Ranthambhore: April 2008.
The old features on Ranthambhore on National Geographic were appealing: a beautiful forest around a serene lake punctuated with mystical mosques and palaces, reminiscent of a bygone era. A delightful mix of nature and royalty. But everyone said the same thing: “Ranthambhore? It’s finished. No tigers there anymore.” But our hopes were revived when Mayur came across some news about the Ranthambhore National Park on the internet; a good number of new cubs had been spotted. And of course, we’d already been bitten by the jungle bug (and especially the tiger bug) ever since we saw a magnificent dominant male tiger at close range at the Kanha National park in December 2007.
So finally we started with the bookings et all, with many of us having doubts about going to Rajasthan in the heat of April. But that was the best season to see tigers. (We’d secretly resolved to beat Mayur up if our summer trip to Rajasthan wasn’t rewarded with a good enough tiger sighting). After some (unwanted) excitement of reaching the station just in the nick of time due to terrible traffic conditions, we took the Jaipur Superfast from Bandra terminus at 2:45 pm. Our train journey was entertaining in more ways than one. A vendor recited surprisingly good shayari for us. That we’d carried about a ton of food from home did not deter us from buying food that stank of reused oil from every station. There was the usual card-playing too. I was royally teased as people said all I spotted from the train window were “DRONGOS”. :) We reached the beautiful Sawai Madhopur station the next morning to witness a delightful sight. We could not see a single House Crow. The typical perches, like electrical cables and poles were occupied by our favourites: the Drongos. The parapets of a bridge we took had Rose-ringed Parakeets sitting fearlessly on them. This was a good sign. :)
So finally we started with the bookings et all, with many of us having doubts about going to Rajasthan in the heat of April. But that was the best season to see tigers. (We’d secretly resolved to beat Mayur up if our summer trip to Rajasthan wasn’t rewarded with a good enough tiger sighting). After some (unwanted) excitement of reaching the station just in the nick of time due to terrible traffic conditions, we took the Jaipur Superfast from Bandra terminus at 2:45 pm. Our train journey was entertaining in more ways than one. A vendor recited surprisingly good shayari for us. That we’d carried about a ton of food from home did not deter us from buying food that stank of reused oil from every station. There was the usual card-playing too. I was royally teased as people said all I spotted from the train window were “DRONGOS”. :) We reached the beautiful Sawai Madhopur station the next morning to witness a delightful sight. We could not see a single House Crow. The typical perches, like electrical cables and poles were occupied by our favourites: the Drongos. The parapets of a bridge we took had Rose-ringed Parakeets sitting fearlessly on them. This was a good sign. :)
A six-seater dropped us at our hotel, Raj Palace, which had lots of trees planted around it. We noticed an interesting thing about the birds there: their refreshing tolerance to human beings. It was wonderful to see their confidence in us and the fact that we weren’t there to hurt them. Birds like Brahminy Starlings, Purple Sunbirds, Jungle Babblers, Robins, Red-vented Bulbuls, and the Common Tailor bird (the last two letting us come as close as a couple of meters to them) at the hotel gave us a preview to the things to come.
After a dip in the pool and lunch we were ready for our first trip to the jungle. A mini-canter that the hotel had arranged for us picked us up and some other people and we went towards the entry point. We were allotted zone no. two. We were told that zone three was the best for tiger sighting as it was adjacent to the lake. After roaming about and following alarm calls of monkeys in zone two, we finally made a quick (and unauthorized) entry into zone three and saw a big male tiger. We had to make a quick exit as there were many vehicles ahead of us and we weren’t supposed to be there in the first place.
Though there’d be a check mark against ‘Tiger sighted’, we were not satisfied. We hadn’t seen the magnificent animal to our heart’s content. We saw lots of wonderful bird-life though.
Crested buntings, Grey Francolins, Plum-headed Parakeets, Great Tit, Painted 
Spurfowl, Eurasian Kingfisher, White-throated Kingfisher, Indian Roller, Oriental Honey-Buzzard, Bay-backed Shrike, Long-tailed Shrike, Spotted dove, Red-collared dove, Laughing Dove, Eaurasian Collared Dove, White-browed wagtails, White-bellied Drongos, to name a few. The population density of Peafowl was so great that we came to the point of ignoring them like we’d ignore house crows and rock pige
ons here. There were Long-Billed Vultures hovering around. We saw numerous Rufus Treepies and witnessed another instance of the lovely friendliness of the birds there. Those treepies come sit on your outstretched hand and eat biscuit pieces off it. :) There were lots of deer everywhere; spotted deer(cheetal), sambar deer, chin
kara and the nilgai. We also saw the Grey mongoose, on beautiful rock formations against the bright setting of the ‘Flame of the Forest’ in full bloom.
The next day we were back at the Sanctuary gates at dawn, and were allotted zone 5 this time. We’d been categorically told that only zone 3 had any possibility of a tiger sighting. A long fight and argument and calling up of senior forest officials ensued. My father-in-law was our leader with the great Abhay Singh as his bodyguard. :) There were obvious holes in the procedure and we were determined to see some tigers. We finally got zone 3 and set out happily on tiger trail :)
We drove around the lake listening to alarm calls and the guide communicating with other guides. We saw amazing water birds: Painted Storks, Black-headed Ibis, Bronze-winged Ja
cana, Great Thick-knee (perhaps sitting on eggs), Black winged stilts, Sandpipers, Greenshanks(?), Little Cormorant, Black-tailed Godwits, Grey herons, White-breasted Waterhen, Cotton Pygmy goose, etc, etc.
We first saw a tigress walking through the grass. Looked like the spot she’d chosen to relax was no longer in shade and she’d set out to look for another spot.
Then we saw her again after sometime. This time she was stalking prey in a herd of spotted dear. We’d have witnessed a thrilling kill had her plans not been foiled by an alar
m call and a quick dispersal of the grazing herd. While this drama was unfolding on one side, one of her cubs could be seen sitting on the other side of the track. It was really ‘two-much’ to handle :). We saw her other cub across the lake, on the other side, and drove around to get a closer look. As we stood eyeing the grass where we thought he was, he came ambling along the lake and sat licking himself clean. He was just 10-15 ft away. He then walked 
on, marked his territory, and even defecated in front of us. :)It was a most fulfilling morning, and our sighting of lovely Marsh crocodiles was a perfect close to a morning well-spent. :)
We decided to explore the nearby ‘Balas’ Sanctuary in the afternoon. It is a leopard sanctuary and has reportedly no tigers. It is a beautiful jungle though and we enjoyed the ride, and the view from atop the hill that we rode up. Predictably, we didn’t see any leopards in the wild, but there was a leopard cub in captivity at the foothill. It was apparently found injured when it was very young and had since been taken care of by a foreigner who was a manager at some big hotel nearby. I guess he intended to return it to the wild someday. He’d got an enclosure made for the young animal and got some locals to care for it since he couldn’t be present there all day. Unfortunately, these locals would try to make some money off the little beauty by letting tourists hold it and pet it and get photographed while doing so. Anyway, the cub wasn’t all that tiny when we saw it and the above-mentioned foreigner was present there when we went. He must have got wind of what happened behind his back and he wouldn’t even let us look from outside at the thing feasting on a fresh chicken for too long. He said, ‘If you respect what we are trying to do here, please leave.’ Well, we did respect it, and so we left, but not without a tinge of sadness that a foreigner had taken up a responsibility that rightfully belonged to us; the locals, the authorities, you and me.
Late next morning, we had a Jaipur-bound train to catch (since we’d gone to Rajasthan, the greedy tourists in us wanted to see the typical forts and do the typical shopping too:)). So we decided to do a quick pre-breakfast tour up the Ranthambhore fort, which incidentally is the second largest fort in Rajasthan. (the largest being Chittorgarh). So we rode till the base of the fort (which is the same route that you take to go to the sanctuary). We were greeted by the lovely sight of a mixed bunch of pigeons, plum-headed parakeets and rose-ringed parakeets feeding on some grains lying on the ground. It was a riot of colours! Another interesting sight was that of a baby monkey trying to climb up hanging by the tail of a big monkey who was drinking the water dripping from a tap:). We climbed to the top of the fort. It
is really vast and offers a superb view of the lake below; the lake around which all life revolves in Ranthambhore. Incidentally, we got a very close look at a grand Alexandrine Parakeet which the guides had been referring to (and we’d been half-pretending that we could tell an Alexandrine from a regular Rose-ringed parakeet :)). There’s an old Ganesh temple and a water tank on top too. We met an old man who did a few trips everyday up and down the fort to get water that he carried on his shoulders. At the risk of sounding clichéd, such incidents really put us to shame at the way we take flowing water for granted and misuse it.
And then we made the mistake that I would request all nature-lovers not to make. We visited a city after experiencing the divine beauty of the forest. We did a ‘marking the check-boxes’ trip around Jaipur and tried our best to enjoy it. It wasn’t bad, just that we should have done it first and then gone jungling :)
And so after a day and a half in Jaipur we boarded the ‘Gareeb Rath’ after lunch. Strangely, we did not find the time to buy any goodies and we were completely devoid of grub. So we had to subsist on some cold snacks sold on the train as it didn’t have a pantry car facility (it was to start soon though). :( Our wonderful trip was unfortunately marred by a scary quarrel that almost came to the verge of blows at night with some fellow-travellers, who just couldn’t stop swearing. Anyway, we finally reached Mumbai the next morning; a little late, and a little weary, but totally content with our holiday :)
After a dip in the pool and lunch we were ready for our first trip to the jungle. A mini-canter that the hotel had arranged for us picked us up and some other people and we went towards the entry point. We were allotted zone no. two. We were told that zone three was the best for tiger sighting as it was adjacent to the lake. After roaming about and following alarm calls of monkeys in zone two, we finally made a quick (and unauthorized) entry into zone three and saw a big male tiger. We had to make a quick exit as there were many vehicles ahead of us and we weren’t supposed to be there in the first place.
Though there’d be a check mark against ‘Tiger sighted’, we were not satisfied. We hadn’t seen the magnificent animal to our heart’s content. We saw lots of wonderful bird-life though.
Crested buntings, Grey Francolins, Plum-headed Parakeets, Great Tit, Painted Spurfowl, Eurasian Kingfisher, White-throated Kingfisher, Indian Roller, Oriental Honey-Buzzard, Bay-backed Shrike, Long-tailed Shrike, Spotted dove, Red-collared dove, Laughing Dove, Eaurasian Collared Dove, White-browed wagtails, White-bellied Drongos, to name a few. The population density of Peafowl was so great that we came to the point of ignoring them like we’d ignore house crows and rock pigeons here. There were Long-Billed Vultures hovering around. We saw numerous Rufus Treepies and witnessed another instance of the lovely friendliness of the birds there. Those treepies come sit on your outstretched hand and eat biscuit pieces off it. :) There were lots of deer everywhere; spotted deer(cheetal), sambar deer, chinkara and the nilgai. We also saw the Grey mongoose, on beautiful rock formations against the bright setting of the ‘Flame of the Forest’ in full bloom.The next day we were back at the Sanctuary gates at dawn, and were allotted zone 5 this time. We’d been categorically told that only zone 3 had any possibility of a tiger sighting. A long fight and argument and calling up of senior forest officials ensued. My father-in-law was our leader with the great Abhay Singh as his bodyguard. :) There were obvious holes in the procedure and we were determined to see some tigers. We finally got zone 3 and set out happily on tiger trail :)
We drove around the lake listening to alarm calls and the guide communicating with other guides. We saw amazing water birds: Painted Storks, Black-headed Ibis, Bronze-winged Ja
cana, Great Thick-knee (perhaps sitting on eggs), Black winged stilts, Sandpipers, Greenshanks(?), Little Cormorant, Black-tailed Godwits, Grey herons, White-breasted Waterhen, Cotton Pygmy goose, etc, etc.We first saw a tigress walking through the grass. Looked like the spot she’d chosen to relax was no longer in shade and she’d set out to look for another spot.
Then we saw her again after sometime. This time she was stalking prey in a herd of spotted dear. We’d have witnessed a thrilling kill had her plans not been foiled by an alar
m call and a quick dispersal of the grazing herd. While this drama was unfolding on one side, one of her cubs could be seen sitting on the other side of the track. It was really ‘two-much’ to handle :). We saw her other cub across the lake, on the other side, and drove around to get a closer look. As we stood eyeing the grass where we thought he was, he came ambling along the lake and sat licking himself clean. He was just 10-15 ft away. He then walked on, marked his territory, and even defecated in front of us. :)It was a most fulfilling morning, and our sighting of lovely Marsh crocodiles was a perfect close to a morning well-spent. :)We decided to explore the nearby ‘Balas’ Sanctuary in the afternoon. It is a leopard sanctuary and has reportedly no tigers. It is a beautiful jungle though and we enjoyed the ride, and the view from atop the hill that we rode up. Predictably, we didn’t see any leopards in the wild, but there was a leopard cub in captivity at the foothill. It was apparently found injured when it was very young and had since been taken care of by a foreigner who was a manager at some big hotel nearby. I guess he intended to return it to the wild someday. He’d got an enclosure made for the young animal and got some locals to care for it since he couldn’t be present there all day. Unfortunately, these locals would try to make some money off the little beauty by letting tourists hold it and pet it and get photographed while doing so. Anyway, the cub wasn’t all that tiny when we saw it and the above-mentioned foreigner was present there when we went. He must have got wind of what happened behind his back and he wouldn’t even let us look from outside at the thing feasting on a fresh chicken for too long. He said, ‘If you respect what we are trying to do here, please leave.’ Well, we did respect it, and so we left, but not without a tinge of sadness that a foreigner had taken up a responsibility that rightfully belonged to us; the locals, the authorities, you and me.
Late next morning, we had a Jaipur-bound train to catch (since we’d gone to Rajasthan, the greedy tourists in us wanted to see the typical forts and do the typical shopping too:)). So we decided to do a quick pre-breakfast tour up the Ranthambhore fort, which incidentally is the second largest fort in Rajasthan. (the largest being Chittorgarh). So we rode till the base of the fort (which is the same route that you take to go to the sanctuary). We were greeted by the lovely sight of a mixed bunch of pigeons, plum-headed parakeets and rose-ringed parakeets feeding on some grains lying on the ground. It was a riot of colours! Another interesting sight was that of a baby monkey trying to climb up hanging by the tail of a big monkey who was drinking the water dripping from a tap:). We climbed to the top of the fort. It
is really vast and offers a superb view of the lake below; the lake around which all life revolves in Ranthambhore. Incidentally, we got a very close look at a grand Alexandrine Parakeet which the guides had been referring to (and we’d been half-pretending that we could tell an Alexandrine from a regular Rose-ringed parakeet :)). There’s an old Ganesh temple and a water tank on top too. We met an old man who did a few trips everyday up and down the fort to get water that he carried on his shoulders. At the risk of sounding clichéd, such incidents really put us to shame at the way we take flowing water for granted and misuse it.And then we made the mistake that I would request all nature-lovers not to make. We visited a city after experiencing the divine beauty of the forest. We did a ‘marking the check-boxes’ trip around Jaipur and tried our best to enjoy it. It wasn’t bad, just that we should have done it first and then gone jungling :)
And so after a day and a half in Jaipur we boarded the ‘Gareeb Rath’ after lunch. Strangely, we did not find the time to buy any goodies and we were completely devoid of grub. So we had to subsist on some cold snacks sold on the train as it didn’t have a pantry car facility (it was to start soon though). :( Our wonderful trip was unfortunately marred by a scary quarrel that almost came to the verge of blows at night with some fellow-travellers, who just couldn’t stop swearing. Anyway, we finally reached Mumbai the next morning; a little late, and a little weary, but totally content with our holiday :)
P.S: We couldn't add all the photos on the page, and not in large sizes anyway. Hope you clicked on the hyperlinks and saw some more of Mayur's photos :)
