Bandhavgarh National Park – Day 4

We had our usual wake up which consists of one of the boys bringing us masala tea at 5am. We were on the road for the short journey to the Elephant camp to meet our transport for this morning, one of the parks female Elephants along with her Mahout. If we were ever going to get really close to a Tiger, this is the only way to do it. We started out for the first half hour on the gypsy paths and then we went off road charging somewhat slowly through the jungle and all its large spiders! Much to everyone’s horror including the Mahout who if he wasn’t looking straight ahead caught a couple with his head, the webs are as strong a thread of cotton and set like glue when tangled. There was a lot of squealing from the occupants of right hand side.

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Sadly it was another morning of very little activity, we followed a couple of deer calls to no avail – we could go straight to the call unlike in the gypsy where you have to stick to the paths and not stray off them. Once an elephant has found a tiger he’s able to get within 5–6 metres of it – if only we had the chance! But it was fun anyway and interesting to see the relationship between the Elephant and his driver, especially the way the Elephant follows the commands to speed up, stop and to grab and remove any branches or small trees with her trunk. Either way it was a fun and memorable way to spend the morning.

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Back to Bagh Serai for lunch and a nature walk around the perimeter of the park to a have close look at the flora and fauna that lies within the resort area including the favourite termite mound of the Sloth Bear. We ended up at dam which becomes one of the tigers favourite places during the summer months, today it was only home to frogs and turtles – and an international stone skimming competition.

Then off for our final drive and it was the most actioned packed one we had the whole time. We only travelled about 4 kms into the park for the whole afternoon, pretty much as soon as we entered there were multiple calls from the deer alerting us to one patch of jungle with we circled for around an hour without any luck. The tiger just wanted to play hide and seek it seems!

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After getting some news through the jungle telegraph that there had been a double sighting just a couple of kms away near the border of the Mughdi and Tala zones. We got over there to find a load of gypsy’s parked up and both Deer and Monkey sending out warning calls – apparently a sure sign. After 20 minutes craning our necks looking for movement in the grass we got nothing. As the gypsy’s thinned out to other parts along came a ranger on his bicycle (they’re very nonchalant around here) who just happened to be the one that had seen the couple of Tigers about ten minutes before we arrived. Rishi with the exchange of some Pan got him to cycle down the path again to have a look (it was in a no-go area behind the zones for gypsy’s) he duly did and came back with the info that the fresh pug marks on the road indicted they were heading back towards our Mughdi zone. Good for us so we rushed off back towards where we were earlier to lie in wait for them. Again it was a no result for us as the clock clicked around to 5:30, time was up and we had 15 minutes to exit the park, a fun but frustrating end to our time in the park. 2 tiger in 7 drives was our final total plenty to work on for next time we are here.

Tonight dinner was served overside next to a log fire under the endless array of stars in the Bandhavgarh sky, along with some of the local drop made by distilling the flowers of the lantern bush. It wasn’t too bad – we are still currently alive! Although the loud calls of the Sloth Bear just before bedtime had Rishi send the whole team down to escort us for our last sleep in one of the nicest rooms we have come across in any hotel.