Indian Safari!

We had been thinking about visiting India for some time, and finally managed to get our act together and book something. Because India is so vast and varied, we decided to book several organised tours, rather than try to attempt to see “everything” by ourselves. We travelled in November/December 2017, and here’s some of what we experienced.

We started with a wonderful introduction to southern India, travelling with Exodus Travels, then spent a few days in Delhi, and from there travelled to Denwa Backwater Lodge, where we started our amazing Indian safari in the very capable hands of Pugdundee Safaris. After finishing our tiger tour with Pugdundee, we continued on through northern India, with a custom itinerary from Royal Expeditions. 

Pugdundee operates several small, beautiful lodges in the national parks of Madhya Pradesh in central India. You can either book to stay in one or more of the lodges, and arrange your safaris separately, or you can book one of Pugdundee’s safari tours. We booked a 12 day tour which took us to four of the national parks, with meals, transfers, jeep and walking safaris, all arranged. Although it’s called a “tour”, we weren’t travelling in a group. Pugdundee has put together a variety of itineraries, with lodges, meals, transfers and safaris all included.

“Pugdundee: A hindi word meaning “Foot trail commonly used by humans and animals”.
The word is also used to describe the road less travelled and oft beaten paths in the Indian jungles.”

Sadly I had a technical mishap while editing and filing my photos, and lost practically all of my pictures, therefore many of the photos here are courtesy of Pugdundee. Also we met a lovely couple in Bandhavgarh, Mishtu and Gev, and several of the photos here are from Gev (thanks so much for sharing!)

I’ve decided to just reproduce my diary notes from our time here.

Satpura National Park:

5 Dec 2017: Driver met us at Bhopal airport. Long drive to Denwa Backwater Escape, bumpy road, rail crossing, villages. Got there, flower and drink greeting, all the staff lined up! Mohan Chandra Joshi is our naturalist, we will have different guides each day. Walk, jeeps, boats, canoe! Mornings and evenings, including a walk this afternoon at 4 pm. Room is gorgeous, all natural stone, wood, luggage-style furniture, large stone bathroom/dressing room. Fans, a/c. Huge outside terrace, and also upstairs terrace. All with lake views. This is so peaceful and beautiful! Delicious lunch, no chance of losing weight here! Presentation of what we will see while here, great dinner, and so to bed, with hot water bottles in the bed!

6 Dec:  6.30 am start: short jeep ride to boat across lake, to walk. Our naturalist, Mohan, said leopard was watching us! Langurs giving alarm calls! Small yellow butterflies.

3.45 pm: jeep to boat, boat on lake: so many birds: egret, grey herons, woolly neck stork, plovers, river terns, redshanks, darters, cormorants, pied and common kingfisher and they hover! Sambur, wild boar, peacocks, spotted deer.

(photos by Denwa Backwater Lodge – click on photos to view fullsize)

7 Dec:  Afternoon to night, jeep in buffer zone: kingfishers, hornbills, then a jungle or rusty cat! Very small, quite rare! 2 civets, one climbed a tree fast. Lots of hares. Eye glows…. Good evening, but feeling not so good, think I’m getting a cold.

8 Dec: I stayed in bed to nurse my cold, Chris went on canoe ride. Last day at Satpura/Denwa today. Out for a longer jeep ride this afternoon, meet at 2.30 pm! Guides tried really hard, found leopard pugs, nearly saw leopard, other jeep had just seen it cross the track. Langurs were calling, we watched and waited. Saw three hornbills later, including a juvenile.

Tonight we’ve been told to wear layers for dinner – dinner outside, lovely!

Pench National Park:

9 Dec: long drive from Satpura to Pench. Packed lunch en route. Finally got here, great welcome from the staff again, lovely tree house at Pench Tree Lodge. Our naturalist is Gaurav Dhotre.

We were served delicious appetizers during our early evening briefing on what we might expect to see. More delicious food at dinner, Pugdundee is feeding us well!

10 Dec: meet at 5.45 am. Drive to Pench National Park, lots of jackals, deer, langur, peacocks, kingfishers, serpent eagle. Scopes owl in morning, owlets in evening. Jackal went after mongoose! Got chatting with a family group visiting from Mumbai – we didn’t recognize him, but dad is a Bollywood actor!

(Photos by Pench Tree Lodge. Click to view photos fullsize)

11 Dec: morning drive: jackals, peacocks, squirrels, spotted deer (chital), blue bull (nilgai). Deer and langur alarmed, but no sightings. Afternoon, there was a leopard blur, but I sort of missed it! Chris saw it. Juvenile changeable hawk eagle flew across our path at the end of our drive, and apparently the dominant tiger was around too, two trucks behind us saw it! Oh well!

(Photos by Pench Tree Lodge. Click on photos to view fullsize)

Kanha Tiger Reserve:

12 Dec: drive from Pench to Kanha Tiger Reserve. Good 3 hours, great spicy lunch and lovely room in the jungle at Kanha Earth Lodge.

“Kanha’s lush sal and bamboo forests provided inspiration to Rudyard Kipling for his famous narrative, “The Jungle Books”. Its greatest achievement, however, has been the preservation of Hard Ground Swamp Deer or Barasingha from near extinction (they numbered just 66 in 1970). Today, they number more than 400 and are the only surviving population of Barasingha in the wild.”

Out for afternoon drive: spotted two leopards mating, in the FAR distance! Blurry, behind trees, but definitely there! Our naturalist is KD.

13 Dec: Meet at 5.15 am. Drive into Kanha with KD. Lovely Jungle cat in a clearing. Jackal, vulture in a tree, bee-eaters, racket tail drongo, Indian Roller (ABBR, another bloody beautiful roller)

(Click on photos to view fullsize)

Saw (Tigress) Neelam (Kashmiri Blue Sapphire) MPKTR T-65. 8, 9 years old. Raising third litter, 4 cubs of about 7, 8 months. Way over in the grass, moving, hiding in the grass, then sneakily crossed under the bridge where one Gypsy was parked! Appeared close by on the other side, growled, jumped. Moved on. We were back later, and suddenly saw her in a clearing! Watched, waited, but no more.

(click photos to view fullsize)

14 Dec: up early again at Kanha. Very brief sighting of tiger, but no more.

Met the executive chef of all Pugdundee, chatted for a while, and complimented her on the quality of food served in the lodges.

Afternoon drive, peacock displaying to a heron!

Dinner on the star gazing terrace. So tired, brain full of the images we have seen!

Out for evening walk for sunset. Rocky, climbing, scat! Birds, trees, lovely view, and magically tea and biccies appeared by the overlook! Good to stretch the legs!

Bandhavgarh National Park:

15 Dec: Not an early start for a change, had a lie-in! Drive from Kanha to Bandhavgarh.  Lovely cottage on stilts. Dinner in the jungle, lots of people here!

16 Dec: 5.45 am start. Joined by Indian couple from Mumbai, Gev and Mishtu.

Sloth bear! Word of tiger sighting, but didn’t see.

Afternoon: first female tiger, sleeping in the grass, she rolled over a couple of times, so we moved on, found her male cub sub adult, also in the grass, looking at us. Had to race out of park to make the closing time! Cloud of dust!

(Photos courtesy of Pugdundee Safaris. Click photos to view fullsize)

I’m very grateful to Gev Satarawalla, who kindly allowed me to use some of his beautiful photos:

“Mutualism – Chital (spotted deer) and Hanuman Langurs share a relationship of cooperation. The monkeys look out for tigers from the tops of the trees while the deer use their senses on the ground. For the Chital though, there’s an added benefit. They get to snack on food dropped by the foraging monkeys which otherwise is hard for the deer to reach by themselves.” – Gev Satarawalla.

“The Hanuman Langur is named after the monkey God who burnt Lanka in the Hindu mythological epic, Ramayana. Some believe that these Old World Monkeys got their black faces and extremities from that fire.” – Gev Satarawalla.

“The Lesser Adjutant – this stork, that gets its name due to its military gait, is marked as Vulnerable by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as its population (5,500-10,000) is suspected to be rapidly declining as a result of a variety of threats including hunting pressure, loss of nesting habitat, conversion and degradation of wetlands as well as agricultural changes.”  – Gev Satarawalla. 

17 December: Bandhavgarh, Kings Lodge, early start. Running around, no tiger. Afternoon, same! Ah well.

Our last evening at Kings Lodge, and indeed our last evening with Pugdundee featured an amazing tribal dance performance by a group from the local village.  It was great fun to watch, and even more fun when the group invited us to join in with them.

The Indian national parks are so beautiful, with stunning scenery and vistas, and of course although wildlife sightings are never guaranteed, the longer time you spend there, the better chance you have! Pugdundee manages some beautiful lodges, which will give you great food and a super comfortable night’s sleep after a long day of bumping around in a 4-wheel drive vehicle.

As always, we paid the full and fair market price for our wonderful tour of Indian national parks with Pugdundee Safaris . We highly recommend this experience!

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