It was a vacation to spend time with nature and all courtesy to Prasad uncle from our building who had planned and executed the entire trip.
The trip was planned to cover Tadoba and Kanha National Parks. (Some gyan from my dad below, if not interested skip to my story and pics)
Tadoba Tiger Reserve
The name 'Tadoba' is derived from God "Tadoba" or "Taru", praised by the tribal people who live in the dense forests of the Tadoba.
Tadoba Tiger Reserve is the largest national park in Maharashtra. Total area of the Reserve is 625.4 square kilometres (241.5 sq mi). This includes Tadoba National Park, created in 1955 with an area of 116.55 square kilometres (45.00 sq mi) The Reserve also includes 32.51 square kilometres (12.55 sq mi) Protected Forest and 14.93 square kilometres (5.76 sq mi) 'Other areas'. Densely forested hills form the northern and western boundary of the Tiger Reserve
Kanhanational park
It’s again a national park and a Tiger Reserve in the Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh, India. It stretches over an area of 940 km² in the two districts Mandla andBalaghat. Together with a surrounding buffer zone of 1,067 km² and the neighboring 110 km² Phen Sanctuary it forms the Kanha Tiger Reserve. This makes it the largest National Park in Central India.
The park has a significant population of Royal Bengal Tiger, leopards, the sloth bear, Barasingha and Indian wild dog. The lush sal and bamboo forests, grassy meadows and ravines of Kanha provided inspiration to Rudyard Kipling for his famous novel "Jungle Book "
The excitement started from the time I came to know that it’s a rail trip. You all might remember how I enjoyed
my first train journey. This time I had good company to have fun with…. Divya & Sonakashi (“Sonaki”) Didi
We had a night train from Mumbai to Nagpur and had a nice time eating, playing, drawing…..and by morning we were at our first stoppage - Nagpur-the city of Oranges… We all had a scroll near the station and then moved to Tadoba by road. It was a good 2 hr drive and we were at the resort “
Tigers heaven”, which is located just at the mouth of the jungle buffer zone. Me and Sonaki didi had good fun in their long stretched gardens, while Divya didi spent time making some good sketches and drawings.
Later in the day it was all jungle safaris, and which was totally new experience for me. We went in an open jeep with all the parts making noise :) And to our luck in all our trips we had good tiger sightings.
All in the group were complementing each other for the luck of good sighting, but I know it’s me as I am the only one new to safari ;) All tigers know me as my cat friends from Mumbai had informed about my visit :)
Even after bringing so much luck.. all still scolded me, for talking with tigers the same way they did at
Flamingo point at Mehul. During one of the safari, the tiger came very close to our fleet of jeeps and all were quiet and busy clicking pics and no one talking to tiger. So I thought of having a small talk, introduced myself and invited tiger to come with us in jeep….. so when it came near I asked her “ Tiger come here.. come here tiger …come to Anisha ..tiger sit here”
But looks like these human beings didn’t like it and all were like shuuuuuuuuu. The only support was Prasad uncle and my dad.
In all, it was a good 3 days of stay at the resort and during the period all the staff from the resort had taken good care of me and others in the group. Only I use to get chocolate every time we were at the restaurant. Next time I will plan to come alone so that I can spend some more time with tigers and other friends without any disturbance …
From Tadoba we were back to Nagpur, and I thought now back to Mumbai but after a day halt at Nagpur we headed to Kanha … I was all happy as the trip was on and will get a new hotel room … hooray. As you all know ... I am very fond of hotel rooms!!
At Kanha we stayed at
Kanha Kiskindha , this resort again was just near the buffer zone. This resort was again a beautifully designed place and one part touching forest. The rooms are also designed resembling tiger theme …. Excellent food for all and variety of hot milks for me :)
In all there was a hitch.... because of the heavy rush and we didn’t had any safari booking in advance!! But we all had faith in Indian joogad system and not to forget Prasad uncle's talent... we were able to get in to the jungle !!
We use to leave hotel to report early morning at 5.00am and I used to get a comfortable seat on my mom’s lap all covered in woolen cloths. I will miss all these once back in Mumbai hmm
And again to my luck all were able to again see tigers…This time not one but 3 Tigers(Mother and 2 Cubs) The whole family sat for a majestic pose in front of our jeeps. In the cold and misty winter morning it was a real treat to meet this family. later we also spotted a Leopard and which was like a double bonus. Apart from this, there were lots of colorful birds, dears, monkeys, black bucks …. which we spotted during the trip
Rest of the time we were at the resort and spent time at the nearby places, had picnic at a near by water fall, camp fire and some local shopping.
Finally the sinking feeling started to appear as we were back to Nagpur from where we scheduled to take our final train back to Mumbai. But I am all excited to be back with my
Kangaroos at the school!!
.jpg "Anisha Pillai")
.jpg "Anisha Pillai")
