Tiger odyssey

Whew. What can I say about Bandhavgarh? It was the trip of a lifetime. It was a dream come true for Ads of course, given his previous obsession with all manner of big cats. We had booked, postponed and rebooked this holiday so many times that I was despairing of ever going. Until a week before, S did not confirm to me whether I should cancel (yet again) or pack. Fortunately, the stars aligned and a week ago, we were on a train bound for Jabalpur in MP. Thanks to a last minute tip-off from a friend, I had hastily included Jabalpur in the itinerary and we were spending a few hours there before heading to Bandhavgarh.

Jabalpur is like any other Tier 2 (or 3?) town in the country but that's not why we were there. We were there to see the Dhuandhar falls and the Marble rocks at Bhedaghat. I thanked my friend from the bottom of my heart for tipping me off because....well....here are the pics...see for yourself!

 

The Narmada. These falls aren't the tallest or biggest but the volume of water is significant.

The water cascading through the gorge

A more peaceful avatar of the Narmada, at Bhedaghat.

Anybody remember Kareena Kapoor's song and dance in the movie "Asoka"? Well it was shot here.

The rocks are brown, blue, light pink and finally pristine white marble!

After a quick lunch (which was promptly thrown up by both kids within a couple of hours!), we started the longish drive to Bandhavgarh, passing through some unexpectedly pretty countryside. Farmland on both sides of the road was circumscribed by rolling meadows and low hills with small ponds appearing in between. The biggest surprise was how sparsely-populated the region was. Add to that the general aura of prosperity and the smooth road we were whizzing on, and I could almost imagine it to be the countryside of any First World country!!! Incredible India never ceases to surprise.
We reached our resort around 7 pm by which time it was pitch-dark. The property is inside the forest, occcupying about 25 acres of land. There are enough wild animals roaming around the property for us to need an escort every time we had to go back and forth between our cottage and the common areas such as the dining room and reception. The sky was crystal clear and we could actually see countless STARS!!! Imagine! It was most thrilling to identify constellations and bask in the clear unpolluted air.

View of our cottage - can you see the two chairs on the deck? Perfect for basking in the sun!

A few words about this place (let me know if you ever travel to Bandhavgarh and I'll let you in on my secret). It had wonderful reviews on tripadvisor, my trusted travel buddy and while they were marginally more expensive than many of the other resorts, they more than made up for it by their impeccable service, mouth-watering food and extensive knowledge of the forest and its wildlife. It was more like an intimate homestay than anything else. Ads in partcular had a wonderful time outside the safaris since he was able to have long conversations with the owner-manager about everything from the jaw movements of a tiger, mating calls of the spotted deer to raptors and at one point they were even talking about the 2013 Oscars!!!!! The owner is UK born and bred with strong family ties to Tanzania and an encyclopaedic knowledge of African wildlife so obviously I picked his brain for the best spots to view wildlife in Africa and so on which has been filed away for future use :)
The major crib of most people who run tourism ventures in the area is the short-sightedness, incompetence and ignorance of the bureaucrats who are in charge of conservation efforts and the ever-changing rules and regulations that make wildlife-viewing so much harder than it needs to be. The common thread ruunning through the conversation is a fundamental dispute about whether tourism is good for conservation or vice versa. Clearly sensible tourism plays a major role in policing the forests as well; if tourists were not around, the poachers would have a free hand. A shabby, fluctuating and person-dependent conservation and tourism policy is doing far more harm than good to both the tiger and the environment it lives in. Sadly, this is the case in most of the wildlife reserves in the country. I don't have experience of any countries outside the US and India but there is definitely a lot that can be learnt from the fantastic way the US Parks Service does their job (budget cuts and the never-ending criticism nonwithstanding).
The forest is incredibly beautiful with dry deciduous vegetation, stunning blue cloudless skies and countless birds, reptiles and mammals which can more often be heard rather than seen! We had to wake up at 5 am everyday, fortify ourselves with nothing more than a cup of tea or hot chocolate. The open jeep was well-provided with hot-water bottles and thick blankets which were huge essentials in the biting cold. The roads inside the park are horrible and jolting along these for 4-5 hours, twice a day, is bad for the back and bones of two people on the wrong side of 30! The safaris were themselves pretty interesting. We would be jolting along a mud track and suddenly (based on alarm calls of deer, monkeys and birds) the driver would speed off like a maniac with no regard to life or limb, gathering more jeeps crammed with hopeful and bemused tourists like us along the way. We would screech to a halt somewhere where they expected to spot a tiger and wait there in pindrop silence for several minutes (or an hour, or two). We did not have any luck with the first two safaris but managed to catch a tigress and her 4 cubs on the third one!
No one said meeting a tiger in the wild is easy!! We saw wild boar, jackals, langurs, rhesus macaques, deer (sambar and spotted) and plenty of birds but missed the elusive leopard. Ads loved the entire experience and is already plotting vacations to other reserves. It was a little hard on Y though; while she managed the strenous schedule with loads of grace and enthusiasm, it was a bit much for a 4 year old to handle! Fortunately she did manage to catch up on sleep during the safaris, uncomfortably perched on my lap or sprawled out on the backseat of the jeep.
I think the wildlife bug has bitten all of us - not good for our pockets at all :)