Tala Tigers

Pictures...

MIke – After Varanasi we decided to header down-South into Madhya Pradesh to check out the Bhandavgar Tiger Reserve, which Lonely Planet described as a “sure bet” for spotting tigers.

I had a pretty depressing thought on the train while on the way down to the Park: There very well may be no truly wild tigers left in the world. I mean, they’re not extinct, in fact there numbers are steadily climbing, but they are restricted to these “Nature Reserves”. So far, it’s been surprising how “un-wild-like” some of these reserves are. Basically, you know where they are going to be, and you know that the area which they occupy is surrounded by a fence which practically keeps them out of the surrounding areas. With the rise of eco-tourism, it’s almost as if these reserves have become glorified zoos; teaming with safari’s, “guides”, souvenirs, and the casual,  passive admirers of tigers. Tigers - the fabled man-eating king and queen’s of the jungle. All this calls into question the actual “wildness” of the tiger, and highlights, once again, man’s mastery over the wild kingdom.

I guess it all depends on ones definition of the term “wild”.

With this in my mind, we arrived at the nearest train station to the park, and grabbed a rickshaw to drive to the border town of Tala, a mere (or so we thought) 30 kilometres away. This took us nearly two hours. Trudging through the pothole-strewn road at a cringingly slow pace, I never thought to think that something might actually be out there.

Well, apparently, there was; a mother tiger and her two fifteen month cubs. We found this out the next day while talking to some fellow backpackers, and our guides in the park. In fact, to confirm the rumour, we saw the cubs later that night on the way home from the safari, sleeping just beyond the tree-line, about ten metres from the road. Apparently, they’d been camping out there for a few days now. What a fucking eye-opener; to be that close to tigers without even knowing it. In the park there’s a sign that says: You may not of seen us, but we’ve definitely seen you. That never rang more true.

There were absolutely no fences in the park, which made my previous gloomy thought about the current state of tigers somewhat unfounded for this park. Instead of physical barricades, there were men on elephants patrolling the perimeter to corral any wandering tigers who venture outside the protected area. The park is roughly 100 sq. km. There may have been four patrolling elephants at any given time. It’s insane.

It’s comforting to know that the wild kingdom hasn’t all been segregated to an area humanly convenient, that there are places in India where the natural world can still both simultaneously humble and garner respect. We saw tons of different species of wildlife, and not only that, we were able to witness how they interacted with each other. With such an intricate system based on interdependency, and it wasn’t hard to see how one externality could throw the whole system out of whack. Even an animal as formidable as the tiger could be vulnerable to the slightest distortion. They’ve really done a good job striking a balance between actively managing the park and letting the animals co-exist uninterrupted when possible.

In terms of the safari itself, it was significantly better than the Sunderbans tour. We got into the thick of the park, and there were tons of animals to be seen – but few tigers. Every now and then you’d hear one growl, or you’d see footprints, or the deer/birds/monkeys would start going nuts, but truthfully, the tigers were much harder to spot than Lonely Planet made it out to be. I saw a silhouette that our guide claims was a tiger. All the tell-tale signs were there, but it could have just as easily been a Sambar deer. I’ll stick with my guns though and say it was a tiger.

It wasn’t actually until we left the park that we saw any tigers, as referred to earlier. Figure that. My camera wasn’t good enough to capture them in the dark, so all you can see is two sets of eyes (the one of the left is just one eye). Our jeep-mates got some pretty great shots, so I’ll hopefully have those up when they e-mail them to us.

Teg- ‘If all you want to see is tigers, than look no further’. That was Lonely Planet’s description of the Bandhavgarh National Park. I was captivated after that line, and soon enough there we were, buying train tickets to get there.

The 30 km, two hour drive at 2 AM after the train ride to the town of Tala was something neither one of us were prepared for. I was inaudibly freaking out about the possibility that a tiger could easily jump into this tiny little auto-rickshaw that was driving no more than 10 km/h at times. But what really made this ride so rough (besides the patchy road) was that it was freezing outside! Neither one of us were prepared for the Darjeeling-like weather that blew into our faces through the open sides of our ride. Going too slow, and I was scared of tigers, going to fast, and I couldn’t feel my toes. I was finally able to ease my mind by thinking that, one, we’re driving with two guys that must surely feel confident about the situation and two, back home the weather is much worse right now.. ;)

Mike’s been going through our toilette paper with his runny nose ever since!

So the tigers. I was rather disappointed. But I guess it’s because I had this idea of “look no further” in my mind still; where spotting a few tigers on our safari adventure would be easy! No tigers during both our evening and morning trips. And from the sound of it, the thirty or so other jeeps that made their way out as well had just the same luck. It’s pretty funny thinking back on it now, because during each three hour journey, my eyes were focused on the bush, just hoping that ‘oh maybe around the next bend, maybe!’. I was glued to the forest with such anticipation.

Though there were no tiger sightings, I can’t deny the beauty in the National Park. Deer were everywhere! Same with monkeys! A couple times we came across a group of spotted deer encircled by monkeys, it was the craziest thing. Also, it was birds galore. If you’re a bird lover, look no further…

Ya, it was actually kinda crazy how many jeeps went out on these scheduled departures. Quite the money making scene! We were super lucky though, and we met some really nice American/British/Ukrainian people that we ended up sharing the jeeps with. The costs split six ways definitely made a tiger-less safari manageable!hahaha!

The two tigers that we did see (though I only saw one of them) were at first sitting just inside the tree line off from the main road. We weren’t the first jeep to get there, maybe the fifth, and within minutes there were more than fifteen jeeps and a few motorbikes all vying for a view. Because it was dark, soon enough pleads were being made for some lights to be shown on them, and not even five minutes after our arrival did the tigers just get up and disappear into the thick bush. No press please!

A new (interesting) first for me here in Tala. Breakfast consisting of deep-fried eggs!!