Tigers

 March 19th - Wednesday

Turns out this hotel wasn't that great, even for one night.  The showerhead was broken so the water came down in a single sheet.  Breakfast was very ordinary, basically one rice dish and toast to choose from.  Anyway we survived.

Today was another transport stage, with a 5.5 hour drive to Ranthambore.  We did however make an unexpected stop in Bundi, after Jeet asked if we wanted to look at another Fort. Taragarh Fort was built in the 1300's and within it's walls is Bundi Palace.  The palace was very elephant centric as there were statues all around, including some impressive carvings at the main gate. There was hardly anyone there, so it was nice to walk around without crowds,and we enjoyed the many rooms and courtyards. One room had some frescoes that were lovely. 



The ticketing system in  the various Forts and Palaces is interesting, often being checked multiple times as you walk around and occasionally on exit.  Today they noted the time we entered different sections and initially which country we were from, where we had come from that day and where we were heading.  Coming from Australia leads to the inevitable cricket conversation and sometimes light hearted ribbing about India beating Australia in the recent ICC Championship.  I have reminded a couple of them that we won the Test series.  One guy today was quite serious and asking me about the history of Australia and how old it is.  I mentioned James Cook and he got very excited and said that James Cook came to Bundi Palace - in 1606.  Either he got his dates wrong or it was a different James Cook :)

We left the Fort complex and found somewhere for lunch - was now around 2:30 - before continuing on our way.  We arrived in Ranthambore at 4:30


March 20th - Thursday

Very early morning as we were being picked up at around 6:00am for a safari drive through Ranthambore National Park.  At least we thought we were being picked up, after being told as much when we checked into the Hotel.  But the wires were crossed and whilst a heap of other people were picked up, our particular truck never turned up.  We spoke to someone from the hotel who made some calls, eventually telling us our truck was already at the entrance gate.  He organised a Jeep to get us to the gate and we joined the tour.  Jeet was disappointed we didn't ring him, but we had specifically given him the morning off and his 'WhatsApp' was showing he wasn't active.

In any case we joined the truck along with about 15 other people and drove into the park.  It is huge and split up into 10 'zones', with our morning's drive in Zone 3.  We saw a variety of animals including deer, antelope, peacocks and heaps of monkeys.  But the main reason for the safari was to see Tigers.  After about an hour we were starting to think we wouldn't see any, but then we came across three wandering out in the open.  Apparently they were 2 males and a female and still only cubs, but they looked almost full grown to us.  We stayed with them for around 30 minutes, as they walked next to and through a lake.  The trucks - and smaller jeeps - were constantly jostling for position, but we got some great views and photos/videos.  It was amazing to have them so close to us.





After the Tigers is was time to return to the hotel for a very late breakfast.  We then met  up with Jeet and went to the Ranthambore Fort, which strangely is inside the Ranthambore National Park, so it was back to (almost) where we came from.  This Fort was free to enter and although we spent an hour there, we didn't find much to look at, other than several rather rundown temples.


We returned to our room for a bit under an hour during which time we called the kids/grandkids.

Back out again at 2:00pm for another Safari, and this time the pickup worked well.  Jeet was on-hand in case there were issues though.  This time we went to Zone 4 and saw many of the same animals as earlier. We came across a tiger much sooner though.  Unfortunately it was lying down and - for us at least - it's head was hidden by a tree.  We stayed around ten minutes then moved further up the road hoping it would start moving, as it seemed to have an eye on some nearby deer.  Our guide was right and soon enough she started walking past all of the trucks and looping around the lake trying to sneak up on the deer.  We lost sight of her and took off to get around the other side of the lake ourselves.  This wasn't overly successful as, although we could see her, she was a very  long way off.  As a group we decided to head of and do some more adventuring.

We drove for a while seeing more peacocks and deer before eventually returning to where we had first seen the tiger and suprisingly she was back again - or perhaps it was a different tiger.  In any case we watched her for a while as she walked along the lake again, and really close to our truck,  then into the scrub heading towards Zone 3.  We started the journey home and after leaving Zone 4 and turning onto the main entrance road we saw another tiger.  We had heard stories of people who had done 6 or 7 safari's and not seen a Tiger and we had seen 3 on each of our trips! Amazing!









Back to the hotel for our last night in Ranthambore.

 




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