Camels and tigers and peacocks, oh my!!

While we did many wonderful things in India, one of the highlights for me was our tiger safari!  Hopefully I will be able to post about the rest of our adventures in India shortly, but for now......

On Saturday morning we left Jaipur for Ranthambore National Park, in the town of Sawai Madophur. We weren't able to get a train ticket (I think we waited too long, apparently this is holiday time for locals and the trains have been full as much as a month in advance)....and despite our numerous local bus experiences in SE Asia, the local bus option here wasn't looking like something we wanted to try (the high was between 96-106 most days, and usually half of the people on the bus ride on TOP of the bus). So we regretfully hired a taxi (at the small price of our entire budget for a whole day) to take us on the 160 km, 4 hour journey to Ranthambore.  The one benefit of a taxi? We were able to see so much more on the way! There is a not a ton hapenning along the railway, but going by road allowed us to pass numerous small towns.  And now not only were we sharing the road with other cars, motorbikes, rickshawas, cows, goats, pigs, and children.....

 

 ..........but there were also camels everywhere!!They were mostly being used to pull people and supplies, although we did see a few lying along the side of the road resting.

And camels weren't the only thing we saw along the way......

We got to drive through tons of villages, although taking pictures out of the moving car window was not the easiest

We arrived at our hotel, The Ranthambore Bagh, around noon and quickly felt right at home. (This is a part of our trip where we were spoiling ourselves, no hostels here folks :) The people were very nice and the place was cozy.

As we were pulling up

This goes in the top 3 list of comfortable beds for the trip

Please notice: SHOWER CURTAIN!!!

And Oh. My. God. Can you imagine my excitement when in the bathroom 2 rolls of toilet paper that were not a fifth of the size of a normal roll AND soap were found???? This is a whole new kind of luxury :)

Common areas around the hotel:

Reading area....there was a papasan chair (MY FAVORITE!!) over where I was standing

Outside of our room

Downstairs area with a/c and wifi.....heaven

Outdoor garden....where I am standing to take the picture is where they served dinner and tea nightly

Around 4, we were picked up and brought the 4km or so to the park for our first excursion: to see Ranthambore Fort.

Ranthambore Fort is about 1000 years old and contains Muslim, Buddhist, and Jain temples.

Walking up to the fort....this place was pretty spectacular. The wall stretches 8km around....and there are tons of defensive tactics inside of it that proves these guys were extremely smart....ie: any of the major entrances are not where they appear to be- you have to zig zag around and then enter via the side- this was to prevent elephants from attacking, as they cannot easily turn or walk in a zig zag fashion

View out of the fort "window"

Our guide VJ also showed us some of the cool defensive elements used when the fort was being attacked: my favorite- one of the holes in the fort wall that appeared to be small window.  When you looked through it, you saw that it was really sort of a tunnel pointing down and to the outside at a 60 degree angle or so- while under attack, they used to pour boiling water down it so that anybody trying to climb the fort would be burned.

And although we didn't go on a technical safari until morning, we were able to see some animals along the way....mostly my favorite, monkeys!!!

Whatcha lookin at?

Our guide said these babies were probably only a week or so old!

As Katy said, these guys look like they are waiting to watch a movie or something!

Monkey kisses

Yowza....don't mess with him!

Sambar deer crossing the road

This guy tried to come near the mother and baby....momma looked a little angry at first

After our evening of monkey-spotting and fort exploring, we called it an early night as we were waking up at 445am the following morning on our quest for the tiger!!  Ranthambore National Park is thought to be one of the best places in the world to spot tigers. According to some sources, there are 40 tigers in the park....but our safari guides said they think there is only about 25 from what they have seen. Either way, we were hoping as hard as we could to see a tiger but knew that there was a very good chance that we wouldn't.

However, must have been our lucky day because we were not in the park for even 10 minutes when we ran into this guy!
His name is T-24. The guides know all the tigers in the park by name (how cool is that?) and he was taking a morning stroll alongside the hill and we were able to watch him for 10-15 minutes before he disappeared up the rocks and over the other side. Simply amazing :)

After spending as much time as we could admiring T-24, we continued on in search of other wildlife. It did not disappoint......

Monkeys everywhere!!

Sambar deer

 

One is playing while the other is ready to fall asleep!

There were peacocks everywhere.....I also saw them fly- which is not something I had seen before

 

Spotted deer

MORE MONKEYS!!!!

Playing on the rope swing:

Beautiful watering hole

This friendly guy came to hang out on our Jeep for a bit

And the ride home at the end of the day

 

 

We were not as lucky on our second safari....no tigers. We did spend a lot of time in the proximity of a tigress (we could smell the carcass it was eating)....but she never showed her face.  I think the morning sighting was more than enough, however :)  Such a great time at Ranthambore Bagh!!