Mr. Cliff & Friends Go On Safari - Part 2

After arriving at Baghvan and getting settled in our lodging, I didn’t waste any time going on my first safari. Our resort employed its own safari staff, consisting of two separate guides and cool three tiered jeeps. They ran two safaris a day, one leaving very early in the morning, the other leaving in the evening. Why, you ask? Because it was 47 degrees. You may be thinking, “Well, golly, Cliff….if it’s 47 degrees wouldn’t you want to go in the afternoon to get some sun so you aren’t chilly?” Well, no, because that 47 degrees happens to be in Celsius. I’ll save you the headache of trying to do the conversion yourself, and tell you that equates to about 117 degrees Fahrenheit.  In other words, it was frickin hot. So there was no complaining about waking up at 5 AM when you had felt the sweltering heat of central India summer afternoons.

A group of us in our sweet safari ride.

Jayme and I were the only ones that partook in the safari on the evening we arrived, while the others continued to get settled in and took in the sunset by a nearby river. The resort was only a quick 5 minute drive from the gates to the park, which was nice. Once we got to the gates, our guide checked us in and walked back with our escort that works for the National Park. Pench isn’t the biggest of the tiger reserves in India, but it is very well run. (You can’t say that about a lot of things in India.) They require a park employee to go with every tour to ensure you follow the park rules, and they also provide another set of experienced eyes to keep a look-out for cool things. They also limit the number of tours that can go per day, which is great because it never seemed too busy. You could go quite a long time until you saw another jeep, unless you were staked out by a watering hole or other common area and a tiger showed up.

Once we were all checked in at the park office we were off on our evening cruise. It was a great introduction, seeing many cool animals I’d never seen in the wild before. It’s amazing how they can listen for warning calls from different animals and try to triangulate the positions of the big predators whose movements would justify such alarms amongst the different members of the animal kingdom. There was one such time on our first safari that was an awesome example of this. Our guide Sangita heard a monkey warning call very close to the road, so we stopped to watch. We could see the monkey in the tree who gave the call looking down in to the thicket below. Soon enough there were 5 other monkeys that had joined him in his tree looking down at the predator giving their own warning calls. Sangita said we were very near a leopard territory, so that that’s probably what it was, but unfortunately we couldn’t see it due to the thick underbrush. Very cool to hear/see nature’s sirens in effect though.

The rest of the post will be mostly pictures of the cool animals we saw, and I’ll stop for a story here and there. Some of these pictures were stolen from others on my trip who had much nicer cameras than me, so thanks to my travel partners.



Deer talking to monkeys.

 I was very excited when we saw a herd of deer about 15 seconds after we entered the park. It didn't take long to realize that there was hardly ever a time in the park when you could look around you and NOT see a deer. Literally saw thousands of them.



Looks like he might have some leftovers. Might need a doggy bag. ( See what I did there? )

Once while making our way towards a watering hole hoping to see a tiger, we saw a herd of deer running frantically across the road a ways in front of us, obviously spooked by something. Seconds later, we saw a couple of jackals jogging lightly through the trees. Obviously they had spooked the dear, but it looked as though they were far behind and giving up. Little did we know they were just driving the deer into a trap where their friends were waiting. As we drove over the next ridge, we saw the fruits of their labor. It was awesome to see the food chain at work, even if the sight of the deer still struggling while the jackal tore out its entrails was somewhat unsettling. Our guide said that seeing a hunt live like that was extremely rare, so we (or at least I) felt very lucky to see it.

Not sure what this guys was called, but it was a beautiful bird. It's wings are entirely blue, especially underneath, so when it flew it looked like a blig blue streak across the sky. Beautiful.

I think this might be a Rocket Tailed Drongo-  and that is just a badass name for a bird.



Crested Serpent Eagles. Hartd to tell how big these guys are in these pictures.

 

Kingfisher




Some sort of small owl.



Peacock trying to defend its turf from the intruding deer. I don't think it's working.

There were more new species of birds to me than I can count. I didn't get pictures of even half the cool birds we saw. I really regret not getting a picture of the elusive pink footed pigeon. I also decided that for some reason, I hate peacocks. I have no idea why, but I really hate peacocks. If any of my readers is an amateur psychiatrist and could get to the bottom of that for me, I'd be interested in knowing why.

Also, we saw a group of quail, which really interested our guide. Apparently he didn't see a lot of quail. To me it was kind of like "Whatevs, NBD. Let's go find some leopards or something. What's so great about a quail?" But then I realized that a lot of people in my group had never seen quail before. I was also the only person in the vehicle (including our guide and the park employee) that knew that a group of quail was called a covey. Score one for the Kansas farm boy! I did not mention that I knew that because I like to shoot them and that they are delicious.


You want a piece of me?!





Meeting of the minds.



This guy just looks smart, although no doubt he's thinking about hurling feces at me. Which some would probably agree is a smart thing to do.



I was unsure if this is a baby monkey or an alien. Still undecided.



Looking back, there were obviously a lot of baby monkeys.

 Monkeys are always fun to see. Pench housed two main types of monkeys, but the majority of the ones we saw (and in the pictures above) are Langur monkeys. There were probably as many monkeys as there were deer. They were all over the place, and they seemed to be at ease with the other animals of the forrest. They mingled with the other animals quite comfortably. I'm guessing they have worked out a deal that they can roam wherever they choose as long as they continue to sound the alarms when predators are in the area.

 Alright, enough with the smaller animals and birds. We were really there to see tigers. That's the one thing everyone hopes to see when they are on safari at Pench. And it definitely isn't a given. Sometimes the park can go for days without any tiger sightings, it's all up to them. And since they are committed to be as least disruptive as possible, there are very strict rules about where you can go and what you can do. The vehicles MUST stay on the roads and approved pull-off areas. No ifs, ands, or buts. You absolutely can not get out of the vehicle unless you are at a designated area. So when you pull up to these watering holes or any area in the park, you are completely at the mercy of the animal and the trees and grass. That's why in almost all of the tiger pictures, you can see trees or leaves disrupting the pictures. There's no getting out and walking around to get a better angle. It's kind of frustrating, but when you think about it, it's a good thing. Tourists would become a frequent snack of tigers I'm sure if we were allowed to roam. Plus we'd destroy their habitat, as man is known to do. We were lucky enough to have 3 total tiger sightings spread over 2 different safari's.

Thirsty tigers.



Muddy tiger don't care.



Say "Cheese!".  Or maybe in this case, "Antelope!"



Sufficiently refreshed from his mud bath. 



I just like the reflection in this one.

 

And this one.



This is one of the watering holes in the park.


Also, when there is a sighting, word gets out quickly. Lots of vehicles will just stay camped out at water holes, since that is the most common sighting area. One tiger sighting I think every jeep in the park showed up at the watering hole. And when the tiger got up and left, it was a race to the other side of the ridge where the tiger was most likely to emerge from the forest back to his lair. It was a complete mob mentality, and sometimes got somewhat dangerous. At one point there was line of about 20 vehicles driving as fast as they could in reverse because someone thought they heard or saw something. Pretty entertaining actually.


Did someone say Tiger?

 

Checking to see who got the best pictures.


We also stopped to ride elephants during one of the safaris. I was on the fence about this, because I didn't have an awesome experience with this in Sri Lanka the last time I rode an elephant. But this was much much much better. These elephants were huge, and 4 of us (plus the mahout) rode it at one time. And instead of a 5 minute trek around a track with a mahout pounding on the elephant with his stick, we roamed lazily around the forest for about 45 minutes or so. It was really cool, and I'm glad I did it.



Riding sidesaddle. And yes, I was able to stay on for 8 seconds.

Other elephants we saw on our elephant ride.



Tickle tickle. It's good to know elephants have a sense of humor too.



These last two are just artsy pictures taken by Andrea Z that I really liked.

 Here are some other random animal pictures I won't go into too much detail on.


These deer like thingys are called Sambar.



Another Sambar.



This guy is called a Blue Bull. Weird creature. It's like a combo of a horse, antelope, and cow. When you see it in real life it actually looks kind of blue. Can't tell so much in the pictures.  



Another Blue Bull. They were an endangered species once upon a time when they were called Blue Horses, and people used to hunt them. So they changed the name to Blue Bull, and since cows are sacred to the religion, people stopped hunting them. Pretty clever.



Pumbas.



Guar. (Pretty much an ox.)



Wild Dog.

There are lots more animals that we saw that we didn't get good pictures of. The trip was amazing. Being out in the wild and seeing animals like this in their natural habitats has ruined going to zoo's for me. You might get a better look at them in a zoo, but out in the wild you are seeing them on their terms as free animals. It's a completely different experience, and one I'll remember for the rest of my life. I think it's safe to say that this was my favorite India vacation so far. One might say it's the Taj Mahal of India vacations. But then again that would be confusing. (For the record I enjoyed this more than the Taj Mahal)

The group with our guides.

Mr. Cliff & Friends Go On Safari- Part 1

Less than 18 hours after I landed in Bangalore, I was awoken by my alarm clock in the wee hours of the morning yet again to make a trek to an airport. But this trip  wasn’t for work or involve moving my life halfway around the world. This trip was for vacation and a little R&R with some old friends, so I was excited. I even got to say hi to my old driver Shyam (who is now Jayme and Andrea’s driver), as I caught a ride with them to the airport. After some minor hiccups at the B’Lore airport (I had forgotten all of the ridiculous steps they make you go through when boarding planes there), we met up with the rest of our party, including my old travel partners Andrea and Dr. Alan along with Andrea’s mom Ada who had just arrived for a visit, and newly arrived second term expats Andi and Mike Marston. (For those of you counting at home, that’s 3 Andreas and 1 Ada in the female ranks of the crew.)

After an uneventful flight we touched down in Nagpur, which is right smack dab in the middle of India (also known as BFI), and found our transportation that drove us a few hours to Baghvan Resort on the outskirts of Pench National Park. Pench National Park is home to one of 3 tiger reserves in the area, and was the setting for Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”. Fun fact:  Kipling was actually born in India, and if you look at the animal characters in the book, you find most of them at Pench, and most of their names are Indian.



Come to think of it I have encountered many people that act like they were raised by a pack of wolves, much like Mowgli.....

Even though we were really out in the middle of nowhere, there’s no way we could claim that we were “roughing it”. The resort was incredible. It was small, our group took up nearly half of the entire place, but it was awesome. The bungalows themselves were top-notch, but still rustic enough that you knew you were still in the wilderness. Simple yet lavish at the same time.  Each one had its own outdoor shower, and an open air bedroom up top that you could choose to sleep in if you wanted. The rest of the grounds consisted of a “great hall” that included the kitchen, dining room, and sitting areas, and then the pool and the staff quarters. All were in their own nice little secluded areas.



Upstairs open air bed.



Private outdoor shower.




The sitting area in the great hall.



The hospitality was second to none. The kind of attention you get from the staff almost borders on annoyance, until you slow down and tell yourself they are just doing their jobs, and doing them very well. The food was beyond description. I was slightly worried going into the trip that I wouldn’t be able to ease my system back into the Indian cuisine, but those fears were quickly put to rest. From the first meal we ate, I could tell that the food would be the least of my worries. The only issue was slowing down and not eating too much because it was so delicious. I did not succeed in that.


Every time you drove in or out of the grounds the staff came out to greet you.

 The head chef Sachin was incredible, cooking up delicious dish after delicious dish using mostly ingredients from the on-site organic garden. You literally had to be forceful with he and his staff to get them to stop bringing food. Somehow they packed about 5 meals into a day. About 5 AM every morning before our first safari, they had tea, coffee, cookies, donuts, and fruit sitting out for us. Then they packed muffins, sandwiches, cookies, and other goodies for us to eat on our safari. Then when we got back around 10 AM, they cooked us a full Indian breakfast. Then at 1 or 2, we had lunch, followed by a full dinner that evening. I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten more food in just a few day span.

Sachin working his magic.

The group sitting down for one of our 6 thousand meals. I'm guessing this was 3rd breakfast.

 At our meal the first night, someone asked Sachin how he made one of the dishes. That got him really excited, and somehow he turned that first into an Indian food cooking lesson, and somehow that evolved into a Masterchef competition. So the next afternoon we made our own lunch while learning the intricacies of Indian food cooking. The teams were divided up guys vs. gals, and the competition consisted of a quiz portion which the women dominated (I think the only questions the guys got right were: “Name two brands of India Wine”, and “Name the National Soup of India” which Jayme knew from the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld). There was also a blind taste test where we were blindfolded individually and told to name the main ingredient of a certain sauce. The women won this one as well, as they all agreed on the correct final answer. I actually got it right as well, but I wasn’t confident enough in my answer to convince the rest of my teammates. The answer was Spinach. I think the men won the actual cooking portion of the competition (and let’s be honest, isn’t that by far the most important part?) but apparently the women won the overall title. Which is ok. I wouldn't have expected the women to win a wood chopping contest (or insert some other chauvinistic comment). It was a fun time nonetheless.


Jayme and I were clearly having fun putting the finishing touches on our delicious dish.



Being a lifelong hater of spinach, I was able to correctly guess the secret ingredient.



Putting my 4-H skills to good use.

The other meal of note was our final night, where they took us to a special place on their grounds where they had lit the entire pathway with lanterns. And when we got to where we were about to eat we saw a gigantic tree lit up with dozens of lanterns. At first I thought they must be electric, and the tree wired somehow, but upon closer examination they were indeed real lanterns. I asked Sachin how much time it took to hang all of the lanterns from the tree, he nonchalantly said it took a few guys the entire afternoon to hang and light the lanterns. Just for this meal for probably a dozen people total. Amazing. Unfortunately it was tough to photograph, but it was pretty magnificent. As usual the food was amazing, and it was a perfect last night for my first trip back in the country.



Lovely little lantern/candlelight dinner.



You can kind of see some tables in the bottom right corner to give you an idea of how huge this tree was.

 I didn’t set out with the intentions of this trip garnering two separate blog posts, but I see I’ve already typed over 1000 words just talking about the food and the lodging, and I haven’t even gotten into the safari’s yet…..so I’m going to cut this one off and start a new one for the animals or else it might take three hours to read one post! (My friend Casey likes to make fun of me for getting into too many worthless details when I describe my experiences, so I’m sure she’ll have a hay day with this one. Well, eat it, Casey. This is my blog, not yours. )

Next post I promise will be all about the cool animals and things you might actually want to hear about!