tigerless

Monday Nov 14 2011

We caught a passenger train from Agra to Sawai Madhopur around 7 pm Saturday night.  It being a passenger train seems to mean that destination and platform are not posted anywhere, because it stops at every stop.  So, we had no idea which train to catch or where to wait.  It was a bit of a panic for about half an hour trying to find someone who knew anything.  We eventually did get on a train that had some people going to where we were headed but it was hard to relax until we actually got there and got to our hotel.  We arrived at about 1:30am in the morning and it took the hotel driver quite a while to find us, again I was trying to stay come as the few tourists there were, are disappearing.  We were sort of being surrounded by men all saying things we couldn’t understand and I was getting extremely nervous when the driver did finally arrive.  I couldn’t understand for quite a while that he was in fact specifically there for us so he just sort of added to the small crowd closing in an speaking loudly to us.  

Eventually we got to our hotel just outside Ranthambore National Park.  The staff are extremely friendly.  Our room kind of looks like a prison cell.  With high white walls and only a bed in it. Not even a garbage can.  It does have pillows, which is a nice touch but N and I affectionately call them decorative rocks.  There is not bedding but the mattress covers are clean. There is no washroom attached to our room, just a communal hole down the hole.  It’s a nice hole though fairly clean.  I’m finally getting the hang of using them, which is nice, I thought I never would.  I’m not complaining, for $6/night you can’t really.  This is what I was expecting most of our hotels to be like in India so it’s been a treat to have a little nicer. 

We went on a drive up to see Ranthambore Fort in the morning with a guy we met from the hotel.  The fort was fairly different from others we’d seen so far. Unfortunately we could not really find any information on when it was build and for whom but it was still cool to wander around. 

This guy we met, Nigel is a British but has lived in Israel for the last 20 years.  Like all travelers we encounter in India he is a seasoned travelers with lots of excellent stories and good tips.  When we talk to travelers here N and I feel like we’ve never been anywhere!  And I feel like an extremely inexperienced green traveler doing everything wrong.  Many Europeans we’ve bumped into take their 3-5 weeks holiday and take off, often alone, on some great adventure abroad.  They’ve been everywhere!  As silly as I feel about myself when engaging with these fellow travelers I do really enjoy the conversation.  Some of these people have really seen the world and they are very knowledgeable.  Canadians really do not get out much compared to the Europeans and they just take for granted that everyone has been these things. 

Sambar Deer

The Tiger Safari, which is what we came here for, was extremely disappointing.  You crowd onto this noisy pack canter, which is basically like a bus crossed with a jeep.  The vehicle itself is about as stealth as a raging party in a library.  I don’t’ think I’ve ever heard such a loud vehicle, in my life.  Right from the beginning I was pretty much certain that we were not going to see any tigers.  If they didn’t hear the canter itself coming the tourists would certainly encouraging it to turn the other way.  Everyone shouting at the top of their lungs taking flash photos, ugh it was really annoying.  The guide just yelling at us all in unintelligible English about the deer we kept seeing.   We thought they looked quite similar to the deer at home. There were plenty of peacocks but they wouldn’t stop for a picture of peacocks.  I was quite disappointed about that as I’ve never had the chance to see them in the wild.  We’d heard really good things about this park so we were surprised by our experience but I would really not recommend it to anyone.  Maybe it’s become much more commercialized.  We were also charged much more than was expected. And the long and short of the story is we saw no tigers.  I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, I guess.  Hopefully we will see them at one of the other game parks we go to.