Corbett: An Unintentional Adventure

For the first time, I am going to dig into my past trips for this is a story I love to narrate.

It was August 2007, when six of us decided to travel to Corbett National Park after the Bollywood movie, Kaal brought it into highlight. This was actually my first trip to a national park and I haven't stopped since!

We started from Delhi around 4 pm in a hired Toyota Qualis having no idea of the havoc that rains play in this part. The drive from Delhi was simple. We reached Rampur around midnight and asked a police car for directions to Corbett National Park. The policemen were quite amused to know that we wanted to go to Corbett at this hour. However, they told us that their are several small rivulets that are flowing across the road and we won't be allowed to travel to Corbett right now. As we were students back then with small budget to travel on, we went to a shady guesthouse for night-stay. The bedsheets were smelling due to humidity and the ceiling was dripping water all night. But, we hardly had any other option.

This is where we bathe

Early next morning, we hired a gypsy to travel to Corbett. We were told that the only Corbett gate open at this time of the year will open in sometime and we can travel to some other parts of the forest in the meantime. So we went there but there was hardly a dog to be seen on that route. We got down the gypsy near an old and huge tree and then climbed down a hillock to bathe in a rushing stream. After that, we came back to Rampur and prepared ourselves for a night inside the famed Corbett National Park. While we were on the outskirts of Rampur, our driver "Naeem" picked a Rangeeli deshi sharab( unbranded alcohol) to keep him company. On our way to Corbett's gate, we passed many rivulets that were gushing over the cemented road. However, they were small and didn't really frighten us as our gypsy moved across them with ease.

Inside Corbett

We reached our bungalow inside Corbett with some time to spare before our evening safari. While we checked out the bungalow, two of our group ventured into the forest on their own. Sometime later, the forest officer came to check on us and asked where are the remaining two out of our group of six. We simply shrugged and he hurriedly gathered his subordinates to find them. Within a few minutes, the two of them were brought back to the bungalow and were warned that venturing into the forest on foot isn't allowed. Also, we were told that CRPF snipers were given shoot on sight orders because of rampant poaching in the national park and that walking on foot, we can easily be mistaken as poachers.  We were truly shaken at that moment.

One side of the rivulet outside exit gate

At 3:30, we left for our evening safari with our driver, Naeem and we asked him to show us as much animals he can no matter what it takes. We had just left when we crossed a small river and found some tribal boys washing clothes there. We asked them, if they have noticed any animals around. We were told that a herd of elephants was heard crossing closeby. We asked a kid there to jump onto our gypsy and tell us their exact location. He came along and jumped off at a point and climbed at a mud hill from where he could see the herd. We immediately followed him and saw the purple eared elephants at some distance from us. Just as some of us were getting onto the mud hill, the forest officer and his subordinates reached there and ordered us to immediately hop onto the gypsy while asking for the whereabouts of our driver as it was his responsibility to ensure that we don't leave the vehicle at any point. He was nowhere to be seen and we were seriously threatened this time for breach of rules. Naeem appeared in sometime and seemed inebriated clearly. He was ordered to immediately take us back to the bungalow and our safari was over!! The forest officer went back while Naeem settled in his seat. In his inebriated state, he started moving further ahead instead of taking us back. As we also didn't want our safari to end so early, we again asked him to show us more animals. A few hundred meters ahead, there was a group of spotted deers grazing and we hoped to see a tiger stalking them. Some more distance into the forest, there was a 2 feet deep and 1.5 feet wide gorge on the dirt track. Understanding that the tyres of our vehicle would get stuck in it if he move forward, we got down again and filled it with some stones at a gap same as distance between the two front tyres of our gypsy. Having done that, we asked Naeem to carefully move the gypsy over the stones. However, alcohol had taken full control over him by then and he moved between the stones and our vehicle went down into it with a thud. By this time, it started raining and was also getting dark. All six of us used all our muscular power to lift the vehicle out of the hole for over 30 minutes. Finally, we couldn't see the vehicle coming out and asked Naeem to walk us back to the bungalow before it gets too dark to see. He didn't seem to hear us and opened his bottle of whiskey while we decided to walk back ourselves.  Afraid of being attacked by a tiger or being hit by the bullet of a CRPF sniper, that proved to be the longest walk of our life. Finally, as were just about to reach the bungalow, we were met by the forest officer and his subordinates who had themselves armed themselves with some weapons leaving into the forest searching for us. They had to arm themselves to protect themselves from being attacked by some aggressive animal. Upon seeing us safe, they were relieved and asked us for the whereabouts of our driver. We told them that he was drinking in the gypsy somewhere deep into the forest. We were told to stay inside the bungalow while they went to bring him back. 

You can't think of crossing that. Can you?

After an hour, we could hear commotion outside the bungalow as Naeem was brought back and was shouting abuses at the forest officials while they were threatening him with a cancellation of his permit. Next morning, we woke up early and were pleased to see Naeem back to his senses and also the vehicle was brought back.  While we ate breakfast, it again started raining heavily and we decided to move out of the national park before all the roads are closed by many rivulets flowing over them. 

However, the rivulets were already gushing across the roads and we walked on foot in them at the vehicle's tyre distance to ensure that the tyres don't get stuck in some pothole in them. We crossed over 10 rivulets this way before we reached the exit gate. But we got the biggest shock when we looked outside the gate. We could hardly see the road as whole of it was submerged under a huge 50m wide rivulet gushing across it. All six of us got hold of a long and strong branch of a tree and started crossing it on foot. Some of us got their feet stuck in it and were helped on by others thanks to the branch we held on to. After some time, although the rains subsided but we were completely drenched in the cold mountain rain and were shivering in the cold. With no dry clothes and the chilly air blowing into our face inside the open top vehicle, there was hardly any respite to be seen. All our expectations of early respite went down the drain as we saw a very huge and deep rivulet flowing across the cemented road again. Here, there seemed no hope of our vehicle being able to cross it anytime soon as even large vehicles were not crossing it and were parked alongside. So, we were again back to our old strategy. All six of us moving in line holding onto the long tree branch while the water level was over our waists. Some of us had our slippers flown away by the gushing water, but we managed to reach the other side where we hopped onto an auto-rickshaw which drove us to the guest house in Rampur. There, we changed into dry clothes and got back into our Toyota Qualis to travel back to Delhi. 

Between Rampur and Corbett

Back in Qualis, we assumed that the adventure was over. As it got darker, and the rains continued to come down heavily, our windscreen wiper stopped working. As we didn't wish to stop, we tied straps of cloth to both wiper hands which were pulled alternately by the driver and the guy sitting in front to operate the wipers manually.

 Finally, we were back in Delhi at 2 am in the night feeling happy to be alive and safe!!

P.S. Never get off your vehicle inside a tiger reserve. Its more unsafe then you think.

More from the wilds of Ranthambore

Indian Hare, the bubbly guys!!

Before the parks close for Monsoons on June 30th, I made another weekend trip to Ranthambore National Park. Another night's drive of around 400 kms in superfast mode ensured that we reached our hotel just in time for our morning safari. However, even the superfast mode didn't give us a minute's time to relax at the hotel as our safari vehicle was waiting for us as we entered the hotel.

T-28, star male

During my last two visits, I have only been to zone 3 & 5. Thankfully, this time I got a change of scenery as we were allotted zone 2 for our morning safari. This is one of the smaller zones and falls into the territory of T-28 male tiger and T-22 female tigress.  With more experience, I have realized that sighting a tiger is totally a matter of luck and now I don't expect to see a tiger every time I am out on a safari.  But I got lucky again, as we took a curve and saw T-28, the star male named so because of a star sign over his left eye, right next to the road about 10 meters ahead of us. Thanks to our driver who couldn't switch gears smoothly and made enough noise to disturb the tiger who drifted into the woods. This same tiger passed before our gypsy the last time I visited Ranthambore without giving us a clear shot. And he did the same thing again. However dominant he might be known as, he surely is camera shy.

After that, we tried to locate him again without any success. Then, we moved further into the jungle in the hope of sighting T-22, which again didn't happen. So, apart from the short sighting and a few dancing peacocks, this safari was pretty dull and we were out of the park half hour before the allotted time. A sleepy breakfast followed and we dozed off to catch whatever little sleep we could before afternoon safari.

In our afternoon safari, we got zone 4. I had wanted to visit this zone for long as the legendary tigress, Macchli now inhabits this zone. At 16 years, Machhli is claimed to be the oldest tigress in the wild and is also famed for having killed a crocodile. At this old age, she doesn't move much which increases our probability of sighting her in her smaller territory.

T-25, a 6 yr old male

However, we were in for a pleasant surprise when we entered our zone gate. A gypsy was coming backward trying to tracking a male tiger. As expected, we also started tracking and after straining our eyes for sometime trying to look into the woods, I saw something huge moving parallel to the road. He came into the clearing and here he was, a huge male tiger over 10 feet long from nose to tail. While he was scent marking a tree to warn other predators of his territorial presence, I could here shutters clicking all around me. If it hadn't been for a well traveled Bengali uncle in our gypsy who literally commanded our driver to stop, the tiger would have crossed the road right in front of us. Still, we were satisfied having sighted such a magnificent tiger. He was T-25, also famous for being the only male tiger known to be bringing up two cubs after the tigress died last year. I wonder why his other name is "Zaalim" even after him being caring enough to think of the cubs and not moving on to some other tigress.

Machhli, the grand old dame of Ranthambore

After the tiger crossed the road and disappeared on the other side, we went further into our zone in search of Macchli. On our way, we passed by Malik Talab which had become just a small pool of water in which many birds like painted stork, cormorant, black headed ibis and spoonbill were found fishing in the shallow waters. We also passed by many dancing peacocks enjoying the slight drizzle that had made the weather in this May afternoon enjoyable.

A paradise Flycatcher

As we approached Lakarda area of the national park, we finally saw Machhli walking across the road. She seemed smaller and whiter compared to other tigers. Probably a result of of old age!! While I clicked a few pictures, she moved nonchalantly to finally lie under a palm tree. From here, she was heard growling for over 10 minutes which probably signified hunger as she is unable to hunt efficiently having lost all four canines in battle/hunting. We then went to the forest checkpost and asked the person posted there to feed the tigress as she seemed hungry. Upon our way out, we saw a dead Civet. Civets are known to climb trees and he possibly fell to his death. We also saw some exotic birds here like Paradise Flycatcher, Green Beaeater, Shrike, Golden Orioles. Paradise Flycatcher was really a treat to the eye with its magnificent orange color which turns to white with age.

A Heron looking for its prey

Back at hotel, we dived into the pool to get some respite from the dry heat of May. Our hotel was perfect in all aspects including good rooms, nice swimming pool, a good lawn except for food which was tasteless without fail.

A sambhar deer in middle of Rajbagh Lake eating aquatic plants

Next morning, we woke up around 5:30 and hurried ourselves to the hotel gate, where our gypsy was waiting for us. This time we got zone 3 which is the most scenic zone of Ranthambore as it has three lakes which act as perfect habitat of both prey as well as predator. Though zone 3 used to be quite popular for tiger sighting a few years back when Machhli ruled the lakes with her 3 cubs, but I have not seen a tiger in zone 3 in over 3 safaris.

A monstrous Monitor Lizard

Upon entering the zone, we first went inside hoping to see T-19, a female tigress with 3 cubs. However, we were out of luck as the area was totally devoid of any signs of her presence. After that, we came back around Rajbagh lake to find a number of alarm calls warning of the presence of a predator in the area. Finally when we reached the source of alarm calls, we saw a sick cheetal sitting on a rock and a sambhar deer was giving alarm calls while looking at the cheetal. Sambhar deers have very weak eyesight but a strong sense of smell. Here it seemed as if the sambhar had caught the smell of tiger scent from some earlier territory marking and he confused the sick cheetal for a tiger. Standing there with his tail up, he continued to give alarm call for over an hour. Disappointed, we moved around the lake where we saw a couple of small crocodiles lying in the sun while a number of sambhar deers were inside the lake eating aquatic plants without seeming to fear for their life. Also, three monitor lizards were moving along the lake searching for bird eggs to eat.

Biggest Turtle I have ever seen

On the other side of the lake, we saw a giant turtle resting about 5 meters away from the lake. Disturbed by the sound of our gypsy, the turtle immediately put its head inside his shell and moved into the lake. Though, we didn't see a big cat in this safari, but seeing that huge turtle kept us excited.

A female Neelgai

In our afternoon safari, we got the only zone I didn't want to see: Zone 1. This is the smallest zone here and there are hardly any water left in this zone in the month of May. Though this zone falls into the territory of two tigers but both would have moved somewhere in search of water. There are some specific berries loved by bears in this zone which also opens the possibility of a sloth bear here. However, as feared, the zone was totally dry in terms of animals except for a few langurs and spotted deers.

A beautiful Golden Oriole

Monsoons are not really easy for Tigers as water in the lakes increases the reach of crocodiles enhancing chances of a conflict between the two ferocious animals. Also their prey gets more dispersed due to the flooding in low lying areas and availability of grass in higher plateaus. So wishing the 8-9 cubs recently born in Ranthambore all the luck in surviving their first monsoon rains!!!!

Painted Storks in Flight mode

Where Tigers rule: Ranthambore National Park

When I visited Ranthambore last year for a day and failed to see a tiger, I had decided that I will come back here again. I always had a feeling that I missed seeing one by a very slight margin. So I decided to drive to Ranthmabore on a Friday night, have four safaris over Saturday n Sunday and drive back after the evening safari on Sunday. Last year I committed a big mistake of doing these safaris in a Canter, which is like a minibus with its top removed. Though you can still see a tiger but the canter with its inability to maneuver easily and the time it takes in picking up all the tourists reduces the probability of seeing a tiger significantly. So I booked my safaris in gypsy with Ranthambore Bagh. I would highly recommend this place to anyone going there. With the owner himself being a wildlife photographer, this place is built with a passion that won't be seen in other resorts in Ranthambore.

Safari 1: We got zone number 3 in our 1st safari. Its surely the most scenic zone with three lakes here. Also, the chances of sighting a tiger here are good as these lakes provide nice habitat to a tiger with enough water n prey present. Zone 3 falls into the territory of T-28 male tiger, T-17 female and T-19 female with her 3 cubs. However, we were out of luck as this zone was totally dry during our safari. No pugmarks, no warning calls. We had to make do with just crocodiles, deers, monkeys and a number of birds.

Safari 2: When we reached back to our hotel, we found out that people in zone 4 and 5 had seen multiple tigers, so we requested the agents to get us those zones for the evening safari as tigers hardly move during the day. We got zone 5. Its the biggest zone and the ride is quite harsh on your back in this zone. Sundari(T17) The start to this safari was similar to the earlier safari with just deers, monkeys and birds to give us company. However, i still had hope as tigers normally move late evening when its a bit colder. After about 2 hours, we saw a canter and a gypsy parked saying that there is a tiger nearby. We moved closer to them and there she was. Sundari(T-28), a female tigress big enough to ruling a territory as big as male tigers of 40-50 sq kms, sleeping on a rock. After lying there for sometime, finally she got up to move towards the stream. This was our chance to have a closer look at her. With atleast 7-8 vehicles there, our gypsy driver drove in reverse gear for over 100 meters on such difficult terrain to get us probably the second best view of the beautiful tigress. She sat in the water for about 15 mins giving us enough time to take pictures. After that she walked into the woods and we exited the park for the day. Safari 3: Though we didn't want it, but we got Zone 3 again. By now, I had started trusting my luck though having seen 3 tigers in my last three safaris. I actually did get lucky as we had just entered our zone when a gypsy came backwards with the guide announcing the approach of a tiger. After a bit of commotion with all the gypsies moving backward and forth, he came out of the bushes, crossed the road and climbed onto the ruins to analyze his territory before disappearing into the bushes on the other side. T-28, Star Male Fort Territory This was T-28 or Star Male, the biggest tiger of Ranthambore. Though Sundari was big but T-28 seemed massive compared to her. More than that, I just loved the attitude with which this tiger crossed the route totally unperturbed by all the cars around. Rest of the time in this safari was spent looking for T-19, the female with 3 cubs. However, she is known to be shy and not easily spotted. That belief was proved when we couldn't find any trace of her but still came back mesmerized by T-28. Safari 4: I wanted to see the grand old dame of Ranthambore, the oldest tigress in the wild, 17 year old Machli or Crocodile killer or Queen of the Lakes. While male tigers are known to be dominant and stronger, it was Machli's 10 year reign of the highly desired Fort territory of Ranthambore that made her a legend. She finally left the territory for her daughter, Sundari. With her canines broken and a weak old body, she now lives in Zone 4. For this very reason, I requested my agent to provide us Zone 4. However, we were again allotted Zone 5. Though we were pretty disappointed, but our guide almost promised us that he will show us atleast one tiger. That helped in soaring our spirits high. T-39 He didn't have to work hard to keep that promise. We had just entered the National Park and were on the common road for the park and Ranthambore Fort when we saw almost all the jeeps parked. We understood that we are in luck again. It took about 15 mins before we could spot the black n yellow stripes in the woods. It was T 39 and she was walking towards us after drinking water at the stream below. Finally she came out of the woods right next to our jeep and looked towards us. She seemed hungry and our guide concluded that she must have just fed her cubs by looking at her nipples. A forest guard present there was happy to see that as that confirmed that there were new cubs in the Park. After staring at us for a few seconds, she moved parallel to the road before jumping onto it and move into the woods on the other side. She was the closest I could be to a tiger. Anymore closer, she would have been in our jeep. Then we went into our zone hoping to find Sundari again but that didn't happen. We came out of the park after our final safari of the trip and were more than satisfied after seeing 3 tigers from close. RANTHAMBORE TIPS 1. If you are going from Delhi by road, go to Jaipur. From jaipur move on Tonk Road(NH 12) before turning left from Kothun. Continue on this till Lalsot and turn right from there. This is the best route among all you will see on Google Maps. 2. Do whatever it takes to get a gypsy for safari. 3. Do atleast four safaris to enhance your probability of seeing a tiger and enjoy the wildlife. 4. If you still don't see a tiger, go back again!!