On the Trail of Tigers

I think tourists have some important jobs: be a nuisance to the locals, be the object of derision(and/or novelty) for the locals, be taken advantage of by the locals... (The only time you have a bigger target on your chest is when you are getting married; that's when folks know they can REALLY get their hooks into your cash). That's just part of traveling---in some places, you represent the local economy's sole source of revenue. And if you accept that as part of the deal, it doesn't really dampen things too much.

While I accept it as part of the deal, it doesn't mean that I'll just roll over. And I have learned to lower my expectations when arrangements are made from afar. Throughout my travels, I've seen that what may seem glowing in the planning literature, often turns out to be dingy and moth-eaten.

When we pulled off the road into the Jungle Lodge outside of Bandipur, I had this in mind... Despite the great murals in the rooms, the Lodge seemed a bit suspect. No jungle to be seen nearby, the area was just sort of scrubby. And the private veranda from our room looked out on a stately concrete and barbed wire fence surrounding a hill that overlooked an amateur quarry operation. Every half hour or so, a truck dumped a bed full of rocks out nearby where it was sorted by a small army of school-aged kids. Perhaps, this was not the African Safari experience that was advertised---afterall, the tents in Kenya are a ton nicer than our rooms...

When it was time to head out on our evening game drive, I had pretty low expectations. Even though this was supposed to be one of the country's best parks, we were going to be cruising in trucks around the periphery for only two hours. What animals are going to stick around the well-traveled edges of their safe haven amidst belching diesel terror trucks stuffed with camera-toting yahoos? As we loaded up the jeeps, I was feeling certain that we had been jipped.

But as we traveled a few kilometers, things brightened a bit. I allowed my expectations to grow a bit as the landscape grew greener the closer we got to the park. While our guides checked in at the entrance, we watched kids taunt a playful macaque with food and marveled at a huge group of spotted deer in the distance. But as we moved into the park, I continued to worry that the noise of our ancient jeep would scare off the animals we had come so far to see.

The worries were for naught. After rounding a bend, the trees a few hundred yards from our car shook and parted. Two elephants burst forth and loped slowly in our direction. Not far behind, a smaller calf followed clumsily. The trio looked a bit irked to see our group staring at them, but the pachyderms drew a bit closer. One trumpeted. Ears flared. Trees were bent by the bulk of leaning grey masses. Eventually, one of the elephants took umbrage at our continued gawking and gave the jeep a bluff charge---threatening to bowl the vehicle over, but instead stopping only a few dozen yards away to throw a wad of turf in our direction. As we continued to watch, the calf nursed while the massive trio eyed us warily. Then, as quickly as they appeared, the trio disappeared behind a wall of dense forest.

Before we could catch our breath, we saw movement on the other side of the roar, where we stumbled upon another group of wild elephants. A matriarch led the group of 11---a herd made up of all ages and sizes, from calves to the humongous many-ton momma. As we watched, they gathered into a tight group with the calves in the middle near the lead female. Amidst the euphoria, I realized that I was not breathing. So moving and awe-inspiring was the sight, that I could have gone home from that point and been content. I don't really know how long we watched this group of elephants, I was just too transfixed. But at some point, there was a lot of trumpeting and we moved down the road. When I looked back, the herd had disappeared.

Apparently, the summer is the best time to do this type of tour. The heat and lack of rain wilt the underbrush and the animals have a hard time pulling the disappearing act. We were passing through after the first cooling showers of the monsoon and while the verdant green underbrush and forests were pleasing to see, they could have hidden Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, and a couple flying saucers... Honestly, a tiger could have been in the underbrush just feet from our jeep and we would have had no idea. But despite the less than optimal viewing, we still managed to see an incredible diversity of large animals. At times, the cavalcade of creature felt staged, like some Disney ride...they just kept popping up and disappearing around every bend. So, despite the ground cover, we caught glimpses (or gaped) at:

• huge herds of chittal (spotted deer)---so many, in fact, that we became jaded and just ignored them until a large male started vocalizing in our direction with an enormous clatter...
• many pairs of sambar---large antlered hoofstock---sort of the Indian version of elk
• lots of Asian elephants (apparently a quarter of the park's population)
• some sort of langur (monkey)
• macaques (monkeys)
• small herds of gaur---the largest cattle species on Earth(the males weighed over a ton!) ---sort of the south Asian version of buffalo with a hilarious mullet atop their horns (check the rotating photos above)
• mongoose (Riki Tiki Tavi?)
• wild pigs
• some kind of really big hare
• lots of wild peacocks fanning their tails for the ladies
• dhole---Indian wild dogs that look a bit like large foxes
• all kinds of random birds I could not begin to guess at...

As we cruised through rutted roads, watering holes, hillocks, and meadows the rest of the world faded away. No crazy traffic. No dirty sidewalks filled with touts. No noisy illegal mining operations. Just us, our noisy jeep, and the furry denizens of a shockingly wild and thoroughly quiet place. It was an incredible experience. But as the light started to fade, it was time for us to leave the park. The land managers wisely limit access to the park to two-hour periods around dawn and dusk. Since the animals are crepuscular, this guarantees that people are moving through when the creatures are most active, but gives them peace for the majority of the day and night. As we left, Jeff, Jo-Elle and I were utterly geeked. But, we were also very aware of the fact that this park harbored one of the highest carnivore densities in south Asia. It is afterall, first and foremost a tiger preserve (one of nine in India). And it is one of the few places in India that can support three different species of large predators (tigers, leopards, and dhole---plus sloth bears). Sure, we saw one---but clearly dholes are the least exciting of the group. So we immediately started negotiating another game drive for the morning (even though it was not part of our package). We were able to convince the guides to take us back, for a price.

In the meantime, we ate well back at the lodge, which turned out to be significantly better than the first impressions implied. Great food. Even better pulled coffee (something I will greatly miss---super sweet, earthy, coffee that is probably more than 2/3 sugary milk, yum! It takes the name from the aerating preparation with which it is spooned out and dumped into a boiling pot repeatedly so that it looks as though it is being pulled...). I particularly enjoyed a great paneer curry dish. Paneer is a nonmelting cheese that is used as a meat substitute in veg dishes---kind of like tofu in taste and texture. Unfortunately, I soon learned that paneer is a lot more like matzohs than meat. For the gentiles reading---matzohs are unleavened bread eaten during the Jewish Passover holiday, and they are famous for completely freezing the digestive system for days at a time. Paneer is a much better constipator...as I learned over the better part of the next week. (In the scheme of things, that makes travel a bit easier---certainly better than the opposite problem.)

We awoke at 5 a.m. for our morning game run. It was cool, the air felt clean, and we were giddy with excitement. But the drive was far less engaging than the night before. Sure we ran into two different species of eagle, chittal, a mongoose, sambar, and caught glimpse of a gaur. But even the guides were a bit sheepish---they knew that they hadn't met our expectations. So, they pulled an audible. The driver abandoned the areas we had been cruising in the hopes of searching out the A #1 attraction---we were looking for an elusive tiger. We creeped along some roads that were obviously less traveled through lowland areas which were awash in dense bamboo thickets. It was easy to see why this would be tiger territory. Since they are ambush predators, dark impenetrable areas like this offered no shortage of comfortable places to await prey. The guides knew that there had been tigers nearby---they had seen one munching on a gaur two days before next to the road. As we approached the kill site, the driver slowed the car to watch closely for tiger tracks. Eventually, we did see the footprint of a small tiger. When we got to the kill site, all that was left of the gaur was its hairy tail and the bloody trail left on the road when the big cat dragged what was left of the one-ton carcass to the other side. The guides slowly slid off the truck, tiptoed to the side of the dirt road and gazed warily into the nearby thickets in search of stripes. Tension was thick---afterall, these wild cats are known to kill humans regularly in other regions of India. But aside from some scat on the side of the road, and the unmistakable reek of the rotting kill hidden somewhere in the underbrush nearby (two day old gaur is particularly wretched), there was no other sign of the tiger. While we missed the cat, we did get to see incredible rugged scenery as they struggled to find more wildlife for us---well past the two-hour limit which was apparently only loosely enforced in that section of the park. Like the night before, even running late, the drive ended too quick. Soon we were back on the road to Mysore where we had a date with the Maharaja, who turned out to look more than a bit familiar...

Coming Soon: No paparazzi for the Raj; staying with the Prince; 100 years was not enough for this temple; I've never seen an uncircumcised one that big...