It will bee moved to its appropriate chronological position soon
Yet Another Attempt to See a Tiger
01-Mar-2024
So Where Exactly are We Going?
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| India |
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| Kerala |
Our destination was the Kabini Jungle Lodge in the Nagarhole National Park, a journey of 140 km that was expected to take 4 hours. Indian roads do not make for speedy travelling.
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| Southern India |
Kozhikode to Kabini
Breakfast at Kozhikode
Before leaving we had an early breakfast at Harivihar,
our quiet vegan retreat in bustling Kozhikode. I am not ready to commit to being
a full-time vegan (or even a vegetarian), but I would eat a meal like our dinners
and breakfasts here any day (just not, perhaps, every day). Breakfast was
multi-faceted, but here is a picture of a fried puri with spiced vegetables.
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| Puri and spiced vegetables, Harivihar |
You know you are in Kerala when frying is in coconut
oil, mustard seeds dot the vegetables and fried curry leaves are abundant –
though they are as invisible in this picture as the coconut oil.
On the Road
The journey through small towns and up into the hills
was interesting. The road was not as steep and the bends as tight as some we
have seen, but they claim there are nine hairpins.
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| A modest hairpin on the way up from Kozhikode - all vehicles on the correct side of the road |
Once on the plateau we were in the Wayanad district of Kerala, and Wayanad is tea (and coffee) country. The Chellotte Estate on the edge of Chundale is typical, tea bushes fitting
together like crazy paving and wind breaks of silver oaks.
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| Chellottoe Tea Estate, Chundale |
Chundale (at least half of its name must have been
inherited from the British Raj) was halfway through our journey in distance, but
more than that time. We stopped at a clean, smart café where we were charged all of 20
rupees (20p) for a small but excellent coffee.
Some 30 minutes later we reached Panamaram. Built in 2013, Panamaram’s church of St Jude with its exuberant modern style and abundant straight lines is typical of the area.
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| St Jude's Panamaram (and telephone cables) |
Kerala has more Christians (6
million, almost 20% of the population) than any other Indian state. According
to tradition, Kerala was evangelised by the apostle St Thomas and an ancient but
thriving group of churches influenced by Syriac (Aramaic) language and
theology are known collectively as the Syriac Christians. This umbrella covers
several denominations, some Eastern Orthodox, some owing allegiance to the Roman
Catholic Church and others independent.
St Jude’s, Panamaram is as Syro-Malabar Church, a
denomination in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
Into Karnataka
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| Karnataka |
India has an abundance of people (1.4bn, having suprassed China as the world's most populous nation in April 2023) and an abundance of languages. Each of the three southern states has
its own language, Malayalam in Kerala, Kannada in Karnataka and Tamil in Tamil
Nadu, and each language has its own alphabet. These are Dravidian languages, unrelated
to the languages of northern India, like Hindi and Gujarati, which are of the
Indo-European family.
Across the Park
Indian national parks do not usually have public roads
across them, but Nagarhole is an exception. We were stopped at the park entrance to be given instructions – basically no stopping, no littering,
It takes 20 mins to cross this neck of the park, mostly
through Kakanakote Forest, though some areas are more wooded than others.
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| Kakanakote Forest, Nagarhole National Park |
There were forest dwellers here long before the
National Park was created in 1988. Most were from a tribal group known as the
Jenu Kuruba - Jenu meaning ‘honey’ and Kuruba ‘forest dweller.’ They lived by
small scale agriculture, fishing, hunting, and gathering roots, tubers, berries
and, most importantly, honey.
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| Jenu Karuba dwellings, Nagarhole National Park |
There are today 37,000 Jenu Kuruba speaking their own
language which may or may not be a dialect of Kannada (authorities differ.) They have been ‘encouraged’
to leave the park and most now live in extreme poverty in 80 or so villages
around the perimeter, eking out a living as agricultural day labourers. 2-3,000
still live their traditional lives within the park. The politics around this
issue is hotly debated, and I would be foolish to venture an opinion.
To the Kabini Jungle Lodge
Beyond the park it was a short drive to the Kabini
Jungle Lodge. The ground was more open here and the nearby Lake Kabini
encouraged the presence of wading birds.
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| Pond Heron, near Kabini |
There were also agricultural villages….
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| Agricultural village near Kabini |
…and domesticated cattle.
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| Cow, Kabini |
In overwhelmingly Hindu Karnataka, cow slaughter is illegal. Cows can, though, provide dairy products while oxen are used as draft animals. Painting the horns is an easy way to mark ownership when herds graze together.
Arrivial at Kabini Jungle Lodge
We stayed in Kabini in 2016. It seemed to have grown
since and lost some of its personal touch, but they showed us to a new, clean,
spacious ‘Maharaja Bungalow.’ A real Maharaja might have found something to
complain about, but we liked it. A buffet lunch was available for all residents
and as Nagarhole has a largely Indian clientele the food was much better than at lodges catering for perceived European tastes (see Ranthambhore). In 2016 they had a full bar, sadly that appeared to have disappeared.
Safari (1)
We presented ourselves for complimentary coffee and
biscuits at 3.00 and then made our way to the long line of jeeps and buses. There
are several places to stay locally but all land and boat safaris depart from
Kabini, so the crowd was large and apparently chaotic. Fortunately, we have been
here before and know that somewhere there is the Man with the Clipboard who knows
everything. We found him, and were soon in our designated jeep and ready to go.
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| At Nagarhole and ready to go |
Our first attempt to see a Tiger was here in 2010,
just months before I started blogging. We enjoyed a pre-dusk safari on the
lake, and a post-dawn safari in the woods. Our second attempt in 2016 was also
here and followed the same pattern (see Kabini
& the Nagarhole National Park). We saw elephants, monkeys,
squirrels, mongooses, deer, a variety of interesting birds, and a fearsome
crocodile or two, but all we saw of tigers was a paw print in the dust. In 2018
we visited Ranthambhore (link above) in
Rajasthan, a reserve renowned for its high tiger-spotting success rate. In two
trips, our highlight was a distant view of a leopard, while everyone else back
in the hotel swapped stories of tigers and sloth bears (and I am not sure what they are!). Now we were back at Nagarhole for two more attempts.
We looked cheerful enough in the photo, but I was unconvinced that tigers are afternoon people. We set out around 3.30 and were scheduled back just before the sunset three hours later – there is
little seasonal variation in sunset times this far south. The warmth of the day
lingers and tigers, I think, prefer the cool of the morning.
We saw spotted deer - they are always abundant. The larger sambar deer, tigers' main prey, seemed to have taken the day off.
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| Spotted deer, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve |
Gaur were grazing down by the lake – they became the world's largest bovid when the aurochs went extinct in 1627. Though locally plentiful they are considered
vulnerable, with a little over 20,000 adult individuals, mostly in India.
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| Gaur, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve |
Elephants like to come down to the lake as well.
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| Elephants, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve The photo shows two adults and a juvenile not an eight-legged elephant |
We saw no mongoose this time, but there was a wild pig (though no photograph.)
Back in the woods we spotted a Malabar giant squirrel…
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| Malabar giant squirrel, Nagarhole tiger reserve |
….and there are always black faced langurs.
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| Black-faced langur, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve |
The langurs are important for finding tigers. They are vulnerable on the ground as a tiger snack, but there
is always a look-out up a tree to give a warning bark. The urgency and frequency
of repetition are a guide to the tiger’s proximity and whether it is hunting,
walking or sleeping. We heard no langur alarm calls the whole time we were out.
Overall, it was a disappointing afternoon and as tomorrow morning’s safari would be on the lake with little
chance of glimpsing a tiger, I was glad we had booked two more attempts at
nearby Bandipur.
Arranging Tomorrow and Re-Arranging Tonight
The Man with the Clipboard met us off the jeep. ‘What do you want to do tomorrow?’ he asked. I hesitated
briefly, not realising we had a choice. ‘I hear you have had bad luck with
tigers,’ he continued, ‘if you really want to see one, a jeep would be best.’ Somebody
must have spoken to him on our behalf, which was pleasing, though we had not
asked for special treatment. We had enjoyed previous ‘boat safaris,’ but tigers
took precedence, so we thanked him and said ‘Jeep.’
Before dinner, we placed our valuables, phones and camera in the room safe. I punched in our usual code and watched my finger make a mistake. I decided to open it immediately and
start again, only I failed to open it – with all three permitted attempts.
We went for dinner; at lunch we had drunk water from copper cups tasting strongly of…well…copper and expected the same now, but a French couple on a nearby table had beer. Had they
bought it here or had the foresight to bring it in from outside? I inquired in
my fluent stumbling French. They directed me to the man who had provided
their beer, and I requested two bottles. Drinking is forbidden for Muslims and
discouraged among Hindus; whichever he was, he gave me the look of a man who would
never put a thief in his mouth to steal his brains, before nodding reluctantly.
After longish wait a different man arrived with a single bottle. I reminded him I had ordered two. ‘One bottle per person’ he replied tersely. I might have moaned about silly rules,
but my mind was too busy boggling at his inability to see two people at our table.
Lynne often complains of sometimes feeling invisible in
India. Indian ladies, of course, do not drink, and if they do, never in public,
but louche westerners…. He reluctantly fetched a second bottle - shame they were
both Budweiser.
Our brains remained unstollen and one of them suddenly realised we were going out at dawn tomorrow so the safe must be unlocked tonight, or we could not photograph our tiger – if, miraculously,
we saw one.
After dinner I went to reception, explained the problem and the receptionist promised to send someone to solve it. A little later a man arrived at our bungalow carrying a broom, suggesting
the receptionist and I had communicated less well than I had believed.
Faced with the safe and my inability to open it, Broom Man grasped the problem. He could not solve it, but he knew a man who could and phoned him immediately. His colleague was reluctant to reveal the secret, but even more reluctant to come out and solve it himself. Eventually he agreed to talk me through the process, and, to
my relief, the safe sprang open. I promised him I would immediately forget his
instructions and was as good as my word.
02-Mar-2024
Safari (2)
We were up and out at dawn and driving round the forest before the sun had got its act together.
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| Spotted deer at dawn, Nagarhole tiger reserve |
I will spare you yet more photos of the usual suspects, but little else happened for the next hour or so…
Tiger?
Around 7.45 our driver had a radio message from one of
his colleagues and suddenly our wanderings became more purposeful. After a
short, swift (by National Park Standards) drive we parked up behind several
other jeeps and a thirty-seater bus. Somewhere to our right a langur was barking
a warning, and all eyes were fixed on the treeline.
We stared at the stationary trees and bushes, trying in
vain to turn them into the moving stripes of a tiger.
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| Nothing to see here |
I do not know how long we did this. It was not a new
experience, in the past we have often given up after 20 minutes as the tiger,
if it had ever been there, must have walked off in the wrong direction.
There was still no tiger, but there was, this time, a
feeling of optimism I had not experienced before. It probably emanated from the drive and was shared,
I imagine, by the other people in our jeep. Very likely the people in the bus and in other jeeps felt it, too.
Tiger!
And then there was a sound, and aah or maybe a murmur,
something was happening, but I still could not see anything but trees, and then suddenly I could, already closer than I had expected…
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| Tiger, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve |
…an adult female tiger was walking, with leisurely grace and latent power, not quite towards us, but certainly in our general direction.
She crossed the road in front of the bus, and strolled
away on the other side, pausing once to turn and roll her eyes at all the
humans sitting there in their noisy, smelly vehicles. Maybe she did not really
roll her eyes, maybe I made that up.
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| Tiger is going now, Nagarhole Tiger Reserve |
After a tiger, there is only anticlimax. Even termites
lose their shine.
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| Termite accommodation, Nagarhole tiger reserve |
We continued safari-ing
until after 9.30, because that was the deal, but there was little to see, and I
was beginning to want my breakfast.
And in due course that was what I got, a combination
of spice, protein, carbohydrate and more spice. My favourites.
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| Breakfast at Nagarhole |
And Finally...
At the fifth attempt, seventh if you include the lake safaris, we had seen our tiger. I was prepared for a beast that would be graceful and powerful, but I had never expected her to be so big - and males are even bigger. Job done, and I am glad we did it properly
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| Tiger |
We then left Nagarhole and headed north into the next
post….
Part 1: Cooking the Kerala Way
Part 2: Kochi: Not Really a Free Day
Part 3: Kozhikode (Formerly Calicut)
Part 4: Nagarhole - Yet Another Attempt to see a Tiger
and much more to come