I'm sitting on the verandah of my little bungalow, sipping ice-cold beer after walking peacefully along the riverbank at sunset, looking for elephants, gazelle, possibly even a tiger. No luck - but so what!
This is a lovely place - it's a small eco-camp in Northern India, surrounded by trees, with a sparkling, fast-running river nearby. When I arrived at 7am, after a very long and cold sleeper journey from Lucknow, I couldn't believe it when the hotel manager said, "Would you like tea or coffee in your room, madame, or here in the lounge?" Talk about a culture-clash! It wasn't so much a room as a complete bungalow, with lounge, huge bed, marble-floored bathroom and loads of hot water. I had a bath, with bubbles, then breakfast, a short sleep and safari.
Six of us did our best to fill a huge 19 seater left-over from WW2. The driver had the same war-like mentality - 'We take no prisoners' - gunning the engine as we raced to the main entrance of the Jim Corbett Tiger Park. We raced along dirt tracks and tarmaced roads alike, which gave us precious little time to see anything, apart from a few deer and one angry elephant, which trumpeted as we raced past, then lurched into the jungle. We actually stopped, briefly, for a glimpse of crocs sunning themselves on a far away river bank - muggers and gharials - then raced off again, chucking up clouds of dust which would have choked any nearby tiger into submission.
On the way back, we almost collided with a co
llection of 10 safari vehicles, crowded with people in various stages of ecstasy and excitement - see the photo. Hidden in the undergrowth was a tiger, stalking a blissfully aware and rather beautiful little deer. (You can guess whose side I'm on here...) The tiger was visible for about 3 seconds but I was too busy sympathising with the deer to notice. I took a hopeful picture of where people said it was. We sat and watched for about 10 minutes, the deer moved around, ignoring its moment of fame and refusing to sign autographs, then for no apparent reason our driver took off at speed once more.
We came across the elephant - perhaps the same one? It moved sedately in front of us down the road but we must have got too close because it suddenly turned and charged us. We moved! I've never known a reverse gear go so fast. But within about 10 metres of us, the elephant lost interest and moved sideways into the river. No, we didn't stop to look.
I was up early the next day for a jeep safari. I was in the hands of an expert. He soon pointed out tiger pug-marks at the side of the road. 'Maybe one, two hours ago, not long." We stopped and peered into the jungle, but two hours is a long time in the animal world. We saw lots of pug-marks; tigers clearly use the roads as their person rights-of-way in the night.
We also saw lots of deer. I was re-classifying them as 'bait', ignoring my sympathies for the stalked deer of yesterday. I wanted action. Then the guide looked eagerly at the side of the road. "Stop!" He gazed thoughtfully at some pug-marks; to me they looked identical to all of the others, but he knew different.
'These are fresh - maybe 5, 10 minutes old. Listen!" A shrill warning cry screeched out in dense bush to the right of us. "Wild peacock. It has seen tiger."
And only about 50 metres back was a whole herd of bait - sorry, deer - grazing upwind of the lurking tiger. Perfect. Worth a wait. We scanned the bush with binoculars. The peacock screeched again, my adrenalin surged. We waited. We waited. Ten minutes passed; a few other safari jeeps stopped, then left. I started to admire the beautiful scenery. I drank some water and started to think about my bladder. I looked again for the tiger. Another five muinutes passed - and we gave up.
And that was as close as I came to spotting a tiger. But I will modestly admit that on the day I travelled to Tiger Camp, I actually saw THREE Indian tigers. In Lucknow Zoo.
This is a lovely place - it's a small eco-camp in Northern India, surrounded by trees, with a sparkling, fast-running river nearby. When I arrived at 7am, after a very long and cold sleeper journey from Lucknow, I couldn't believe it when the hotel manager said, "Would you like tea or coffee in your room, madame, or here in the lounge?" Talk about a culture-clash! It wasn't so much a room as a complete bungalow, with lounge, huge bed, marble-floored bathroom and loads of hot water. I had a bath, with bubbles, then breakfast, a short sleep and safari.
Six of us did our best to fill a huge 19 seater left-over from WW2. The driver had the same war-like mentality - 'We take no prisoners' - gunning the engine as we raced to the main entrance of the Jim Corbett Tiger Park. We raced along dirt tracks and tarmaced roads alike, which gave us precious little time to see anything, apart from a few deer and one angry elephant, which trumpeted as we raced past, then lurched into the jungle. We actually stopped, briefly, for a glimpse of crocs sunning themselves on a far away river bank - muggers and gharials - then raced off again, chucking up clouds of dust which would have choked any nearby tiger into submission.
On the way back, we almost collided with a co
llection of 10 safari vehicles, crowded with people in various stages of ecstasy and excitement - see the photo. Hidden in the undergrowth was a tiger, stalking a blissfully aware and rather beautiful little deer. (You can guess whose side I'm on here...) The tiger was visible for about 3 seconds but I was too busy sympathising with the deer to notice. I took a hopeful picture of where people said it was. We sat and watched for about 10 minutes, the deer moved around, ignoring its moment of fame and refusing to sign autographs, then for no apparent reason our driver took off at speed once more.We came across the elephant - perhaps the same one? It moved sedately in front of us down the road but we must have got too close because it suddenly turned and charged us. We moved! I've never known a reverse gear go so fast. But within about 10 metres of us, the elephant lost interest and moved sideways into the river. No, we didn't stop to look.
I was up early the next day for a jeep safari. I was in the hands of an expert. He soon pointed out tiger pug-marks at the side of the road. 'Maybe one, two hours ago, not long." We stopped and peered into the jungle, but two hours is a long time in the animal world. We saw lots of pug-marks; tigers clearly use the roads as their person rights-of-way in the night.
We also saw lots of deer. I was re-classifying them as 'bait', ignoring my sympathies for the stalked deer of yesterday. I wanted action. Then the guide looked eagerly at the side of the road. "Stop!" He gazed thoughtfully at some pug-marks; to me they looked identical to all of the others, but he knew different.
'These are fresh - maybe 5, 10 minutes old. Listen!" A shrill warning cry screeched out in dense bush to the right of us. "Wild peacock. It has seen tiger."
And only about 50 metres back was a whole herd of bait - sorry, deer - grazing upwind of the lurking tiger. Perfect. Worth a wait. We scanned the bush with binoculars. The peacock screeched again, my adrenalin surged. We waited. We waited. Ten minutes passed; a few other safari jeeps stopped, then left. I started to admire the beautiful scenery. I drank some water and started to think about my bladder. I looked again for the tiger. Another five muinutes passed - and we gave up.
And that was as close as I came to spotting a tiger. But I will modestly admit that on the day I travelled to Tiger Camp, I actually saw THREE Indian tigers. In Lucknow Zoo.
No comments:
Post a Comment