Blog 11. In which I move from Panna to Bandhavgarh reserves in search of more tigers and take up living in a tree
Day 9 – Friday 22st November 2019 – Panna and Bandhavgarh
It was so disappointing to be waking at a reasonable hour (07:00) on our final day in paradise. A validation of the fear that our safari experience at Panna was over. We had pre packed the night before so we had little to do but shower and zip up the bags.
With heavy hearts we walked over to the main building across the dip, up the steps and through the second accommodation building. As we entered the narrow path through the chest high grass the first thing that struck me was the light, soft, warm but enlivening. As we turned left onto the path up to the main building we could see the source of the light. The sun was just rising over the hills on the far side of the Ken River. There was a slight river mist through which the early morning rays were diffused with a warm peach tint, it was like everything had been touched with a honey wash. Though it was still cool, the light gave its own sense of heat and warmed the soul and lifted our spirits
Had we known how lovely it would be here at the Sarai we would have arranged for a longer stay but today we had to press on. Piyush, the manager greeted us and asked if we were happy to have breakfast on the patio. We readily agreed, this was most acceptable as we could enjoy our last few minutes basking in the sun and taking in the subtlety changing tones of sky, river and hills to a background symphony of bird calls, insects chirrupping and butterflies fluttering. The whole gave an overall sense of stillness. The tranquility of the Sarai at Toria struck us on arrival and stayed with us through the whole experience. I recalled a quote I’d heard by American Civil Rights lead Harold Thurman “Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.” Even now, many months after our visit, the Sarai remains my peace.
Joanna came to greet us and informed us the breakfast was totally sourced at the Sarai or in the nearby village. The grain for the muesli is harvested and toasted by the staff. The yoghurt made from the milk of the buffalo in the fields next to us. We had fruit pancakes and toast made with flour milled in the village. Oh, and course, masala chai, the best we had tasted.
Prising ourselves from the table we said goodbye to Joanna and wished her and Raghu luck with the rest of their season. She asked the ever lovely if she minded if Joanna hugged her. Of course she did not mind and the ever lovely received the warmest of embraces. Reflecting on it in India there is no physical contact even between men and men or women and women. The namaste, hands clasped in front of the chest as if in prayer, replaces the handshake, it means “I bow to the divine in you” a sign of respect. After nearly 30 years on the subcontinent obviously the desire for western style contact has not yet been forgotten. It was quite touching. For the ever lovely, it sealed the Sarai experience firmly within her head. She vowed to return. I did not need a stimulus, my mind was already made up, we will return.
Our last act was to pay for our extras and tips to the staff which included Jaipul, our brilliant naturalist. Ah, so you don’t take cards. We gathered together all the cash we had. It was less than we had intended to pay but the best we could do as the nearest ATM was 45 minutes away in Khajuraho, completely in the wrong direction. We were already dragging out our departure beyond the time allotted for our leaving, eaking out the last few moments in heaven.
We hit the road at 09:30 giving instructions to our drivers that it was imperative that we stopped at an ATM before we reached Bandhavgarh. We were reflective; “Speak only when your words are more beautiful than silence.”Iman Ali.
We had heard how bad the roads were between the two tiger reserves and were amazed to find a perfect, wide, tarmacked road all the way until Panna. The streets in Panna gave belief that the town would have come high, if not won the award of “Pothole City of India”. I was thinking that perhaps the Government road improvement scheme funded only the roads between towns. (Photo out of the back window of our car on the “good” road!)
As we left Panna we realized how wrong this idea was. The road improvement scheme had stretched beyond the town but was far from complete. Effectively at some point before the monsoon they had stripped the tarmac from the old road. The temporary “new road was the hard verge for the old. The effect of endless Lorries, cars and buses had stripped the surface to a kind of rough gravel and bedrock, leaving a kind of corrugated surface. Our speed plummeted. Our minds headed towards the road from Morro Jable to Cofete beach in Fuerteventura, a similar surface but that was not a major transport route. It was clear that the process to complete the new road was going to be a long one!
The ever lovely then commenced what I considered a lunatic activity. I was aware that she had been rummaging in her day bag but did not realise the purpose of this until I smelt the unmistakable smell of nail varnish. Whilst we bounced up and down and from side to side she dibbed and dabbed and successfully completed the task. I never fail to be amazed at how talented the ever lovely is; she had now moved to a new elevation.
We climbed the hills out of Panna seemingly always up and up. I took to viewing the world passing by. At a pond I saw my first purple heron. There were Indian rollers on the wires everywhere. Just as the road improved our driver pulled over for a toilet break. We had only been on the road for 45 minutes…nevertheless we braved the He-she. A pied wagtail entertains me whilst I await the ever lovely. There were little egrets in the field and yet more rollers.
At Katni, a big old sprawling place we stopped outside some rum looking buildings. We realized this was our ATM. In fact there were two right next door to each other. We selected the one which looked slightly less tatty and which purported to be The Bank Of India. The keyboard had worn smooth but had a reassuringly familiar look to it. The language was Hindi, that could prove awkward. The ever lovely inserted he card, English script appeared…Yay! A quick decision on how much to withdraw and then back to the car.
Katni, rambled on for quite a while and then we took a left off the Jabalpur road sensing the edge of town we were wrong it continued for a good distance still. I took some short videos and photos of the town as we passed through, the plethora of activities. There was the milkman on his cycle, the roadside tyre changing man with his hammer and chisel, fruit and veg stalls, pot sellers, ladders sellers, fast food trolleys….it was all happening everything you could possibly need and more all interspersed with the odd cow or dog.
Eventually we escaped Katni and started climbing again. The road whilst not yet improved was of a good standard and then we lurched to a crawl. There is a cow in the road. No, there was a herd of cows in the road, in fact it was the longest line of cows I had ever seen thousands upon thousands of them. There were no end of cattle herds walking along prodding the bovines in an attempt to keep a small part of the road clear for traffic. I then noticed where vehicles were trying to pass the driver or passenger, or both also had a stick with which they persuaded the poor cows to move aside. Eventually approaching the summit of the hill, the cows were gone.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. Field upon field each with a little shelter built on stilts. The birdlife is so prevalent that they have to keep watch to scare them off the crops. Each little hut had some form of covering to keep the sun off the usually slumbering watcher.
We arrived at our next safari stop, The Treehouse Hideaway at Tala after 4 ½ hours on the road. A very lovely experience, catching some zzzzs, reflecting on our last few days and anticipating what was yet to come as Indian rural life swept past us. We were here as it was the gateway to the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. Bandhavgarh, is a larger park than Panna with a higher density of tigers and we hoped to have the opportunity to build on our one sighting.
We were greeted by the manager Yugan and after signing the register, supping a cool drink and being introduced to the day plan we were walked off to our room.
The concept of the Treehouse Hideaway is that all the accommodation is built in substantial trees as indeed was the central admin/restaurant/bar area.
I was anticipating a small room and bathroom, however the room we were in was like a suite. The bathroom was large with a sliding door out onto the most enormous balcony looking straight into the jungle. The room had a king sized bed under four posts holding the mosquito net, a large sofa, coffee table and a writing desk and chair. All with a fantastic view out onto the balcony. We were 15 feet up in a tree which was reached by climbing a ramshackle looking stair which I never did quite get the hang of in the dark.
We had time to drop our stuff, rush up to lunch and then half an hour before we were off on our first drive. This was going to be our manic life for the next three days.
Lunch consisted of a Carrot salad with Apple to start, then steamed rice, chicken curry, potato salad with raw tomato in, and a pakora floating in a lovely dahl. With chapatis on the side it was a very welcome meal; though a little mild to my taste.
We were introduced to our driver and naturalist Adwait. If we thought we were lucky with Jaipul at Panna, this guy was in another league. With instructions to be at the reception at 14:30 we went back to our room to make sure we were safari ready.
Adwait advised us we had to get to Magdhi gate which was some 20 minutes hence. The park opened at 15:00. And closes at 17:45. And we were off. Neither of us had noticed how narrow the road was to Tala, nor how severe the sleeping policemen nor the potholes at the side of the road and the large patches of missing tarmac ready to drag us into the chasms. Now with our eyes in “scanning for animals” mode we saw the horror of what we had just traversed as lorries, buses and assorted vehicles came on playing chicken with us as to who hit the hole and who stayed upright.
We reached Magdhi Gate and were third in the queue but our vehicle had a problem; the hose was leaking. We had to wait 15 mins for them to bring up the reserve gypsy.
Although there are only 15 or so Gypsies allowed into the park at any one time the naturalists get tips from the park staff of sightings made within the park by the workers therein. Adwait explained that we need to get to the head of the queue to ensure good sightings.We needed to prepare for an early off for the rest of our stay….we had had our warning!
As soon as the gate opened we were off. I didn’t even get the name of our park guide; it was all so sudden. Adwait explained that we had to go quickly to get to the pond. At the pond it became apparent we were again with tigers. It was two of the three cubs of Solo Everyone was there, but where were the felines? We followed the lenses of the 60 or so cameras through the neck high grass. I detected a pond. Then I detected something at the far edge. Having overcome my serious camera envy I cranked up my camera up to full 600mm zoom and saw it was an Indian pond heron. As I zoomed out I caught movement in the water. Telltale black ears little white dots at the top of each. This was one of the tigers. It slowly waded into the shallows and then with no further ado launched itself at the far bank. The Heron glided calmly past the tiger who looked pretty annoyed he had missed his morsel.
It shook itself dry…an awesome sight, slunk along the bank to the left and sat down on the sand. After a while a second tiger appeared from the water, slowly shook itself dry and headed for its brother. As the second approached the first, the first growled and showed its teeth. Then they came together, head to tail and sniffed their important bits and sat down. The first arose and headed to the right and then exited stage rear. The second followed suit but before disappearing it gave a snarl.
We headed off hoping to come back round and catch the tigers further on. Most remained in the hope they returned. This is where having a good naturalist, familiar with the area and the tigers is worth their weight in gold; they can anticipate the “what next…”
At the brow of a hill we spotted a jackal. Adwait advised these were not often seen as they tended to be nocturnal and were only normally seen near to hunting tigers. There was also a captive elephant. Bandhavgarh use them so the rangers can get into the parts of the park which are not accessible by vehicle…..we were slightly distressed to see a large chain that it was dragging around. This apparently does not hurt them but effectively limits the distance the elephant wanders. So, they are free to wander but effectively tether themselves to a home range. As the elephant passed close by the ever lovely had her hand nuzzled by its soft trunk.
In position again we waited. The tigers were headed towards us but in the long grass. The light was fading, and it seemed this was the end of our sighting. Adwait pointed out some Siberian Reed Warbler males on the nearby grasses before we headed back to the Treehouse Hideaway.
We were presented with a white pill on a platter. The staff member who greeted us then poured a little hot water on it. It grew and grew into a flannel. We gratefully wiped our hands and faces and then had a refreshing drink.
Dinner was at 19:30 but before at 18:45 there was a BBC documentary presented by Simon King about the tigers of Bandhavgarh and it was very good. Whilst being entertained The ever lovely had a gin and tonic and I had a beer whilst we nibbled on the proffered snacks. We commented that although we knew they had not left our Australian fellow guests a young hospital doctor and her child psychiatrist husband did not appear for dinner. We hoped they were Ok. Possibly succumbed to the rigors of safariing and took an early night we thought.
After dinner we learnt more about the site. There are five guest tree houses and with the central dining hub, bar and reception six in total. The staff housing was off towards the village but still on site. There is a lake within the grounds. If we encountered any problems during the night we were to ring either 111 or 109. 106 is for reception not manned 24/7.
We agreed with Adwait that we would meet him at 05:20 as we had to get to the gate at Tala before the 06:15 opening. “don’t forget your passports” was Adwait’s parting greeting.
Back at our room in the sky our bed was turned down and hot water bottles in the bed.
Join me next week as I encounter tigers galore capture a giant spider and have a close shave with a cobra.
