India - Jan/Feb 2025

21:55
This day has seemed longer than entirely necessary. The alarm is an unwelcome intruder at 05:30. I could definitely have slept a good bit longer, and I find myself breathing a sigh of relief that this will be my last early wake up call for a good couple of weeks. It feels warmer than yesterday morning, but hardly hot. It’s still fleece territory. I just have time for a quick chai before my driver arrives. It turns out to be Mitan again, about which I’m pleased. He was both a good driver, and fun to be around. I notice he’s in a different jeep, and ask what’s what. Apparently they swap jeeps every day on rotation, which seems like a fair thing to do.

At the gate, we pick up our guide for the day - BR. I ask him what it stands for, and he says several very, very long words. When I look confused, he says that’s why it’s BR. We’re into the park at 06:45, and taking route 3, to the West. BR says it’s his favourite route, and I can quickly see why. It’s the part of Pench that inspired Rudyard Kipling to write The Jungle Book. The comparisons are easy to make. It’s much rockier than the other side of Turia gate - and with sparser foliage, which in turn makes wildlife spotting easier.

As is often the case, we open our morning with some spotted deer, some sambar. We stop by a tree, and BR points out an owl. I’m looking where he’s looking, but still can’t see it. It’s SO well camouflaged that it takes me several attempts to figure it out.

It’s not long till we hear our first alarm call, and it’s not far from us. There’s a spotted deer calling, and also a red-faced macaque. BR says this means a leopard is around. We close in on the alarm calls, and park up to wait. We quickly hear a sort of muffled grunting noise, which I recognise from my time in Africa. Yes, it’s a leopard, but she’s calling to a mate, so won’t be going anywhere. If we can’t see her now (we can’t) we won’t for quite some time. I ask BR if it’s worth waiting to see if the mate turns up, and he tells me it could be 5 minutes, it could be 5 days. Male leopards are apparently quite the playerz.

We set off in a northerly direction, and spend a little time birding while we wait for the next alarm call. There are some beautifully colourful birds in this part of the world. The green bee-eater is a personal favourite, but the various kingfishers are also beautiful to look at.

We hear another alarm call - langurs this time. It’s a ways off from us, so will take some time and effort to locate. We set off in the right general direction. We can see dust ahead. We’re not alone in the hunt. We’re getting closer and closer, and can hear a sambar that has joined in the warning chorus. I adore the collective that exists amongst animals. They’re all intent on looking out for each other, as well as others of their respective species. There’s a genuine what hurts one of us hurts us all mentality, which is so sadly lacking from much of human society in the 21st century. The langurs and spotted deer get on famously, and hang out together all the time. This, I’ve not really seen in Africa…

After a good 30 minutes of tracking, we come to a large clearing with a copse of trees behind it. Pounds to pence the leopard is in that copse of trees. The animal calls are constant. Everyone’s telling everyone else exactly where the predator is. The copse is maybe 60m from the track, and leopards are fiendishly difficult to spot at much closer distances. There are a few rustles in the grass, but no substantive sighting. The leopard suddenly decides to go aerial, and climbs one of the trees. I’ve seen cats climb before, obviously - but not one of this size, and so elegantly. In seconds, this 100kg cat is halfway up a not particularly substantial tree. I keep expecting to hear branches cracking and breaking, but no. And there she stays. I manage to get one photo of her - mainly her tail and her bumhole. Probs not one for the scrapbook. It is, however, always a heart racing moment to see a leopard in the wild.

We spend the next hour unsuccessfully tracking a male tiger that lives in this part of the park. Tons of alarm calls, but they’re moving around pretty quickly, which suggests that he is also on the move, and probably hunting. A little after 11:00, I suggest we call it a morning, and head back to the gate.

I spend most of my lunch break in the reception area connected to the only router on the property. Bit naughty - they advertise their rooms as having fast WiFi, but it’s bullshit. I asked the manager about it on day one, and got an Indian head-bob. I immediately knew which version he was using…

My driver arrives around 13:30 for my afternoon safari. It’s a new driver, and a new jeep. This bench in this one looks to have a *bit* more padding than the one I had yesterday afternoon, and my nethers relax a little… What’s a touch frustrating is that the driver has turned up with his kids in tow. I’d put them at 3 and 5? They’re babbling away contentedly while we bounce across the journey over to Khusapar. This does not bode well. Safaris aren’t exactly meant to be silent, but when 10 jeeps are gathered around a spotting of a tiger or a leopard, the done thing is to keep your trap shut.

We arrive at the gate bang on 14:00, and follow a parade of other jeeps into the park. Much like yesterday, the first 90 minutes or so is the very slimmest of pickings. Really not worth the bother. We spend a full 40 minutes in one stretch parked at the side of the road waiting for something, for anything to make some noise. Nothing does. Well - the kids do, obviously. I don’t think it’s remotely fair to ask a 3 and 5 year old to sit perfectly still and to be completely quiet for 4 hours. Of course I don’t. That’s cruel. That’s why I wouldn’t take them on this kind of jeep safari…

We end up spending a full 2.5 hours doing sweet fuck all. What we DO do, is a carbon copy of yesterday afternoon’s safari. Around 17:00, we start to hear a couple of alarm calls - one from a langur, and one from a nilgai (a large antelope). We tear off towards the calls. It takes us a bit of work, but around 17:20, we find 4 langurs sitting in a tree, making tons of alarm calls towards the West of us. A leopard was spotted here earlier, and that’s what they’re shouting at. We try and work a way round to where the langurs are shouting. Sadly, our time runs out about ten minutes later, and we have to head back to the gate. Honestly, a bit of a waste of an afternoon.

On the drive back from Khusapar, Mr Driver Dude takes a detour from the usual route. At first, I’m not sure why. It quickly becomes apparent that he has errands to run:

1) To drop the kids off at home (not a euphemism)
2) To pick up some grocers
3) To pick up and subsequently drop off what I’m pretty certain is a lump of hash.

Now, any of these in isolation would be enough to gently irk me. All three together just combine to piss me off quite significantly. Grrr.

Back at Tiger n Woods (which, by the way, is NOT a play on the golfer’s name) I ask for a beer. There is literally only Kingfisher Strong left, and that’s a road down which I really don’t wish to travel this evening. I ask if there’s anything else, and it takes a good few minutes of stilted dialogue with Ajay to learn that yes there is, and yes I can. Rum and Sprite, with a good squeeze of lime. I don’t suggest you try it. Sickly sweet, despite the lime. Needs the bite of ginger to be remarkable…

So, moving day tomorrow. Really looking forward to getting down to Goa and putting my feet up for a few days. It’s not all tiaras and unicorns, this travelling lark. What with rushing around, illness, and some early mornings, I’m ready for some proper R+R. And some beer. And some fish. And to see my awesome wife! Probably in that order, actually.

PS - only a few photos shared today. Bit of a story about that. It involves my camera running out of battery midway through transferring them to my MacBook, and it transpiring that I don’t have the required charger component with me. Fucksticks.Baca lagi