To get a full account of my weekend read the post about Rajasthan as well!
Ranthambore National Park located in the state of Rajasthan hosts a population of ~40 tigers, amongst many other animals. The park is around 1,400 sq km and also contains ruins of a royal fort. Our guide: Yad, told us that the area used to belong to a princely family who would come and hunt in the forests. We saw the ruins of many hunting lodges and walls the scenery was amazing. Tiger hunting has been banned and 16 villages had to be relocated out of the area in order to create the tiger reserve. Some of the villagers help maintain the park and work in some of the hotels and other services, there is one government approved store that sells handicrafts made by these displaced women. The women sit outside and hand stich pillow covers, wall hangings, and other embroidered creations, the attention to detail is amazing. Sadly, there are other stores down the street that advertise similar products, but in reality they are imported from China. It was nice to support sustainable business and still be able to haggle :-P The town is very small and even though a train runs through the middle of the town bringing in tourists, the tiger reserve seems to be the only attraction. We arrived on Friday night after a 9 hr drive through rural Rajasthan. We tried to get tickets for an early morning safari but our hotel was not taking anymore reservations. Due to environmental concerns 2 safaris are allowed each day; one at 630am and the other at 3pm in16 seater trucks 4 seater jeeps. Since there are limited amounts of seats the hotel could only promise to try to get tickets but offered no guarantee. They advised us to walk to the ticket counter at 5am and get into line. We were up at 430am and at the ticket counter at 5:15am and naturally it was a chaotic Indian mess. No one really spoke English and even the Indians standing in line didn't know what to do. Our group split up and sat in both lines for over an hour. I was ready to throw in the towel when Chuck, the man of the hour waltzed up and told us we somehow had gotten tickets. To this day I still have no idea how he was able to acquire tickets when so many others couldn't, but we had the biggest smiles on our faces as we climbed into the back of the jeep! Our guide, Yad spoke very good English and told us about the history of the area and the fort. As we entered the park we stopped, and Yad told us that there were two entrances to the park. One was a Banyan tree that created a natural canopy over the road and directly behind it was the man-made fort entrance. I'm having some issues with the pictures but I took a fantastic photo and I hope I can post it soon. The safari lasted 3 hours and we covered numerous trails and drove around 2 man-made lakes and 1 natural lake. We saw tons of beautiful peacocks whose bright colors, like the Rajasthani women stand out in sharp contrast to the red dirt. We also saw crocodiles, spotted deer, Indian Sambars, (deer that are almost as large as horses), monkeys but alas no tigers. There were two close calls but she had already slipped out of sight. At one point we had stopped the jeep and sat quietly at the top of an embankment hoping that the tiger would come up the hill. While we sat there motionless I realized that the only thing I could hear was the wind. It is the first time in weeks that I sat in silence (or was in any place that was completely silent) - the scenery was breathtaking, the air was cool and fresh, and at that point I didn't matter if we spotted a tiger or not. After our tour was done we grabbed a quick breakfast (parathas, eggs, curd and pickle!) and went up to our room to relax. We all agreed that the 3pm safari was out of the question due to the heat and we doubted that we would be lucky enough to score tickets again and I don't think we could bear standing in line for solong a second time. While the others took a nap I walked around the area-since the town has a train and access to a main road it caters mostly to truck drivers and I quickly discovered there wasn't much to see within walking distance. On this quiet Saturday I was the main attraction I'm sure everyone was wondering why the crazy white girl was walking down the side of the road in the heat of the day. As I passed people would say "hello, how are you?" I would respond "fine, thank you" and then they would ask "where are you going?" and I would say "for a walk" and they would say "ok" and that would be it! no other questions :-) I found that to be especially funny because I had 3 identical conversations with 3 different people throughout my walk. The villagers were very friendly and happy to stop and talk with me, one man even showed me pictures of his garden from his mobile! When I got back I took a nice nap and did a little souvenir shopping. I was very pleased with the purchases I made and I know the recipients will be as well!! :-) That night the hotel hired traditional Rajasthani dancers to preform at dinner and of course yours truly was pulled up to dance. All I could do was smile as these 2 little boys no older than 8 years old danced circles around me. Their dance is very fluid and swan-like with a lot of hand gestures and twirling. The performance ended with one of the young men spitting fire wow!! We left early the next morning, as we were driving to the main road I turned around to say goodbye to the colorful women with bundles of hay balanced on their heads and the camel carts slowly ambling down the road behind us.
Ranthambore National Park located in the state of Rajasthan hosts a population of ~40 tigers, amongst many other animals. The park is around 1,400 sq km and also contains ruins of a royal fort. Our guide: Yad, told us that the area used to belong to a princely family who would come and hunt in the forests. We saw the ruins of many hunting lodges and walls the scenery was amazing. Tiger hunting has been banned and 16 villages had to be relocated out of the area in order to create the tiger reserve. Some of the villagers help maintain the park and work in some of the hotels and other services, there is one government approved store that sells handicrafts made by these displaced women. The women sit outside and hand stich pillow covers, wall hangings, and other embroidered creations, the attention to detail is amazing. Sadly, there are other stores down the street that advertise similar products, but in reality they are imported from China. It was nice to support sustainable business and still be able to haggle :-P The town is very small and even though a train runs through the middle of the town bringing in tourists, the tiger reserve seems to be the only attraction. We arrived on Friday night after a 9 hr drive through rural Rajasthan. We tried to get tickets for an early morning safari but our hotel was not taking anymore reservations. Due to environmental concerns 2 safaris are allowed each day; one at 630am and the other at 3pm in16 seater trucks 4 seater jeeps. Since there are limited amounts of seats the hotel could only promise to try to get tickets but offered no guarantee. They advised us to walk to the ticket counter at 5am and get into line. We were up at 430am and at the ticket counter at 5:15am and naturally it was a chaotic Indian mess. No one really spoke English and even the Indians standing in line didn't know what to do. Our group split up and sat in both lines for over an hour. I was ready to throw in the towel when Chuck, the man of the hour waltzed up and told us we somehow had gotten tickets. To this day I still have no idea how he was able to acquire tickets when so many others couldn't, but we had the biggest smiles on our faces as we climbed into the back of the jeep! Our guide, Yad spoke very good English and told us about the history of the area and the fort. As we entered the park we stopped, and Yad told us that there were two entrances to the park. One was a Banyan tree that created a natural canopy over the road and directly behind it was the man-made fort entrance. I'm having some issues with the pictures but I took a fantastic photo and I hope I can post it soon. The safari lasted 3 hours and we covered numerous trails and drove around 2 man-made lakes and 1 natural lake. We saw tons of beautiful peacocks whose bright colors, like the Rajasthani women stand out in sharp contrast to the red dirt. We also saw crocodiles, spotted deer, Indian Sambars, (deer that are almost as large as horses), monkeys but alas no tigers. There were two close calls but she had already slipped out of sight. At one point we had stopped the jeep and sat quietly at the top of an embankment hoping that the tiger would come up the hill. While we sat there motionless I realized that the only thing I could hear was the wind. It is the first time in weeks that I sat in silence (or was in any place that was completely silent) - the scenery was breathtaking, the air was cool and fresh, and at that point I didn't matter if we spotted a tiger or not. After our tour was done we grabbed a quick breakfast (parathas, eggs, curd and pickle!) and went up to our room to relax. We all agreed that the 3pm safari was out of the question due to the heat and we doubted that we would be lucky enough to score tickets again and I don't think we could bear standing in line for solong a second time. While the others took a nap I walked around the area-since the town has a train and access to a main road it caters mostly to truck drivers and I quickly discovered there wasn't much to see within walking distance. On this quiet Saturday I was the main attraction I'm sure everyone was wondering why the crazy white girl was walking down the side of the road in the heat of the day. As I passed people would say "hello, how are you?" I would respond "fine, thank you" and then they would ask "where are you going?" and I would say "for a walk" and they would say "ok" and that would be it! no other questions :-) I found that to be especially funny because I had 3 identical conversations with 3 different people throughout my walk. The villagers were very friendly and happy to stop and talk with me, one man even showed me pictures of his garden from his mobile! When I got back I took a nice nap and did a little souvenir shopping. I was very pleased with the purchases I made and I know the recipients will be as well!! :-) That night the hotel hired traditional Rajasthani dancers to preform at dinner and of course yours truly was pulled up to dance. All I could do was smile as these 2 little boys no older than 8 years old danced circles around me. Their dance is very fluid and swan-like with a lot of hand gestures and twirling. The performance ended with one of the young men spitting fire wow!! We left early the next morning, as we were driving to the main road I turned around to say goodbye to the colorful women with bundles of hay balanced on their heads and the camel carts slowly ambling down the road behind us.
No comments:
Post a Comment