A Trip to the Land of Mowgli - Pench Tiger Reserve - Masurnala Gate

 

Growing up, many of us especially the 80s kids would have at least heard about The Jungle Book! Rudyard Kipling's book about an Indian boy who is brought up by a bunch of animals after his father is killed by a tiger. 

The tale of Bagheera, Baloo, Kaa, Akela, Raksha and ofcourse Mowgli the Man Cub, set in the dense dark jungles of Central India. One name keeps cropping up frequently through the story - "Seoni". This is a sure indicator that the story was set in Pench, which ofcourse is located in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh state in Central India.

With this background, each of us had a huge build up of expectations with respect to the forest and ofcourse the recent sighting of a melanistic leopard or a Black Panther (Bagheera of Jungle Book) further raised the expectations.

The Republic Day weekend in January presented an opportunity for us to make a long overdue trip into the jungles. The initial plan of going to Jim Corbett National Park was shot down due to non availability of permits and then it was a toss up between Kanha and Pench.

With the rich background of expectations, the decision to go to Pench was easy and so we booked our flights to Nagpur. Pench is a two and a half hour drive (approximately 120 km) from Nagpur and an early morning flight into Nagpur meant that we were very comfortably positioned to reach Pench by noon, freshenup, eat lunch and head out for our first safari.

With an itinerary planned for a total of 6 Safaris, we started our foray with a drive into one of the Buffer Zones. Masurnala Gate was the entry point, located about 30km away from Turiya, where we were accomodated. While remote from the more popular core areas of this large Tiger Reserve, Masurnala (Rukhad) is a difficult terrain comprising mostly of rocky and hilly areas. This did not for a minute reduce the extent of green cover. The forest was still thick and visibility was hardly a few meters into the undergrowth. This meant that spotting any fauna was next to impossible, unless some animal decided to step out on to the road/ pathway.

We set out on our drive into the forest. You can watch this video below and hear the rest of the details of this part of the forest from our guide - Manish Thakre

Although there was no sighting of the usual suspects, we did have a couple of Gaur peacefully grazing and one of them decided to cross the road to join the other one, just ahead of us.

Just being there in the forest and enjoying the beauty more than made up for not being able to see the usual attaractions. Enjoy a glimpse of the pristine and beautiful forest.

A beautiful forest, the company of some fantastic people - Aap, mai aur jungle....was a fabulous time. More about our forays into the other zones in my next blog. 

Till then Ciao!!! Take Care and Stay Happy!!

Corbett Summer

 

Typical of the standard rant these days, the pandemic is to blame for throwing normal life out of whack, causing mayhem in our lives. After multiple false starts, a couple of postponements and a last minute cancellation, we finally made it to the seat in the Aircraft.

Trepidation still in the back of our minds considering the uncertain situation at Delhi, the gang went ahead and made it to Delhi without further incident. Bags collected and as we stepped out of the Airport, we gasped in the heat... Thankfully it was still morning, hence it was not that bad and soon enough we boarded the Cab and settled in for the drive to Ramnagar.

For the monetarily curious, the costs have gone up nearly 20% with service providers across the board scrambling to make most of the spurt in travel. 

With the roadwork mostly completed, the drive was smooth and after a mandatory refreshment stop at the Shiva Dhaba (Mamaji) we made it to Ramnagar by late afternoon and checked into the Corbett Machan resort for the overnight stay.

With a bit of the day still left, we stepped out for a short walk in the sorrounding area and came across a few birds. Summer heat meant that the walk had to be short, but it was a decent experience. Pretty sure the walk would be fantastic during cooler weather, with a lot more birds.

Changes in the timings of entry at the Dhangari gate, meant that you were allowed in at 10:00am or later, instead of early morning as was the case in the past. With such a change, it makes sense to either take the overnight train from Delhi and spend a few hours at Ramnagar refreshing and shopping before driving down to the Dhangari gate or alternately take a late night flight into Delhi and drive down from Delhi to Ramnagar through the wee hours of the morning, braving the heavy commercial traffic on the highway and arrive bleary eyed at Corbett, or the best option being what we did; stay overnight at Ramnagar and drive to Corbett after breakfast.

The overnight rest and breakfast in the morning really help! 

At Dhangari gate, Murphy's law came into play.....our permits were forgotten, causing a few moments of anxiety, while the permits were scanned and sent to the drivers and more fortuitously, the officials at the gate allowed for the scanned images to be printed and soon, we were on our way to Dhikala.

About an hour and a half later of driving through some pristine jungle, with a small herd of elephants halting us for a brief while and providing us with a glimpse of what lie ahead, we reached Dhikala.

With rooms allocated shortly, we had a quick refresh, dropped into the restaurant for a quick lunch and soon ready for our first venture into the forest....and what a trip it was.....

The next 3 days just flew in a blur of amazing scenes of successful and failed hunts, charging elephants, clouds of dust mingling with the pungent odour of naturally growing Bhaang plants. Videos will be available on our YouTube channel, meanwhile here is a short collection of images.

Tides and Trails - A Sundarbans Odyssey

In this day and age of the Covid, opportunities to travel are far and few in between; so when one such opportunity presented itself, there were no second thoughts before confirming. 

With the entire family including the parents jumping at the chance, we were all set. However there was some dampening news that our daughter could not be part of the trip due to her semester exam dates clashing with the travel dates. Even with a couple of adjustments, we could not ensure that she would travel with us. 

One last option was to push the travel dates to Jan 2022, which we did not due to other commitments - a decision that proved to be wise since West Bengal went into lockdown the day after we returned home.

Yes, the siren from Sundari came calling and we willingly went into her arms for a short trip. With flight tickets booked, RTPCR test reports in hand, we flew into Kolkata on 29th December 2021. 

With the bags loaded into cars, we waded into the cacophonous chaos that has always been a part and parcel of Kolkata. Vehicles do not move unless the horns are blaring and yet, you rarely if at all, see any conflict between drivers. On the way, we did see several scenes of chaos but nothing that resulted in an argument between drivers or delay the drive. 

The sights and sounds of this part of West Bengal have been part of memories and the sight of the diesel pump powered tricycle rickshaws being an ubiquitous presence.

With loads of construction and increased human presence has made a significant change to the way the villages en-route appear. 

e-Rickshaws - Hopefully these will soon replace the heavily smoking diesel tricycle vehicles which are ubiquitous in this region,

We reached Gadkhali ferry ghat at 13:45, we straightaway got on to the boat and got underway and immediately set into the food that was prepared and laid out for us on the boat.

With lunch out of the way, and only a couple of hours available to explore, we immediately set out. Soon we saw a Saltwater Crocodile swimming ahead of us and were happy to get an early start to our wildlife experience.

With a dear friend, who has had the luck of the devil in his past trips, we were full of anticipation of what is to come over the next few days. Believe you me....we were not disappointed, even though we did miss seeing the elusive Tiger yet again!! Here is a photo journey of some of the fauna we did get to see....