Rajasthan trip - We start at Ranthambore!

03 Jan 2009 People: Alpana, Manish, Roopali, Nanu, Pedro, Chandan, John.

It was one of those days. One of those days when we had to meet up again. Meet up again for another year and another vacation. The one we always do year on year. The one that keeps us ever so close even after all these years. It was one of those days :)

I had a lot of free time at work before we planned this trip and so I did most of the train ticket booking. Chandan and I spent most of our time mapping our routes and deciding which places to include in the trip and which to skip. Our final route was Mumbai - Ranthambore - Agra - Jaipur - Jaisalmer - Jodhpur - Mumbai.

We took the Jaipur Superfast from Borivali at 1615 hrs that would reach Sawai Madhopur at 0815 hrs the next day.

That's us in the train compartment. L-R: John, Pedro, Roopali, me, Manish, Nanu. Chandan's taking the pic.

Note: Ranthambore is a 15 minute drive from Sawai Madhopur. There are a lot of hotels just 5-10 minutes from Sawai Madhopur station, but ask for one very close to the jungle.

The train ride was expected to be comfortable coz it was winter and so we did not choose an AC compartment. But what we didn't realize was that there's also something like "too cold"! In the middle of the night, when Rajasthan arrived, it got freezing cold. And a few of us were not carrying any blankets or quilts. Big mistake! We only got a few hours of interrupted sleep.

04 Jan 2009 People: Alpana, Manish, Roopali, Nanu, Pedro, Chandan, John.

But when we reached Sawai Madhopur the next morning, it was all worth it. We exited the station to be welcomed by dense morning fog. It was a refreshing change for all of us Bombayites, for whom fog is an affair to remember!

The fog outside Sawai Madhopur station

Once we were finished being awed by nature, we had to get back to more humanly ways. We needed transport to check out a few hotels in Ranthambore. We haggled with one Jeep driver to fit us all in one Jeep with our luggage for Rs. 200. Its too much, but we had no option.

We checked out a place called Tiger Den first, which is a really beautiful place, but it's a more showy beautiful. Let me explain. The place had perfectly pruned lawns and a slightly palatial decor. It didn't bring out the raw beauty of the jungle - which is what we were at Ranthambore for! We then checked out a place called Tiger Moon resort which we totally fell in love with. Rustic looking cottages amidst trees and bushes. It was perfectly landscaped to look like the jungle. And the best part of it all? It is just a few meters from the jungle boundary! I'm not kidding - a few meters! In fact, later in the night, one of the hotel guys took us to a vantage point in the hotel with a large torch (followed by our mag light) to look inside the jungle boundaries. He said that leopard sightings were a usual occurrence there and sometimes in the resort as well. Though he quickly gave a disclaimer saying it usually happened at night and nobody was ever hurt in the resort. So while we were looking for a potential leopard or who knows, maybe a tiger, we saw a quadrupedal in the distance, looking straight at the torch, its eyes shining. Now we had two factions amongst us, those that thought it was a leopard, and those that thought it was a smaller cat or maybe even a dog! Anyway, I can safely say it was arguably a leopard and if it was, yay! We saw a leopard!

So anyway, my point is that the resort was stunning with its serenity and natural ambiance. Here's a picture of our cottage. Each structure like this one had 4 rooms - 2 on each floor. We had 3 of the 4 rooms in this one and the 4th one wasn't let out to anyone.


I must also take this time to appreciate the management and staff of this resort. Even before we got to this place, I was checking out hotels online and dropped enquiry emails to several hotels and was more than pleased with the response I got from Tiger Moon. The guy who replied, Ajith Nair, also mentioned his contact details and so I called him up. He was very courteous and understood that we couldn't spend too much and agreed on a discount. Eventually, when we decided that we would find a place in Ranthambore after reaching there, I called Ajith to tell him that it was looking a little too expensive for us even after the discount and so we would search for hotels when we reached Ranthambore. Ajith was cordial as usual and told me that we could come to Tiger Moon anyway to join him for a cup of tea anytime!

However, once we saw the place, we just knew that we had to stay there! It was a weird calling for all of us and we decided that it was worth how much we would pay.

Note: We paid Rs. 5600 per head for 2 nights / 3 days. This included, and I quote, "all meals – (02 Breakfasts,02 lunches,02 dinners ), 02 Park Safaris to Ranthambhore National Park by canter, Visit to Ranthambhore Fort, Nature Walk & Bird Watching Session, Visit to historical ruins, Barbecue dinner with folk dance / puppet show around bone fire, Wildlife film shows & indoor & outdoor games". This was Ajith's contact details:
Ajith Nair
Hand Phones - 098202 27737 / 09833788358
Indian Adventures Chain Of Wildlife & Adventure Resorts
257 S. V. Road Next to Movie Time Theatre,
Kader Furniture Building,
Bandra (W), Mumbai 400 050
Tel Nos : 022 26408742, 26406399, 26433622/ 26428244
Fax No : 022 26458401
Email : iawr@vsnl.com
Website : www.indianadventures.com

And we then unpacked our luggage in the rooms and sat out to have breakfast and tea by the poolside at Tiger Moon Resort, Ranthambore!

Poolside at Tiger Moon Resort, Ranthambore.

The same day, we took a canter ride to the jungle post lunch. Food at Tiger Moon is okay. Some dishes are really nice, but overall, its just average.

Note: A canter is an open-air 20 seater vehicle that takes you inside the jungle. It's an alternative for the jeep, which you need to book at least 20 days in advance. Ranthambore jungle is segregated into 5 zones. You do not choose which zone you go into, before a canter enters the jungle, the driver has to randomly pick a chit at the gate which decides which zone he has to go into. This ensures that the canters are evenly spaced out between zones.

The jungle is an awesome place. I love the feeling of uncertainty when you don't know what you may see. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see a tiger in this ride either (like our time in Jim Corbett - "North Trip: Part III - Tiger? No Tiger.") though we did see a lot of monkeys, peacocks, deer and many birds. This was zone 1 and it wasn't very interesting.

Note: Zones 2, 3 and 5 are supposed to be the best. If you are in a position to choose, pick one of these.

Eventually, we got a little bored and ended up taking pictures of mostly ourselves.

Us in the canter

Later that night, there was a bonfire with (crappy) barbeque food and some random dance show which was just okay. That was then followed by a proper dinner (wow we were hungry!). Chandan had brought some Black Label from his recent trip to the US and he, John and I had a couple of drinks before the show. Nobody else was drinking this time....mannn... :( But we all talked while at dinner and spent the rest of the night discussing personal horror stories. Roopali has some spine chilling crazy ones to tell!

05 Jan 2009 People: Alpana, Manish, Roopali, Nanu, Pedro, Chandan, John.

We got up late and spent the next day whiling away our time by the pool side, talking general shit. In the afternoon, after some lunch, we decided to make a trip to Ranthambore fort, which is inside the periphery of the jungle. While inside, the guide told us that at the end of the fort, there is a place where leopards are seen many times. No guide was taking customers there, so we decided to give it a try. It was a beautiful place with a great view of the jungle from the top of a hill. No leopards though :( We decided to head back, which is when our guide came up with a brilliant plan of taking a shortcut. Result - we got lost! It was getting late and the sun was coming down. Bad time for us to encounter a leopard, we thought! We were stuck outside the fort...we could see the fort walls, but could not find a way to get inside it. We started walking along the fort walls. We were in the jungle, with itchy plants on one side and spiky ones on the other. We thought it best to endure spikes rather than itches, with potential leopards nearby! At one point of time, we found a way to get on top of the fort wall (but still not inside it!) and had to walk across 6 inch wall ledges to make our way through. We had to form human chains and walk sideways. Thank god nobody fell! This was almost like a trek! We have no pictures from here coz all our energies were channelized on getting back to the main entrance of the jungle before dusk! And it was nearing closer every minute!

Finally, we reached some village from where, a popular temple was nearby. Nanu and John went in for an aarti that had just started while the rest of us munched on something to eat. But it wasn't all over! We were still within the fort walls, which closed at 1730 hrs. It was already 1730 hrs and we were running out of time! Another race against time (and darkness) saw us groping in darkness towards the gate, which we managed to get through just in time. The main gate was already closed and we had to use a smaller entrance to get out.

We got into our jeep (given by the hotel, along with a driver, for the fort tour) and sped to the jungle exit where security gave a piece of their mind to the driver and the guide. You see, the entrance/exit closes at 1800 hrs while it was 1900 hrs when we got there. With wild animals around, its quite dangerous to be in the jungle after dusk. But we said sorry and were on our way to the resort with yet another day gone by.

06 Jan 2009 People: Alpana, Manish, Roopali, Nanu, Pedro, Chandan, John.

We had another canter ride in our package so off we went the next morning. It was very very very cold and we had to pack ourselves in woollen and then use the hotel's blankets on top of all that to keep ourselves warm. We would be shivering in the jungle!

This time, we went to zone 3 which at least had more fauna than zone 1. Apart from the regular deer and peacock sightings, we saw crocodiles and jackals. We also saw this one species of bird that followed us everywhere! Apparantly, they liked biscuits as much as we do and one of them even gobbled up Manish's Halls when offered!

Monkeys

Peacock

Parrots

Food loving bird with Chandan

No tiger yet again. Disappointed, we decided to leave Ranthambore and head to Agra to see the Taj Mahal since most of us hadn't seen it before.

By the way, 2 months later, Nanu's colleagues went to Ranthambore and saw a tigress with cubs on their first canter ride in the jungle. Were we jealous or what???