Thinking back to Bandhavgarh

It would be an injustice not to share more of the beautiful Bandhavgarh national park than simply my search for illusive Tigers.

After 5 safaris (£82 which feels collosal over here!) I had truly witnessed Indian nature at its best.

Our freezing 5.30 starts revealled misty dawn views over mountain fringed grasslands, which would take your breath away without the array of waking birds and mammals which pepper these landscapes.

Spotted dear, whose earie warning calls symbolise a tigers proximity

Jackals who trot towards you so confidently that you expect them to shout "get off my land"

Grizzly looking Wild Boar whose snouts plough the plains

Canopy perching White Kites

Serpent Eagles that scan the jungle floor

Samber deer whose rumps had some tummies rumbling!

Bulbous headed bison in long white socks

...and the all important protectors of all things Tiger!

Breakfast bus to Bandavgarh

The road to Tala from the sleepy train staion town of Umaria winds 30km over ever more forested hills dipping occasionally to cross wide sandy river beds whose shallow waters glisten in the early morning sun.  As I lifted gently from my deep sleep (courtesy of Indian railways being availed of everything but a first class ticket) I noticed that the stilted shelters which stipple the paddy fields of India were taller here, in fact they were six feet taller

...Not ony that, but thorny bushes marked compound boundaries surrounding tightly clustered dwellings and cattle pens of even thicker thorn thatch started to proliferate.  I began to wonder if I had found the part of India where both livestock and humans craved some privacy but in my next breath I counted six men having a morning dump on one patch of open ground so this theory did not hold true.

As we entered Bandavgarh national park, the paddy fields slipped away and the jungle clung to our tarmac strip occasionally yielding to thickets of bamboo or tall grassy meadows where almost immediately I spotted a small antelope cautiously raise its head from the grass ...and cautious every living thing should be here; for my latest destination has the highest population density of tigers in the whole of India!