I’ve been a little distant lately, what with the excitement over travelling to Cardiff for gigs and finally getting internet at home, my mind’s been wandering a little!
so many musings iw ant to writ,e but first there will be a little travelogue on Cardiff, with a special excerpt for the whoniverse tour.
Hopefully tonight or tomorrow. so enjoy!
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!
CHINA:
*strawberry on a stick. Meat on a stick. Actually, anything on a stick is pretty bloody good..even the scorpions.
*spitting. the hacking and coughing before the bringing up of the spit. It’s nasty, and something that remains with you for life. Whenever anyone hacks, you will shudder inside.
*Pretty lady….pretty lady…cheaper for you pretty lady. Oh, you make me cry, pretty lady!
*no tea. no tea houses. no tea. need tea. desperately need tea. why is it so bloody difficult to find black tea in China?
*the trains rock. even if the toilets are hideously nasty.
*Oppressive. Very oppressive atmosphere. Stay here long enough and it can depress you. Will be interesting to see how it affects the Olympics.
*Great Wall is worth the trip.
*Xian Bell Tower Youth Hostel. Great atmosphere, great people, look for the roof tile with my name on it!
VIETNAM:
*lemon juice. Is legend. Is good. Want it now!
*wontons. Wontons as bruschetta. The most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.
*Halong Bay, heritage listed for a reason. Take your time kayaking to pick up after the locals, and keep the bay beautiful for everyone.
*Same same…but different!
*Hoi An – take your time. Go hard shopping, then spend a few days poolside with a tequila. You deserve it.
*Bus trips. Camobida has bad roads? Have you guys tried Vietnam? Seriously…or maybe it’s just because the drivers are still doing 140 k/h……..even on potholes and twists and turns through the mountains.If you can sleep through this ride, you could probably sleep through a war.
* Agent Orange…..why? how can you do such a thing?
CAMBODIA:
*the people are so warm and bright….amazing.
*Monks, along the streets, on the back of motorbikes, in the temples.
*Angkor Wat. Breathtaking. Watch it at sunrise and sunset.
*shooting a machine gun. Unbelievably legal, and insane. Insanity.
*I can smell pot no matter where I go.
*poverty. Orphans, overjoyed when you bring them rice. Street kids, begging for your dinner scraps, sitting at your feet shovelling it down. it’s everywhere. you can’t escape it.
THAILAND:
*my god, the beaches. The beaches……..*speechless*
*I may have to concede and admit Thais make the best damn curry in the world.
*salt. ew. Salt in drinks and on fruit to halt the sweetness. Just wrong. Remember to ask for no salt!
*Khao San Road is hell on Earth. I have no idea why anoyone would want to stay there now why they do. It’s not cheap, it’s a major tourist trap which sends you crazy and tiny voices start telling you to kill….moving on to the next point.
*tuk-tuk drivers. Ok, they need to make a living. And yes, all over Asia they constantly hassle you for fares. But when you’re walking across the road and they want to take you somewhere, or sitting down at a restaurant and they start trying to sell you a day trip for only 10 Baht, and this happens every 10 seconds…..where’s something heavy?
*the beaches. Did I mention the beaches?
*Yellow! Thailand will always remain a sea of yellow for me.
INDIA
*oh my freaking dooly. Get me out! Get me out!
*People everywhere. Constantly. The only quiet place is your bathroom, and even then, people are trying to clamour in.
*staring, always being stared at. Even in tourist attractions, as if they’ve never seen a foreign woman before. And the laughing. Slightly uncomfortable.
*train rides are fairly comfortable, if you can ignore the stares. And the guys trying to feel you up.
*Wearing loose clothing just doesn’t work. People cop a feel no matter what. And then you punch them. No, yell at them, make them aware loudly and clearly you’re pissed off. They’ll back off.
*India made me aggressive. I started wanting to punch people up for pissing me off. Not sure if that’s a good thing.
*McLeod Ganj and Dharamsala. So beautiful, little hill stations at the foot of the Himalayas. Peaceful, calming, relaxing. Catch your breath here.
*Tiger reserve. To think someone in the 20’s actually thought about animal conservation! Tigers, elephants, birds, crocodiles, peacocks, pigs, deer…we saw it all. And in a torrential downpour.
*Thought it wasn’t the rainy season. Why did it rain?
*Happy Holi! My clothes will never recover from the dye. Water bombs, coloured dye smeared over your face, hair and body. Beautiful and colourful, just stay away from the young men!
*Rajasthan – sand city, blue city, pink city. So many colours, so many forts, such variety in a country!
*Liz Hurley ruining Jodhpur. Did she have to close down the Fort and the Palace on the only day we’re in town?
*Taj Mahal. Everything’s been said before, and everything was right.
*asking a question, head nod means maybe yes, hand shake means maybe no. Whatever happened to a basic yes or no answer?
*Bollywood extra. Spend a day standing around dancing to a song which grows on you, watch the actress fuck up the dance moves while you dance them over and over in front of her, meet new friends, and get a bit of extra cash for your troubles. And then down the track, rent out the movie and hope to god they didn’t cut out your scene!
*Do I have to leave India? When can I come back? I love this country!
Just a quick intro for myself, so I remember why I started this blog to begin with.
I jsut needed a place to rant and ramble, and post my own musings onto. thoughts and ideas on car rallies, reviews of shows, books and films I’ve seen. Places I’ve travelled to, and smaller insights into the world around me, because yes, I am self-centred and living in a self-centred world. The world revolves around me, people.
So, the world at large. Currently reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which is drawing me in slowly. Watching Grey’s Anatomy, Amazing Race, Supernatural, Veronica Mars, House and Two Pints. And that’s the short version.
Seeing Borat and The Departed this week. Desperate to travel anywhere and everywhere. Not looking forward to the evil Ashes this week, particularly since I’m on the verge of illness, and downing lemon tea like shots of vodka (the whole Polish thing kicking in there).
attempting to find my camera charger so I can continue mishandling my new DLSR in the hopes of taking half-cocked photos which I harbour mass dreams of having published all over the world one day. This kids have hefty dreams, people.
and that’s the news today.
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