Elephants, boars, birds, crocodiles! ...but no tigers.

Our trip to Corbett National Park was exciting and rewarding, despite the absence (at least from our view) of any tigers. The park is northeast of Delhi, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in the state of Uttaranchal. This is the same state that Rishikesh and Haridwar are located, the park and Ramnagar are about 120 kilometers southeast. We need to post a map showing all the places we've been, that would probably be useful. Pics can be found here.

I hussled home early from work and we caught the 10:50 Ranikhet Express from the Old Delhi train station. The station was probably the most crowded we've experienced thus far. When the train arrived people were trying to jump on before the train stopped, crashing into bystanders as they were carried along hanging from the door. When we arrived at our seat, which we hoped would be two since we had two tickets, we found that we had to share one. I suppose we did better than the three kids from the Netherlands who all had to share one as well. We did get some sleep sharing the little train bed, and woke up as the train arrived in Ramnagar. Our driver picked us up in an open-topped gypsy, and we drove off.

I arranged the mini-safari with a combination hotel and "adventure tour specialists." We ate breakfast at their hotel just outside of the park and then had to head back into town to obtain our permit for park entry. We also had to pay for our reservation for a room in Dikhala, which is a camp 31km inside of the park. This proved to be quite the hassle, since this was the last weekend that the park would be open before the monsoons came. Our tour company had sent a guy there to wait at the office since 4:45 in the morning. When we got to the office the guy waiting pulled me to the back door of the office and whispered instructions to tell the people inside that I was #2 on a list and he had been waiting since the above mentioned time. When I looked up I noticed a virtual wall of Indians pressed to the front window all trying to get their names - or the names of their clients - logged into the system. Based on my side door entrance, I thought that maybe someone decided that goras don't have to wait in line... I was wrong. Any hope of organizational efficiency was lost, as I realized the consistently and frustratingly pleasant woman behind the counter was the only person with the authority to issue permits, settle disputes, or collect money. All decisions went through her, no matter how small or how many seemingly capable men stood idlely behind her. This meant that it basically took 3 hours of battling crowds and sitting around to get our permit and room confirmation.

Our arrangement with the tour company was that we would have 2 day use of the gypsy and driver for whatever safaris we wanted to take. The trip to get to Dikhala itself took about an hour and a half. You can see in the pictures that there are several dry riverbeds along the way that would during monsoon season be filled with rushing water. At the official entrance to the park, we were greeted by a strangely tame Bollu (at least that's what the locals called it). I have some video of this guy, who came right up to me and followed me to the car. He/she? kind of looked like half-horse, half-cow and didn't mind a nice ear scratching (I've got a video that I will post later). After the pleasant drive in through the forest, we settled into our room and took a well-needed shower. Next was lunch at the vegetarian only (of course) camp restaurant, which was actually very good. We found that other wildlife at the park was tame, as a buck sambar deer wandered around the camp looking for scraps of food, a pursuit he shared with the monkeys.

At around 5:30pm we boarded a 50-year old female elephant, tromped (a word to be taken quite literally in this case) across the river, and through the grasslands. Our first shock came after we crossed the river and we realized that the elephant was trodding through a virtual forest of marijuana plants, some above our heads. Our elephant driver, or mahaut, explained to us that indeed we were surrounded by fields of the naturally growing plant. Anyway, the trek was very relaxing and included sights of a herd of wild elephants and hundreds of different bird species. Our mahaut assured us that our best chance of a feline encounter would be as the "elephant wake up sleeping tiger" somewhere below us. Tigers are scared of elephants so nothing to be worried about. Sadly this would be our first swing-and-a-miss in our efforts to catch a glimpse of a big cat (the park was also home to leopards).

The next morning we got up at about 4:50am, ate some breakfast, threw the last uneaten piece of toast to the monkey, and again jumped into the gypsy. This was to be the beginning of a 5 hour long safari, hosted by our driver and a park guide. Again we were amazed by all the wildlife we saw as we were treated to a beautiful sunrise. The birdlife was especially unique. At one point, as we approached the river, we watched from a distance as a herd of wild elephant crossed the water. Our driver took us about a kilometer down the road and stopped the car. We waited for about 5 minutes, and the herd one-by-one came through the forest to cross the road. It was a very special experience, which was a little prolonged as one of the older females decided to stand in the middle of the road for about 15 minutes. Still no tigers though, only 4-hour fresh paw prints... which sadly is the closest we will probably come on this Indian excursion to seeing a wild tiger. After checking out of the room and lunch, we sat around camp reading our books, Life of Pi and God of Small Things (both highly recommended). This was a good way to beat the heat, as you can only safari in the morning and early evening. When the time was right, we drove off for one last romp through the woods. On this trip we saw a serpent eagle, some wild boar, crocodiles, turtles, and lots of monkeys, birds and various species of deer. We were lucky to catch a male peacock in full display attempting to woo a female. He looked silly from time to time as he would turn around revealing his behind gyrating back and forth like a frightened duck.

We left the park as late as we possibly could, 7pm, just as the gates were closing. After some dinner we rode back to the train station and caught our ride back to Delhi. This time, happily, we each had our own bed, and got a great night's sleep. We arrived at the South Delhi train station at 5:15, drove back to the hotel, and crashed. Another amazing adventure in the books.