Samode to Ranthambore and Tigers

April 8, 2022 - I couldn’t let my maharani balcony go to waste, so was up at 5:30 to see the sunrise from the balcony. It was still really warm and was able to hear the night birds and see bats flitting by and see the morning star. As it started to get light I was able to see a small lizard crawling across balcony and then a black faced monkey came by. I finally moved from the balcony when the biting bugs and ants woke up.

Things move a bit slower in the town of Samode and extra time is needed to get things like hotel bills because people don’t quite arrive to work right on time. We left at 8:30 which was on time according to our schedule, but we wanted a little extra time in case of traffic. The beginning of the route took us on the Jaipur/Agra highway for the first hour. The traffic was very bad, especially near Jaipur and we had several near misses. I asked Manoj (driver) if anyone owns the cows in the streets. He said that they are mostly abandoned. The government has “Old cow homes” in the country and asks owners to take the cows there, but that costs money and most are just abandoned:(.

The most annoying thing on the journey ware the interminal number of speed bumps. During our 4 hour journey there must have been speed bumps about every quarter to half a mile. I was working on another blog post at the time and it was REALLY annoying. We got to Ranthambore at about 12:30.

Ranthambore is the county seat and an important administrative hub, but is known for its tiger sanctuary.

I am staying at the Oberon Vanya Villas which is a very upscale property of luxury tents - glamping at the uber upscale! As you walk through the hotel gate, someone throws rose pedals on you from the balcony (had a funny vision of an aggressive rose petal thrower) and there is a small welcome ceremony. This is the only place, so far, where they have checked my covid documents, temperature taken and visa inspected. I normally never let anyone help me with my bag, but I felt stupid to be so protective and allowed them to bring it to the room. They had the audacity to take off my luggage tags from Exodus and my welcome necklace which was adorning the handle - I was really pissed off and asked them to bring them back (Which they did).

My safari was from 3-6:30 and lunch was included in my rate, so I had a quick one after getting settled. The safari tomorrow is at 6am, so a very early morning.

The park entrance is about a mile from the hotel and is shared with a mosque holy site further down the road. As we turned onto the road taking us to our assigned area of #4, we saw the ruins of a mosque built during the time when the moslems were putting the fort to siege.

I have a private safari on these days and do the safari with a naturalist (guide) and a driver - another reason to have even more tipping. Harendra was my naturalist And Hassan was my driver. We saw lots of animals which I will just list below. The highlight of the trip was seeing tigers and a sloth bear. We saw a family of tigers - mother and her 3 juvenile offspring. One thing I hate about safaris is that when something is seen all of a sudden 20 trucks arrive with loud people to come take a look. This was no different and was disappointing. That said, after the tigers walked away, everyone went to a spot where the tigers were thought to be going. About 10 jeeps with their loud customers waited impatiently and finally left. We had tea and cookies and looked at the deer, parakeets and peacocks (indigenous to the area and funny to see just walking around) near the river. Then Hassan saw the tigers coming down and we drove sedately to a great viewing point, just in time to see a large male tiger arrive to commandeer the spotted deer killed by the mother to teach the children. We had 5 quiet and blissful moments before the hoards descended.

Here are what we saw in terms of animals:

Tigers!

Languor monkey aka black faced monkeys- not too many troops and sometimes hanging out in trees above the roadway.

Sambar deer

spotted deer

partridges

Wild peacocks- indigenous to here

Marsh crocodile

Black headed ibis

Whistling ducks

Egrets

Sloth bear- I guess not too common to see

Paradise Fly catcher

Blue bull antelope

Honey buzzard

Painted Stork

Ring neck Green Parakeets

Jackal

Here is the fauna of note from the day:

Flame of the forest trees in bloom

Banyan trees

Black berry trees

Euphorbia a succulent shrub which looks like a cactus

After a very hot day, i thought it would be nice to have a swim after dark as it was still very hot. this was disappointing as the pool is rather small and there was a family playing volleyball with a beach ball - fun if you’re part of the family and not trying to do laps.

Had a late dinner of absolute marvelous soy masala. Are it before I remembered to take a picture:)