Our new morning normal – early wake up call, then wait in the lobby for someone to take us to the gate. Our normal guy-guide-escort-driver got us, took us to the gate and put us in the other jeep – this time with a couple from the Netherlands – well, he’s a biologist from Netherland, she’s French, but obviously living in Netherlands with him. We saw them yesterday on another jeep as we were wandering through the park. As we waited, another Indian couple comes up, looks at the jeep and the husband shakes his head. He won’t get in the jeep with us. We can see why – we have the back seat where the guide will sit with us. The biologist is 6ft 10in tall and his legs take up most of the front seat with his wife – so there is really only seat left. After some negotiation, the other couple leaves and it ends up just the 4 of us. Perfect!!!
And it is the perfect morning drive, even if it is fairly chilly this morning, we get off to a rather late start coz of the passenger negotiation and then the guide is a little late in joining us. But still. Off we went on Track 3 – so now we’ll have been on all the routes – to the other side of the park.
We chatted with the other couple the whole way (never got his name until the end of the ride, but I’ll start using it here; we never got hers!). Flemming, the biologist, is just as good as the guide in hearing things and noticing different birds and animals. Amazing talent. She is a photographer – just a pastime, but serious, with a huge camera – and is equally good at spotting things. We just go along, enjoying all the different info and bird and deer sightings. Oh, and we spotted a tiger paw print too! Well, Flemming did. We just took the photos.
As we rode, both the guide and Flemming gave us tons of information: I kept hearing this noise I thought was a bird, but it was actually a squirrel; there are only 50 jeeps allowed in park per day – 37 at Turia (which is our gate), 7 and 6, respectively at the two other core zone gates, Karmajhiri and Jamtara. As mentioned before, Flemming was really good at hearing the deer or the monkeys (or whatever!) sound out their alarm calls that a tiger was nearby. And our guide was incredibly good at knowing where the alarms were coming from, then directing the driver to head in that direction. So good our team was, in fact, we saw a tiger!!! Yes! Finally!
We were all so excited! This was Flemming and wife’s 5th game drive and the first time they had seen one. Our 4th – but still. This was what we had all come to see. And she was a beautiful specimen. Prowling through the woods and then crossing the road right in front of us We were absolutely perfectly placed. Seriously, we had great guides the whole time. But this guy? The absolute best!
Once she was across, we tracked her through the forest and up on a ridge. Then all the jeeps started “following” her along the road – there were so many jeeps, it was hysterical. And we had been in the prime position! Now we had a blast watching the jeeps tracking the tiger, all lined up in a huge row. Of particular interest where the ones reversing down the track at top speed. Crazy.
We were almost at the end of the line of jeeps, but our guide knew exactly where to go. Once we got to a crossing, we peeled off to the left, driving through the forest, literally all by ourselves. The other jeeps went in other directions. And lo and behold, not 20 minutes later, here she comes through the forest, aiming directly for us. Once again we are in the #1 catbird (pun intended) position! That beautiful beast walked straight at our jeep and crossed barely 15 feet behind us, looking directly at us as she crossed. Magical. Seriously, the wife and I were in tears, Flemming couldn’t stop shaking and Ed was just mesmerized. Day done. And we’ve still got 2+ hours to go!
So off we go, into the forest, learning all about the animals we were seeing – the Vrubel deer, Gaur – the name for wild bison. We spotted a white-eyed budger (who knew?). Spied a Crocodile tree – so named because of its rough bark that did look just like crocodile skin. Learned that the ghost tree changes color 3x – white summer, pink winter, green spring. Learned that there are different tiger habitats on different tracks: Track 1 has 5 tigers, Track 2 has 15 and Track 3 (where we are today) has a small number. There is also 1 black leopard in park, but he/she lives in another section – so no hope we’ll see him/her today. All this from Flemming, who has researched the heck out of this park because he says it is the best place to see tigers – and from our experience today? He’s absolutely right!
Stopping at the rest area for breakfast, we hit the bathrooms (lovely, seriously!) and snap pictures of the giftshop that is all about The Jungle Book and Mowgli and Baloo (so cute), then eat our breakfast atop the jeep just as we had the first day. Very fun – and still far too much food (although I do filch most of the muffins for a snack later)!
Back on the drive, we run across a beautiful Chital buck, the spotted deer, of which we’ve seen tons, but this guy basically poses for us.
Afterward, at the lake, we notice there are no animals around and the guide tells that all the prey animals have disappeared because the landscape here is not suitable for them to hide, they don’t feel safe. Well, that makes sense. It’s a beautiful area, nonetheless, and we enjoy the solitude there – even spotting a jackal across the swampy grassland.
On we go, passing a monkey on the side of the track, then more ghost trees, more chital, another tree with tiger claw marks (crazy wild!), an owl (really hard to see), various birds that Flemming and wife know the name of, but we’ve forgotten by now (although he did tell us about this great app for birds and bird sounds). We talk about those weird water/rain sprinkles that have been falling on us on and off through every game drive. Nobody knows what they are, we figured Flemming the biologist would, but no, he hasn’t a clue. Nor does the guide. Ok, I’ve decided it’s monkey pee! And I’m going with that!
And then we are done. Wow. What a fabulous last game drive – and thank God the guys at the resort did not listen to us yesterday when we told them to cancel it. A good snafu if there ever was one!
Back at the resort, showered and finalized packing quickly, then went out to the lobby to wait for our driver, who as is the norm, is late but finally shows up to drive us to Nagpur for our flight to Delhi. Along the way we just watch in amazement all the activity that is around the highway and roads. Totally roadside living on the highway with little shacks with shops and bars everywhere. And people. And trucks. And cars and scooters stopped on the side of the road at all these places. Wild. And unfortunately, incredibly hard to capture in photos.
Arriving at the airport a little before 3pm, the place is virtually deserted, with all the lights off. Huh? There are people sitting in chairs by the check-in counter, but no airline personnel. Hmmmm…..we know we are early, but still! I find a random IndiGo Airline guy and he tells us the check-in counter opens at 4. Oh. Ok, well, we’ve got an hour to wait until then. There is a lounge landside, but it is upstairs. Like literally up a huge flight of stairs with no elevator! We’ve got huge bags we are not lugging up there. Oh well. We’ll just have to hang out around the check-in counter for the hour.
The place starts to fill up closer to the 4pm hour, with a group of 4 walking in and then lining up at the check-in counter – we of course follow, not wanting to be at the end of what will be a huge line – only to have an airline employee tell them the counters aren’t open but the luggage security will open in 5 minutes. Ah hah! So the huge scanning machines that are sitting in the middle of the check-in area are for a purpose! Off we go, ending up 2nd in line, where our bags get zip tie locked (thank you! We really need locks for these new bags as the zippers don’t close as securely as our old bags) and send our luggage through. We get stopped to explain a couple of odd looking “devices” in the bag – one my epilator, the other Ed’s water pik. Explanation handled, we’re waved through, check in without an issue and head through security.
Security is way easier than Delhi and we’re in the departures area in no time. What looked like a teeny one-horse town airport turns out to be a large, real-equipped airport with gates, a large food court and even a bar! We find the lounge easily enough, sort of scare the hostess who is taking a food break inside, when we walk in, but after her initial embarrassment (which we try to assuage telling her not to worry at all – she needs to eat too!) we are in the lounge. I ask one of the attendants for beer and wine, nope, nada. He points me to a lounge/bar across the food court, and when asked if I could bring it back to the lounge he said yes. Unfortunately, the bar won’t let me take the alcohol out. The guy is really sweet and tells me to bring my husband over here to drink his beer – oh we’ll be back, don’t you worry! So, we settle into the lounge with our phones charging and grab a bite to eat, because we haven’t had any lunch yet and even though we know we’ll get food on the plane we are a bit nibbly.
Then off to the bar for beer and wine – fortunately Sula for me, yay, but once again no Kingfisher for Ed. It is just bizarre! But they do have Hoegaarden, which he likes, and it is far more reasonable than the Mumbai airport bar, let me tell you!
Out in the gate area, we queue up way early, because we know better, and hop on the flight almost first. The actual flight itself was the same as before, fast, efficient, sandwiches good – and we are in Delhi in no time. Off the plane, on the bus, we get to the baggage carousel and our bags are already on there! No way! Totally amazing – poof – we are out of the airport and in a very surprising turn of events – our driver is right there! Some things do work out right.
At the Rose Mallow hotel, Amit is there to meet us. Finally, a face with a name. He is so sweet, giving us all the information we will need for our train ride to Shimla tomorrow and then when we come back here on Thursday night. Briefing handled, we take our train tickets, bid him goodnight and go up to our room – OMG, it is the worst hotel. It claims 4 stars; we’ll give it 2 on a push. The room is badly in need of updating, no water bottles (even though there are supposed to be 2 for us every day), the phone doesn’t work so I can’t call down to the desk, I have to go down there. We try to order wine and beer for the room, oh, they have no wine. What? Supposedly they have this gorgeous outdoor restaurant on the roof, how can they have no wine? At least we could Ed some beer from room service. And I had extra wine I was hoarding. Ah well – it’s only overnight, she says as they tentatively get into bed for their early morning train wake up call…..at least the bed was decent.
Andiamo 