of the Lake" was there with her cubs from across the lake and we drove around seeing nothing else of note! All in all a good experience but watching nature is best done on television!
Next stop was Delhi to get our flight across to West Bangal and Darjeeling. We'll write about Delhi in our final blog.
The flight was fine despite the fiasco at the airport commonly known as check in - it seemed that it was day one of the airline and no one had a clue!
We did eventually
get on board and the arrival was fine. We then took a taxi and jeep up into the Himalayas for the first time.
The scenery on the journey was great and completely different from anything we had seen before in India. Steep hills with forests, tea plantations, small villages and the narrow guage railway following the road.
Darjeeling was once the favoutrite spot for Colonials to holiday and is ofcvourse famous for its tea. Now it is pretty similar to most Indian towns of its size but has the backdrop of mountains (which we never saw due to clouds) and a slightly different feel due to the tibetan and nepali population.
The town is situated on a ridge which makes walking around quite tiring. We spent one day at the zoo and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. Both were really good and the best place to spot tigers anywhere!
The mountaineering institute was set up by Sherpa Tenzing after his successful ascent of Everest in 1953 with Hillery. Tenzing originally from Tibet, then Nepal, spent most of his life in Darjeeling and the mountaineering institute is his legacy. It had a good museum on
Tiger
Wild or Zoo?Everest, which had some of his equipment from the successful expedition and is also a training centre for climbers of all abilities. Tenzing is buried here and there is a statue of him standing a top Everest on his grave.
The rest of the time spent in Darjeeling was hoping for a clear day and views of the mountains as well as walking to the Gurkha soldiers memorial, looking and trying to book tickets on the toy train, drinking tea, and eating momos!
We watched the FA cup final in a pub that could have come straight from the UK in the sixties whilst eating fried eggs, chips, and baked beans, A real treat and break from Indian food.
The trip to the Nepali border was pretty straight forward but long - and a 16 hour bus to Katmandu awaited us on the other side. More to follow on Nepal and then one more blog on our last week or so in India. The we'll be home to bore you with the things we forgot to write about!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.52s; Tpl: 0.026s; cc: 34; qc: 130; dbt: 0.3998s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
