Tigers Tigers! In search of Shere Khan

1/13 I took a morning bus from Umaria to Tala, the town that is at the entrance of Bandhavgarh national park. At this park was the same hassle of trying to find other foreigners to share jeeps with. The cost to enter the park was 3700rp (82 dollars), but it could be shared by up to 6 people. In the first glance of the town, I saw no other foreigners. But then I ran into John from Holland. He was only there for one afternoon, and although sharing with only 1 other person was too expensive for me, I agreed to share b/c otherwise he couldn't go at all, and I figured it would give me good Karma if I helped him out. We ended up being able to find 2 british guys to join with us, so it turned out ok. On the tiger safari we saw tons of spotted deer (the tigers major food source), langurs, macaques, owls, sambar deer, wild boar, tiger footprints, tiger tree scratches, but no tiger. In the town of Tala (a nice quiet, leave you alone town) there were lots of the playful langurs (the monkeys from the jungle book). After the safari I found two danish (Ole and his wife) and a brazilian (Jomar) and Spanish (Esther) couple to join me for the morning safari the next day. We tried to convince John to stay one more day, but he didn't think there was much of a chance of seeing tigers and he wanted to go.

1/14 What a day!! 5 tigers!! After a couple hours of driving around the park, we came upon a female tiger and her 2 cubs (though big cubs as they were about 2 years old according to the guide)resting in the bamboo. They were quite close. Perhaps 25 feet away! We stayed to watch them for a bit and eventually they got up and walked across a field and disappeared. A bit later in the safari they had found a female tiger resting a ways off the road. So we hopped onto elephants and rode out to see her. She was just hanging out in the shade, looking up at us, and not caring about the elephants, so we got really really close and had great unobstructed views of her. So beautiful! Towards the end of the safari we saw one more hidden in the bamboo. We couldn't believe how lucky we were and we were just so incredibly excited. I was shaking the whole rest of the day and just so happy!! A tiger was one of the main things I wanted to see in India. The other great thing was that I was planning on staying as long as I could until I saw a tiger, but this meant I could go right away which alleviated some time budgeting for my trip but more importantly allowed me to travel with Jomar and Esther who were planning on heading to the same place as me next. I was really looking forward to travelling with some people again!