Trip Kanha National Park
This time its not about me or my life or anything related to me. It is about KANHA, enough to understand what am talking about but let me write a couple sentences more. Kanha is a national park in state of Madhya Pradesh in India. It is one of the best managed parks in the country and is also one of the best places in the world to see a Tiger. I shouldn't be describing what can be seen in Kanha or how one can enjoy the place, there are many resources for that, some of which I would be recommending at the end for sure. While you read the blog do click here to see some of pics I clicked during the visit.
I'd write about the best part of kanha safri. During the evening ride we got to see fresh Tiger pugmarks. They were over the tyre marks that means either Tiger has walked from here recently or certainly with in 2 -3 hrs when all the vehicles from the morning safari were gone. We were excited, but since we saw many of them in the morning it wasn't not that high. We moved ahead found fellow tourists on their vehicles looking for a tiger. No calls no signals, nothing.
Tiger is certainly the biggest attraction in the park but it is not everything. During the safaris we could see many species which are really rare like couple of Wild dogs, Jungle cat, King Vulture (big white spots on the wings downside when it flew were marvelous), Serpent eagle, owlets and Barasinga (there is fenced area for barasinga inside the park). The Storks were really beautiful, combination of orange and black colour couldn't have been better. Added to this there were pugmarks of bear and leopard.
Well, soon our guide stopped the car and we were listening to alarm calls. The first one was a sambar's alarm call - A tiger is on move, we were excited. We stayed there for sometimes while other vehicles took different positions around the area (if one of the vehicle finds the Tiger, all others get the information, you never know which direction the Tiger would go!). There was another call, this time spotted deer's and everyone knew that Tiger is moving towards left. All Vehicles rushed to that direction, we too. My heartbeats were certainly more than 72.
Now when I think of that situation I remember the whole ambience was different. Of course our heartbeats were changing frequently with the increase in no. of Alarm call but that part of jungle wasn't like the ones we have been seeing since morning. We were full of fear and excitement and so was that small part of the jungle. That happens when the Tiger is on move.
We actually overtook others and stopped little ahead from everybody, the calls were many the langoors, deers etc but the special was of Tiger’s own. Yes we could hear its noise, I can't describe the feelings of people there but I was scared. There were more alarm calls from other places that means there were other tigers nearby too. Our guide said keep an eye around we may find another tiger coming out from the other direction. I was looking around rotating my neck like an owl. There was a big noise and we were told the Tiger has made a kill, our guide opined there are more than one tigers (based on the number of alarm calls) and may be they are at loggerheads over the kill but later on we found there was only one tiger or else there could have been more furious noises coming out of the place. Well so we waited around that place for quite sometime but Tiger did not come out. Gradually all the alarm calls were off, Tiger decided to stay with the kill. It was time to get out of the park.
The Tiger was supposed to get out of the bushes down the hillock to the plain and all of us could have seen the Tiger. The unlucky part came to us when fellow tourists (in other vehicles) became really noisy and couldn’t be stopped. Lakshmi my colleague at the office was really angry over their behavior. Her anger was right, may we couldn’t see a tiger because of noisy guys around. The analyst in me says there is a lot of thinking needed to examine their behavior. So as of now lets put the blame on their guide and driver. It’s their duty to control the tourists.
We didn’t see a tiger but really enjoyed the trip. That gives me two reasons to go back to Kanha over and over. It was a fantastic feeling there inside the park.
Logistics: Few things from my side will help you a lot. Remember wikepedia, Google, http://www.mptourism.com/ , Kanha Field Director's office No: 07642-205760 (keep on trying, the phone lines are sometimes bad), Lonely planet (as lakshmi says). The official website http://www.kanhatigerreserve.com/ does not work.
Search for the information you need there is a fun doing it. As Lakshmi found a video from Kaziranga where a Tiger attacked a mahout riding an elephant (can you imagine a a jump of 12ft height) Watch it here. You can also visit Laksmi's picasa page for more pictures from this visit and information about visiting the park.
Trips to kanha and other national parks in MP are certain and I know seeing a tiger in wild is also certain. Its the time that is not.
