India is a populous country. A country of people, buildings, movement, pollution, crowding and claustrophobia. It’s difficult to imagine a place of nature, sparse and natural. Which is why the Corbett Tiger Reserve near Ranmagar is the perfect breakaway for a couple of days while travelling through the country.
Corbett Tiger Reserve was initially opened in 1936 as Hailey National Park, becoming the first of its kind in India. In 1955 it was renamed the Jim Corbett National Park after the man who hunted man-eating tigers from 1907-1939. Legend says he opened a wildlife reserve to make up for the animals he had hunted during his time, provoding a sanctuary for the threatened species of India. It became one of the first parks associated with Project Tiger in the 70’s, set up to protect the endangered Bengal Tiger. This is one of the best parks to visit to see wild tigers, but spottings are not definite.
We arrived in Ranmagar in the middle of a true thunderstorm, attempting to find a hotel listed in Lonely Planet. Somehwere I wouldn’t recommend, by the way. Once the storm passed, we wandered up to the Registration Office for the Reserve, which had already shut for the evening. Opening hours are 8am until 5pm, with a lunch break.
Stopped on the street by an old man, he convinced us to drop by Hotel Govind, found on the main street, for a chat and some dinner. Food was delicious. They run private safari tours out of the hotel, and have several journals filled with happy customers. You can organise jeeps and drivers at the registration office, but you’re in India, so there are always hidden costs and worries. The hotel organised a driver, Suresh, a jeep for the night, a 4 hour safari, all driver’s costs and one night’s accommodation in the park.
We left late the next morning, indulging over breakfast and finally making our way into the park shortly before midday. Suresh was brilliant, constantly scanning the forest, looking for wild animals. While known as a tiger reserve, the park has numerous animals, such as deer, elephants, birds, crocodiles and monkeys. We saw a jackal, and 2 varieties of deer before reaching Dikhala, the park’s village. We also endured a downpour…in a jeep. We saved our cameras, but not the our seats.
Typically, the rain stopped moments after we arrived. The park normally opens at 6 in the morning and is open until 11am. In the afternoon the park timings usually are from 2:30 to 5:30. During the middle of the day, you can’t leave the campgrounds, which still surprises me as this was the time we drove in to the park. We’d arrived shortly before 2pm and Suresh took us down to the watchtower, a tall tower overlooking the grasslands. It’s an amazing experience, overlooking the park and attempting to remind yourself you are actually in India, not Africa. It;s straight out of an African wildlife documentary.
Patience is a virtue, one we don’t have. But once we finally fell silent, we saw a herd of deer drinking from the waterhole, and spotted wild birds in the trees. My friend decided to explore on the ground level; highly against park rules due to the possibility of tiger mauling. This became more apparent after we heard godawful screaming in the nearby bushes which cut off, and then ominous rustling. My friend came shootingback up that watchtower quicker than Delhi Belly.
We found out it was a tiger, with a fresh kill…right there in front of us, only we couldn’t actually see it. Tiger spottings are rare, in the sense they’re not sitting around like in a photo shoot, awaiting your arrival. However, there were 2 sightings that day, and of coruse, we could hear the tiger breaking bones of some poor animal. We headed back shortly before 5pm, heading straight into the cafe for dinner and then smuggling biscuits for the wild monkeys which live in the park. Wild monkeys with a food fetish so bad, they started attacking us. We ended up throwing the biscuits and running for our lives.
There are 2 elephant rides per day, one at sunrise and another at 3pm. We were determined to make the sunrise ride and turned in early, only to yell at the other occupants of our dorm room every half hour for talking so loudly. And playing music. And yelling and laughing louder than a jet plane. We rose before sunrise, grabbed our blankets and headed to the elephant staircase. The birds softly started singing as the sky turned pink. Before it became too light, 3 elephants trampled down through the village, munching on breakfast. We climbed the stairs and made our way on the back of an elephant, and headed out into the heavy fog of the grasslands.
Waddling across the river, straining to see in the heavy blue fog clinging to the grass was a once in a lifetime experience. We had a tracker finding the trails of a tiger and he lead us straight to a fresh kill. Still no sign of the tiger, but plenty of deer stood around, quietly grazing and on their highest alert. After 2 hours following the river we returned to the village, slightly sore but beaming from ear to ear. We jumped straight back into our jeep with Suresh and headed out into the park.
We found wild elephants, more deer, wild pigs, owls, peacocks, hawks, eagles, vultures, crocodiles and monkeys. 4 hours driving through grass, forest and scrubland was beautiful. Unfortunately, we still hadn’t seen a tiger and our time in Corbett was over.
We packed up, sad to be heading back to the rat race. Peaceful, calming and relaxing, those 2 days were the perfect antidote to the dirty, crowded and harsh Indian cities. We drove back out of the park, Suresh constantly on the lookout, pointing out crocodiles, monkeys and more deer.
Then suddenly, tigers! Out on the dry river bed, a breeding pair were stalking a stag. They disappeared into the tall grass, and then the female pounced, racing after the stag up the hill. Yet again, we heard the cry and the silence. We waited, to see if the female would come back to her mate, but we were running out of time and had a lot of ground to cover before they closed the gates. Suresh drove that jeep like a rally car along the rough dirt roads, making it back in seconds. If only we’d remembered to actually check out of our dorm room and get our clearance form!
