Bandavgadh National Park, Madhya Pradesh, India.
My trip to the Bandhavgarh National Park last year was a forced gift by my close friend Raphael Das. Bandavgadh means Brothers fort. Legend has it that it was gifted to Laxmana by his brother Rama, just like how my close friend and brother had gifted me this safari in Bandavgadh. However it turned out to be one of the most enjoyed adventure of my life. I visited the most popular national park in India located in the Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh. The density of the tiger population here is one of the highest in India. My journey started from Goa to Mumbai and from Mumbai four of us set out in a small plane to Jabalpur. From Jabalpur we set out in a Toyota Innova to the Umaria village. The Driver of the Innova at a snail’s pace drove us to The Kings Lodge in Bandavgadh.

The Kings lodge was true to its name and we was floored by the hospitality and luxury provided by the courteous and hospitable staff at the lodge. We were welcomed by the welcome drinks and wet towels like any 5 star hotel and then served chilled beer and plenty of mouth watering snacks. We met a guy called Manav who was a naturalist and also the manager of another property at Kanha belonging to the Pugdundee Safari Hotels. Manav had specially come over to accompany us to the safaris as he was a good friend of Jason a wildlife freak who was one of the four of us. In fact it was Jason who had arranged the safari for us. We were told at our drinking session in the evening that we had to be ready by 4 AM to go for our first morning safari. For me and Rafael it was quite shocking because we were on vacation and it turned out like a south Indian wedding muhurtham where we had to wake up at 4 AM in the morning to shoot the bride getting ready. However we had no choice as we had spent a whole lot of money to get here and we decided to brave the situation. We got a wake up call at 4 AM and we had to jump off the bed and do our morning duties and rush to the restaurant where we were greeted with morning coffee or masala tea and cookies.

The Kings lodge was true to its name and we was floored by the hospitality and luxury provided by the courteous and hospitable staff at the lodge. We were welcomed by the welcome drinks and wet towels like any 5 star hotel and then served chilled beer and plenty of mouth watering snacks. We met a guy called Manav who was a naturalist and also the manager of another property at Kanha belonging to the Pugdundee Safari Hotels. Manav had specially come over to accompany us to the safaris as he was a good friend of Jason a wildlife freak who was one of the four of us. In fact it was Jason who had arranged the safari for us. We were told at our drinking session in the evening that we had to be ready by 4 AM to go for our first morning safari. For me and Rafael it was quite shocking because we were on vacation and it turned out like a south Indian wedding muhurtham where we had to wake up at 4 AM in the morning to shoot the bride getting ready. However we had no choice as we had spent a whole lot of money to get here and we decided to brave the situation. We got a wake up call at 4 AM and we had to jump off the bed and do our morning duties and rush to the restaurant where we were greeted with morning coffee or masala tea and cookies.

Then we got onto our Gypsies and headed to the check posts where we were assigned routes to drive into the jungle. We were driven by a naturalist and we had to compulsorily be accompanied by a guide who is a local villager. As your Gypsy neared the check post you could see dozens of guides waiting for their turn to be called to join particular vehicles. They looked like members of Veerappan’s gang in their army color shirts and camouflaged pants, with uncut hair, shirts outside and chewing tobacco. May be it was their attempt not to look like the forest officials. Once you are at the gate your names are taken down and a guide is assigned to you. I learnt from the second trip on wards that this was the place to pee in case you had an attached toilet in your office and you had the habit of peeing every half hour as it was forbidden to get off the Gypsy while you were on tour.

After we were assigned our guides we drove into the jungles in search of the tigers. As we entered the Jungle i was pleasantly surprised to see a herd of deer grazing in vast stretches of land. I had seen such a site only in National geographic and cartoon films. It was a great feeling as i began to realize how rich we are in wildlife and how badly we needed to take steps to conserve their population. Also i began to appreciate the steps taken so far to conserve or this beautiful sight would not have been possible. 

We saw sightings of Cheetals, sambhars, and many birds. Jason and the guide both knew the names of each bird we sighted. We drove between the vast plains between hundreds of deer, few peacocks, a fox, barking deer  into the Jungles where our first sighting of the great Bengal tigress was waiting.