The Kipling Pench Connection:  Pench, formerly called the Seoni Hills, is said to be the area upon which The Jungle Book is based.  There is a story from 1831 about a Lieutenant in the army who witnessed a human child nurtured by the wolves in the jungle. This allegedly inspired Kipling to write The Jungle Book.  Here’s the catch though: he never visited Pench!  Supposedly his father had visited the area and brought back the tales of the “man-cub” to Kipling, thus creating the imaginary forest and the characters who roam within. 

Up and at’em early today with our wakeup call at 5:30a to be on our first Game drive at 6a.  Too early for breakfast even – but everything is handled – we get a breakfast “package,” a huge picnic basket full of breakfast stuff for later on the drive.  Perfect.  We’re all set to go (and still taking our obligatory Tiger pictures of anything resembling a tiger, in this instance the statue in the lobby!).  Except, well, apparently, no one else is ready for us because we then sit in the lobby and wait while the front desk guys figure out what to do with us.  They are talking and mumbling to ourselves (not as friendly as the nighttime guys, but then again, they have way more work coordinating everyone to get to the park than the nighttime staff).  Finally a guide comes over and says come with me.  Okie dokie.

Our guy-guide-escort-driver puts us and the breakfast into our own jeep and rides out of the resort, passing the huge 30-person bus-like open air game safari that is loading other guests from the hotel.  Private tour it is!  Off to the National Forest gate we go along narrow dirt roads in the dark .  Arriving at the gate, the jeeps and game drive vehicles are lined up almost back to the resort!  Every Indian in Pench must be here!  Our guy-guide-escort-driver says wait.  Ok, wait we do.  A few moments later, he returns, takes us to another jeep and we get in with 4 others – 2 younger Indian couples, one of which we end up splitting up because we are in the back seat with the guide and one of them has to sit in the front – and off we go.

Once into the park, the jeeps peel off onto 3 different tracks and we are pretty much all alone on the one our driver and guide have selected.  The little narrow 2 track roads reminds us of Biltmore Estate hiking trails – it is same type of terrain, maybe a little less dense in some places (but then again, with the aftermath of Helene, it probably isn’t all that much different here!).   It is quiet, peaceful and just lovely to be out in the wilderness and pretty much the only jeep out here.  There are lots of deer, wild boar, peacocks, and monkeys, of course.

The guide does spot a tiger – but just his back and tail – way, way off in the distance (I never see it – Ed does – so I’m trusting his sighting skills!).  But we did see a tree where the tiger scratches to sharpen its claws. Continuing deeper into the park, we spot lots more wildlife, as mentioned above, finally stopping for a late (as in 9:30) breakfast at a rest stop. This too reminds of Gate 1 – breakfast spread out on the hood of the car – but not.  Same, same, but different! We eat our potatoes with our Naan bread and gulp down the bananas, then we are off again for the ride back to the Gate.

First we go down to the huge lake behind the rest area, then amuse ourselves with the monkeys on the side of the road.  Stopping again at a little lake, we watch deer and birds and enjoy the general tranquility of the area.  It is weird though – it is like the driver is deliberately delaying our return.  It is supposed to be a 4 hour drive and we’re already at almost 5 hours – which is fine by us, but it is a little odd.

Finally, the driver takes us all back to gate, and the morning drive is done.  Now what do we do?  We don’t have any idea how we are getting back to the resort, as the other couples have left the jeep, but the driver tells us to “sit.”  So we do! Hey, we’re good at following instructions! He walks away, eventually returning and driving us back to the lodge.  All’s well!

We’ve got about an hour to kill before lunch, so we hang out on our front porch area watching the wildlife in the trees behind the lodge.  We didn’t know that we were supposed to leave our keys with the front desk when we left for room cleaning, so I went up and gave them the keys to clean now, thus, we are out of the room with nothing much to do until lunch.  Eventually we just go to the dining room early and sit there, which works out great, because the manager sees us and comes over to talk for a long while.  Really nice plus he has coffee brought to us as well, which is even better!  The buffet eventually opens and we get a plate, but then they start bringing us food that they think we will like that isn’t spicy. They are so sweet!  Vegetables and a creamy chicken dish that is excellent – oh, yeah, and the French fries!  We are stuffed.

After some relaxing in the room, we head to the lobby for our afternoon drive at 2:30, this time getting on the abovementioned big resort van, which then drops us off at the gate.  We end up in another 8-passenger jeep, along with the really sweet couple and their 2 kids whom we have been talking to at the resort and in the big jeep.  There is another middle-aged couple along with what turns out to be a great guide and driver. 

Off we go, down the same track as we did in the morning, all by ourselves, but turning off at some point to some different areas – we think.  You get a little confused and turned around in here after a while!  For the first few hours, we enjoy watching the same animals as in the morning:  Monkeys, Deer, Peacocks, Owls (that you can barely see – I added an arrow to help!), oh, and a tree where we could see Tiger claw marks!  Cool, that makes 2, and probably the closest we’ll come to seeing the Tiger!

And then, wonders of all wonders, we see a leopard!  Way out through the trees, sleeping on a rock. Totally cool and very rare – or at least that’s what the guide told us.  Most of our photos aren’t that great – but you can sort of see him/her out there between the trees.

Excitement done for the day – the rest of the drive is nice, past neat rock formations, out to the big lake again, this time for a rest stop in a “rustic” outhouse (as in 3 walls and some rocks for the boys, a hole for the girls – pass!), then back to the gate, past more ponds, peacocks showing their plumage, deer, monkeys – plus this huge flock of birds flying all around these trees.  We sat there forever just enthralled watching them.

Then it was back to the resort where we had 2 hours to kill before dinner – and we used the time to take yet another photo of a Tiger – this time the awesome 3D pictures in our room that seemed to follow you everywhere you went.  Then it was shower, buffet – again very good – although we did tell them no French fries because we are still so stuffed from lunch!

At dinner, one of the waiters asks if we are going on a morning drive, we say yes and when asked if we want anything different for breakfast, we just tell them no potatoes. They were good, but don’t need them. The naan and bananas are perfect for us in the morning.

Then it is off to bed because we have our 5:30 wake up call for our next game drive in the morning!