We piled on the bus this morning for a drive to the tiger preserve at Ranthambhore. By the map, it’s about 100 miles. It took us 5 hours. Welcome to India. The “highway” was 2 lanes at best, but this time with goat jams instead of camel jams. The road itself would rate as a “back road” at home, often not paved for ¼ mile or more.
We made our way through the town of Sawai Madhopur to our lodge. This, of course, is a world apart from what is inside our gate. Quiet, grass, palm trees, etc. Here in India, WE are the 1%. We are probably the 0.1% After lunch, we piled into large jeeps and went into the park. The Government has strict controls of who goes in, and they required us to carry our passports. We had to sign a waiver (for damages/tiger injuries/ etc.) before they would let us in. I commented to our group that if we were being chased by a tiger, the tip was not necessarily to outrun the tiger, but to outrun your buddy.
Dinner was more Indian food. It does get a little monotonous. I could kill for a burger. When I was sick back in Jaipur, I made the mistake of asking for plain sautéed chicken. They had no idea what I was talking about. When I mentioned at the reception desk at checkout that perhaps they could learn to cater to western stomachs for a very common problem, they thought I was making a real complaint and worried that I wasn’t satisfied and even got a manager to speak with me. It wasn’t worth the trouble to bring it up. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.
-I actually don’t share Steve’s frustration with the food and have been quite enjoying it. The vegetarian options are delicious and the lack of meat at some meals doesn’t bother me in the least. In Delhi and Jaipur, we had a variety of delicious cauliflower, okra and eggplant dishes. Pushkar was entirely vegetarian so Steve wasn’t too happy. Here in Ranthambhore, there have been meat dishes at every meal in addition to the vegetarian ones. The cauliflower has been replaced by a variety of potato dishes and there continue to be very good eggplant and okra dishes. So far, we have been traveling in Delhi (which is its own state and the state of Rajisthan. It will be interesting to see how the food changes when we visit other areas of the country. AHS
Walking back to our room at this lodge brought back feelings of Maine. The air is cool, the trees give off a great scent (not incense), and the sky is cloudless with a big bright moon. That is, until the bugs started getting to me. Well, maybe that’s Maine, too. I have since moved inside.
We made our way through the town of Sawai Madhopur to our lodge. This, of course, is a world apart from what is inside our gate. Quiet, grass, palm trees, etc. Here in India, WE are the 1%. We are probably the 0.1% After lunch, we piled into large jeeps and went into the park. The Government has strict controls of who goes in, and they required us to carry our passports. We had to sign a waiver (for damages/tiger injuries/ etc.) before they would let us in. I commented to our group that if we were being chased by a tiger, the tip was not necessarily to outrun the tiger, but to outrun your buddy.
The park itself is the remnant of an old fort and then a Maharajah’s hunting ground. We went through the gates, and it became green again. Ann noticed there was no trash, either. There was the remnants of an old mosque from the 1500’s that had never been rebuilt or completely destroyed. We came upon a crocodile first, snoozing in the sun. Then came the Langur monkeys hanging out to look at us as we looked at them. As we got further into the park, we saw Kingfisher birds, Sandpipers, spotted deer, Sambur Deer and others. Did we see a tiger? Well, no actually. The guides say that they listen to the sounds of the other animals to listen for “warning noises” that they use to warn each other. There may have been a tiger in the area, but not right where we were. It was interesting when they stopped the jeep and the guides told everyone to be silent, while we waited. All we heard was the noises of the jungle environment. Sometimes we heard the warning call, and the herd would scatter a little, but no tiger. After a while we moved on and did it again, but still no luck. We have two more forays into the park tomorrow, so we’ll see. One of the other groups had seen a tiger this morning, so there is no truth to the rumor that this is a big scam.
-I actually don’t share Steve’s frustration with the food and have been quite enjoying it. The vegetarian options are delicious and the lack of meat at some meals doesn’t bother me in the least. In Delhi and Jaipur, we had a variety of delicious cauliflower, okra and eggplant dishes. Pushkar was entirely vegetarian so Steve wasn’t too happy. Here in Ranthambhore, there have been meat dishes at every meal in addition to the vegetarian ones. The cauliflower has been replaced by a variety of potato dishes and there continue to be very good eggplant and okra dishes. So far, we have been traveling in Delhi (which is its own state and the state of Rajisthan. It will be interesting to see how the food changes when we visit other areas of the country. AHS
Walking back to our room at this lodge brought back feelings of Maine. The air is cool, the trees give off a great scent (not incense), and the sky is cloudless with a big bright moon. That is, until the bugs started getting to me. Well, maybe that’s Maine, too. I have since moved inside.
No comments:
Post a Comment