Just realised I never linked the pictures yesterday. See here for complete photoset.
After my lie in until 6AM I got woken up by a rap on the door. Tea or coffee? I’ve succumbed to coffee once again. It’s so good in India being grown and roasted here. The jeep came a few minutes later to take us back to the jungle. A few deer and peacocks today, nothing more. We were treated to a ride on the river in a round boat made out of bamboo and tarpaulins. We saw cormorants, egrets, one kingfisher which I couldn’t spot and lots of beautiful scenery.
We were taken directly to breakfast at 9. Mixture of east (dosas, halva, rice, sambar) meets west (toast, jam, eggs, potatoes). It was good.
I spent a nice, leisurely afternoon sitting outside on my patio overlooking a cricket game. Tonight we went back into the jungle by boat. We took a motor boat up the river to watch for game on the banks. There were 2 boats and the other saw elephants. Unfortunately there were none for us to see.
What we did see though was an amazing 2 more tigers! These guides have a sixth sense as to where they will be. Our boat driver saw some movement on the river bank and idled up slowly to the shore. Sure enough. Tiger! Unfortunately we had part of a corporate group with us and they weren’t impressed and wouldn’t shut up until Neha, one of the women on the boat started yelling at him. You go girl! In fact, I was impressed by both Neha and Jyothi...more on them later...but the Durga really came out in them.
The second tiger was fleeting and all we really saw was his hind quarters as he ran away. We started to come away and about 200 meters later there was another one! We saw this one in it’s entirety and he posed for us. First full on face then profile. Amazing to say the least! He was only about 20 meters away. The other boat got so excited they ran into us!
My pictures came out blurry but the one above was caught by Pranev (not sure I spelled his name right). A very smart, very charming 11 year old Indian boy who wants to be a chef and likes Chelsea Football Club and Iron Maiden. Not exactly a combination I would have expected...especially from someone his age.
The weather was nice and the 6 of us (Pravev’s parents Ajit and Jyothi, Rakesh and Neha and myself) intended to go to the campfire. We made it as far as Rakesh and Neha’s cottage for a drink (my first in months) and then to dinner. The 6 of us ended up going on 3 of the 4 safaris together (only Ajit and myself made the last one) and got to be friends. I really enjoyed meeting all of them. Ajit and Jyothi are from Bangalore. He’s an accountant for HP and she’s a writer for a marketing company. Rakesh and Neha are from Pune and he owns his own business and she is a psychologist working for a media company. Meeting them made my trip even more enjoyable and confirmed what I’ve always found before that travelling on your own can be quite fun.
Rakesh and Neha went on to Mysore and I actually caught up with them for breakfast this morning (Monday). They’ve invited me to visit them in Pune, which I’d really quite like to do schedule allowing.
Pranev, the 11 year old Iron Maiden fan proud as punch after taking the "money shot" of tiger #3.
Me, Pranev, Jyothi, Ajit, Neha, Rakesh on our last morning.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment