Apr 18 2009

Sariska National Park

Another early wake up call today as we went on our final safari of the trip, this time to Sariska National Park, between Jaipur and Delhi.

Sariska has always been overshadowed by its neighbouring Ranthambhore as there's been more tigers and Ranthambhore for many years. In 2005 Sariska hit the headlines big time when the tiger population, estimated at 20/25, completely disappeared overnight. Many stories discuss what happened but it's believed that they were all poached after locals were bribed. Whatever actually happened doesn't actually matter, it's just very, very sad.

Within the last few months a total of three tigers have been moved from Ranthambhore, where the tiger population is (allegedly) growing. (Maybe if they hadn't had moved those three I might have had a better glimpse of a tiger at Ranthambhore!)

We'd planned to go to Sariska way before I'd heard that there were actually tigers there but of course knowing about them added a bit of excitement during the safari. Of course, we never saw one, nor any other of the cats that are meant to live there. But if the lady at our hotel is to be believed then she saw one tiger, one leopard and a jungle cat, all in a single safari. So there's hope for Sariska.

Part way through the safari you enter the 'tiger re-introduced area' and stop to view some of the pugmarks (paw prints) cast in plaster. Not very interesting but there's some very tame Treepies (think colourful Magpies) there that will eat from your hand. Of course, the girls were too scared to try it so Dad got thrust forward - Jane had the video camera - to feed them. I put a piece of Marks and Sparks finest shortbread (that we'd carried around the whole of Rajasthan!) in my palm and held my uncovered arm out. It would have been wise to have worn long sleeves that day. Three treepies landed, had a fight on my arm, clawed me, ate and flew off. Not so nice; I tried again and only one bird, so no fighting, much better.

We did nice loads of wildlife on the safari and I'd really recommend Sariska to anyone passing by; it's certainly worth a visit. We saw birds (kingfishers, treepies, egrets, storks, herons and more), crocodiles, sambar deer, chittal deer and more.

It wasn't particularly cheap for us and we had to pay Rs1000 (15 quid) for a taxi there. Then entrance fees we're Rs200 each (apart from Amy who was free), Rs125 jeep entry ticket and Rs900 paid separately to the man with the jeep. So, Rs1625 (about 23 quid) for the safari and Rs1000 get there (which was way overpriced but we had little choice).

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Apr 16 2009

Sad To Leave Ranthambhore

After our fourth night we're all quite sad to be leaving Ranthambhore but an adventure awaits: we're catching two trains to be able to get to Alwar and there's only just over an hour between arriving at Jaipur and leaving there on our second train to Alwar. If our first train is late arriving by 45 minutes, we're gonna miss our second one and face a three hour taxi ride for £30, which I'd rather not have to do.

We arrive at Sawai Madhopur station thinking about quitting the trains and going back to the hotel for another couple of nights. This wouldn't be a problem with the hotel as they're not very busy at this time of year and we'd only lose 25 quid on the train fares. But we press on and wait to catch the train.

Our spirits are lifted by six or so local kids all waiting to catch the train, they're so smiley at seeing us - yes Dawes, even me! - and they lift our spirits. I take a photo and they're amazed to see themselves on the screen; turns out to be one of favourite photos.

The train arrives and departs on time, it's clean and we've got the six seats (actually two long comfortable benches) to ourselves for the two hour trip to Jaipur. We play cards, read and I listen to some music on my phone (Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack of course).

The train arrives at Jaipur on time. Phew!

A quick platform change happens with me wishing we'd packed less and we wait for the second train which again arrives and departs on time.

During the trip we decide which hotel to stay at, it's between the Alwar Bagh (as recommended by Indiamiker Puchoo) or Hotel Aravalli (as recommended by...absolutely no-one, but it's cheap!). A fellow traveller looks at my internet printouts about the hotels and tells that the Bagh looks nice but he doesn't know it and that the Hotel Aravalli is.."not bad". (He doesn't mean this in the English usage of "not bad" (as in quite good) but just that it isn't bad, but it definitely isn't good! We agree to have a look at the Hotel Aravalli and see what it's like that is until the train slows down and we see it from the window: "We'll stay at the Alwar Bagh I think" I say.

A crowd gathers as we get out of the station. Autorickshaw drivers hassle us for the business, it's 15km to the hotel. The first one asks for just 200 rupees and I can't be bothered to haggle, it's less than 3 pounds, for 10 miles, and he's got the return journey to do. The other drivers discuss in Hindi that we've been ripped off big time. Three quid: I don't care

What a good choice that turns out to be. It's beautiful (do I have any other adjectives for hotels?) and has a couple of acres, with two pools and five separate buildings for the rooms and restaurant etc. We splurge and take a suite which at Rs4000 is quite dear, but it really is lovely...look it up in Google.

As I write this the sun has just gone down (7:16) and it's dark, I'm outside using the owner's laptop (with a wireless broadband connection faster than my one at home - Hayward: leave it!) with the Aravalli hills silhouetted against the dusk sky. "Beautiful" is the correct adjective I think - yet again.  

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Apr 15 2009

Safari So-goody

(Sorry for the lack of updates but Ranthambhore isn't famed for its Cyber Cafe's or broadband connections.)

Over the last three days we've done five safaris in Ranthambhore in jeeps. I've done one more than the rest of them just to give me one more chance to see the elusive tigers but this safari was done in a clanking great diesel truck which literally drove away any wildlife.

So what was the grand total number of tiger spots we made? One.

It's seems we've been quite unlucky but it's nice to leave this place realising that it's a real national park that contains wild life, not some open air zoo.

Tigers aside, Ranthambhore is a great place for wildlife: the birds (eagles, kites, vultures, treepies, parakeets, kingfishers), crocodiles, mongooses (or is that mongeese?), chittal deer and so on we're plentiful and a lot less elusive than those tigers. I've taken a few photos and hopefully there'll be a few good ones in there.

The Raj Palace hotel turned out to be very nice indeed and it's hard to imagine that you could find staff more friendly and eager to please.

(BTW, I'm sorry if this sounds like one of those everythings-fantastic-Christmas-round-robin-letters (I don't mean you Helen J) but everything is literally brilliant.)

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Apr 09 2009

Horse Riding In Udaipur - by Emilia

Early in the morning, I awoke because I was going to ride an indian horse; I was excited.

In my mind I thought: what are the horses going to be like?; how tall are they (10 feet tall - only joking)?; how fast are they?

Half an hour later, my mum, sister and I caught a tuk-tuk to the stables, when then got ridiculous hats which were large; mine was light sky blue! Next, we went to get our horses, mine was chestnut brown. Amazingly, I managed to get on the horse without a box to stand on; this for me was a great achievement as I normally use one when I go horse riding in England.

 I was lead through the countryside, the hills, countryside villages and rocky slopes. In the villages, everyone who we passed said 'Namaste' to us and was very friendly.

Afterwards, we went to a waterhole, there were boys fishing and having a swim; they caught two fish. Funnily, there was a boy who was naked, he jumped into the water and acted like a fish and did backflips off of a rock.

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Mar 31 2009

Keoladeo National Park: Twittering About Twitching

Watching birds isn't really my thing but the Keoladeo National Park is reputed to be one of the best bird sanctuaries in the World: it seemed worth a day's exploration. It's a very good place to escape the masses of people in the big cities (Agra, Delhi) and to be able to wander around, or cycle, is just wonderful.

Today we spent eight hours, with a guide, spotting birds and looking for a nice big Indian Rock Python to take a photo of.  We found one quite soon after feeding turtles and Macaque monkeys are the Hindu temple in the park.

If you listen to what people say about the place you HAVE to get there very early to see any activity at all. We arrived at 10am and thought we'd only last a couple of hours but the heat wasn't too bad as there was a lovely breeze cooling us down. We saw bird after bird after bird including Ibis(es?), Storks, Owls, Eagles and many, many more. Our guide was very good at spotting and brought along a pair of binoculars and a spotting scope on a tripod for us to use.

Now yesterday at the Taj Mahal I managed to hold myself back and only took 100 photos, but today, I just couldn't help myself and shot a few hundred - they're probably all rubbish but I MUST have got at least one good one. Thanks to the guys in my team at work I took virtually all the photos using my new monopod that they bought me this last Christmas; it was brilliant and I couldn't have done without it.

Unfortunately the Rainbow Cyber Cafe here in sleepy old Bharatpur has done a good job of hiding ths USB slots on the PC so I can't upload any of the images without risking thumbling in the dark and switching the PC off! But keep any eye on the Winchcombe Gallery at www.winchcombe.org/gallery.aspx for some India photos: I'll upload when I can.

We're staying at the Hotel Sunbird, which is really nice albeit quite simple. Food is pretty good at 90 rupees (£1.30) for a nice curry; naans come in at a hefty Rs30 (£0.45).

Tomorrow we're off to Jaipur (3.5 hours by car) to see the Amber Fort and hopefully we'll get to ride an elephant.

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