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Thursday 8 February 2018

Ranthambhore: Rajasthan Part 13

India
Rajasthan
This post covers days 15 and 16 of a 16-day journey around Rajasthan.

The size of Germany, Rajasthan is the largest of India’s 29 states. With the Thar Desert covering the north and west it is one of India’s less densely populated states, though with 200 people per km² (the same as Italy) it is hardly empty.

Ranthambhore, the last stop on the circuit

In the 11th and 12th centuries the rise of the Rajputs created some 20 or so petty kingdoms ruled by Maharajas - the ‘Rajput Princes’. These kingdoms, at first independent, later vassal states of the Mughal or British Empires survived until 1947, when the Maharajahs led their ‘Princely States’ into the new Union of India, creating Rajasthan (the ‘Land of Princes’). The rulers became constitutional monarchs until 1971 when the Indian government ended their official privileges and abolished their titles. ‘Maharaja’ is now a courtesy title, but most remain leading members of their communities and some are still immensely rich. Several, like their British counterparts, have supplemented their income by turning forts and palaces into tourist attractions and hotels.

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Hunting Big Cats in the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

07-Feb-2018

Bundi to Sawai Madhopur

The Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve is a 3-hour drive from Bundi. It might have been a little quicker if Umed had believed the road signs rather than his sat nav, but a final circular tour of Bundi was enjoyable. Despite some narrow roads we reached Sawai Madhopur around midday and checked in to one of the half a dozen or more resort hotels lining the road to the nearby Tiger Sanctuary.

Narrow roads between Bundi and Ranthambhore

Being on full board we were soon making our way past the swimming pool to the huge dining area for the lunchtime buffet. It was not an experience we would care to repeat, though we were doomed to do exactly that in the evening. I will whine about it at greater length later.

Ranthambhore Tiger Hunt (1)

After lunch, we joined the scrum in the lobby as large groups, small groups, couples and individuals were assigned to buses and jeeps for tiger hunting. The proceedings appeared chaotic but despite the apparent disorder everybody was on a list somewhere. We were among the last to leave, which was frustrating but we appreciated the benefits of staggering arrivals at the reserve.

Passing a camel cart as we leave the hotel

We set off in a jeep with driver, guide and three other passengers, the five of us in two tiered seats so we all had a good view. Beyond the town we paused at one of the reserve entrances to be signed in. Each vehicle was allocated to one of the seven or eight sections of the reserve, thus spreading everybody out and avoiding the self-defeating anarchy we experienced at Yala in Sri Lanka. Whether any of the resident tigers are visiting your section is a matter of luck, we had failed (twice) at Nagarhole Park much further south, but Ranthambhore offers the best tiger spotting opportunity anywhere in India so we were cautiously optimistic.

Cautious optimism at the reserve entrance.

We set off and soon encountered an owl; not quite a tiger, but a good start.

An owl watches us enter the ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Ten minutes passed before we saw the first of many spotted deer.

Spotted deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

At one of the tiger’s favoured watering holes we sat and watched, but all we saw was two more spotted deer (not looking particularly nervous) and a great egret.

Tiger's watering hole with spotted deer and an egret, but no tigers, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We saw lots more spotted deer….

Spotted deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve
I have dozens of pictures of spotted deer, and will spare you any more

….and some larger sambar deer but no sign of a tiger.

Sambar deer, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We toured around, waiting and watching at likely spots. Occasionally we encountered other vehicles and the guides swapped information – mostly telling each other there were no tigers in our sector today. The countryside was beautiful….

Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

….and we encountered an impressive sambar stag…

Sambar stag, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

… and another sambar demonstrating that the best leaves are always just out of reach, but no tigers.

A sambar stag finds the best food is just out of reach, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After 90 fruitless minutes we took a break, driving into a clearing where several other jeeps had collected. The air was full of large, colourful birds, swooping over the cars and sometimes landing on them while their fellows sat bickering in the trees. The rufous treepie is one of the more brightly coloured and musical of the crow family with a three-part call consisting of a bark, a higher wheedling reply and occasional manic laughter. They are noisy but it is strangely un-birdlike and I was embarrassingly slow to connect the sounds and birds.

Rufous treepie, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Legs duly stretched we resumed our hunt, but for the next hour and a half all we saw were more deer and a male nilgai, a large, rather ungainly, antelope also known as 'blue bull'. The males are recognisable by their small horns – distinctly different from deer’s antlers.

Male Nilgai, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Leopard

We returned to the entrance, hoping that tomorrow morning’s trip would be more productive. Several jeep-loads were being signed out and I do not know whether it was a driver, guide or tourist who first spotted what appeared, possibly, to be the head of a leopard sitting above us on a crag a hundred metres or more away.

Is that a rock or a leopard? Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After carefully peering I decided it was just an odd shaped rock, but changed my mind when the ‘rock’ sat up.

It looks more like a leopard, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Then it stood and loped easily to the top of the crag where it settled down to watch us. The view was distant, but it was undoubtedly a leopard, and it showed itself for several minutes. It went some way to make up for the rest of the afternoon’s disappointment.

Undoubtedly a leopard, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

Returning to the hotel during rush hour, we found the local buses were packed.

Rush hour bus, Ranthambhore

Dining and other Disasters

Back at the hotel we compared notes with others, roughly half of those we talked to had seen a tiger – several had made multiple sightings. Today we had been among the unlucky ones, but maybe tigers prefer the cool of the early morning, there were grounds for optimism tomorrow.

Dinner was as dire as lunch. Poor food is usually the fault of the kitchen, but here much of the blame must be shouldered by the diners, 100% of them European and mostly our fellow countrymen and women. A few Indian choices lurked among the dishes of boiled cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes and stir-fried peppers and onions. We watched one large British tour party pass down the buffet without one person choosing a single Indian option. The member of staff walking purposefully round the room with a heaped plate of chapattis succeeded in giving away only two.

To be fair the staff were trying but were meeting resistance. We watched one girl of eleven or so being gently cajoled into trying something new, and she was almost there when a woman – granny we guessed – grabbed her by the hand and pulled her away saying ‘you don’t want any of that.’

But the Indian dishes, we discovered were no better. In the belief that Europeans do not like spicy food they had removed all the spices, not just chilli, but the non-hot spices as well, possibly even the salt and pepper, the result was so bland it was barely edible. As we left next morning, we met the manager who was touring round speaking to departing guests. I took this up with him and he agreed it was awful, but it was, he told us, the only way to persuade tourists to try it. They could, he added, have given us good Indian food if we had notified them in advance, but as we had no way of knowing what was coming….. I do not think he is blameless; some people will rise to a challenge and although British ‘Indian’ restaurants are of hugely variable quality, there are many that thrive on giving their customers a genuine taste of Indian flavours.

We did not have a restful night, a wedding party, off-site but well within earshot, kept up their chanting until 3am.

08-Feb-18

Ranthambhore Tiger Hunt (2)

Undeterred we were up early and back in the lobby for the apparent chaotic allocation of people to transport. Again, it all worked out and we were in the park looking for tigers just after sunrise.

Sunrise over Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

In a different, hillier section of the park on a bright, chilly morning there seemed every reason to be brimming with optimism.

A hiller section of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

But although our surroundings were beautiful, the animals did not come out to play.

Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

There were even fewer deer and antelopes than yesterday. Photographs of peacocks were all we added to yesterday’s list and although such ungainly creatures seem unlikely survivors in the wild, they are abundant everywhere.

Peacock, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

We did see a tree that had been gnawed by a porcupine, but no sign of the gnawer.

Porcupine gnawings, Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve

After a couple of hours fruitless searching we returned crest-fallen to the hotel for breakfast. This has been our fourth attempt to see tigers and fourth failure. Over breakfast we again found that many others had been more fortunate, so our repeated failures are either bad luck or a plot by the tigers. Are some humans in league with them passing on information about exactly where we are going? I think we should be told.

Back to Jaipur and then Home

We set off after a late breakfast. Delhi was seven or eight hours away, so we were making the shorter – though not short - drive to Jaipur and then flying Delhi. We had not known when we agreed this that while we were flying, Umed would be driving the same route below us. It made little sense, but we went ahead anyway.

En route we saw more of the waddling straw-carriers that had been a feature of the early days of this trip.

Straw carrier waddling along somewhere in the road to Jaipur

Lunch was at a bright modern transport café way out in the middle of nowhere. No ‘tourist food’ here and Lynne’s vegetable pakoras and my paneer pasanda while not being Rajasthan’s finest food went a long way to erasing the sad memories of the last hotel’s fare. We did not know it at the time, but it would be the last proper Indian meal of this trip.

We passed through the wonderfully named town of Tonk and enjoyed several detours trying to find passable roads.

This probably isn't Tonk, but it is somewhere on the road

We reached Jaipur with ample time to check-in for our 19.15 flight and say goodbye to Umed who had been utterly reliable throughout and a fine travelling companion.

The flight was delayed and by the time we reached our airport hotel in Delhi it was 11pm and the restaurant had closed. Next morning who should turn up for our airport transfer than Umed himself making the irritating little flight even more pointless.

And that was it for this trip. The Great Tiger Conspiracy had made the last couple of days an anti-climax, but overall it had been a wonderful and memorable experience.

Finally, thanks to Pioneer Personalized Holidays in Kochi and particularly to Dheeraj whose organisation of the whole trip had been faultless. Thanks also to Adrian who phoned us from Kochi every couple of days to check we were still thriving, and most of all to Umed who did all the hard work at the sharp end.

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