The next part of our trip was very much away from the tourist trail of Agra and Rajasthan. Due to the festival previously mentioned we were re-routed to a town in the middle of nowhere, which neither of us will ever forget - if we develop malaria any time soon its thanks to this place – Jabalpur. The town is pretty non-descript and is only very briefly referred to in the guide book, we can see why. Unfortunately due to the train being so over-booked we had to spend three days there and as soon as we checked in to our rather dodgy hotel the endless offers of beer and cigarettes by the chaiwallahs (bell-boys) were relentless. The only saving grace was the food (as usual in times of need we turn to food) – authentic Indian food without the inflated tourist prices.
The cause for our stay in Jabalpur was a tiger reserve in the Madhya Pradesh province towards the centre of India. After the effort of getting there we were hoping for big things in Bandhavgarh. Unfortunately the park was yet to open so we waited a few more days (now very aware of the huge scale of India but with our return ticket to Heathrow booked in time for Christmas). Optimistically we hoped that after all this we would be lucky enough to spot a few tigers as the park is famed for having the highest concentration of tigers in India. It seems luck wasn’t on our side and after two attempts (the second involved bribing the guide to take us in – a long story but basically more Indian bureaucracy) so the closest we came to the king of the jungle was his paw-prints (personally I was still excited by this...)
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| The scenery on the morning we entered the park was incredible - just what you would expect of a tiger spotting safari |
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| We saw lots of monkeys and spotted deer... |
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| ...and even some fresh footprints.... |
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| ...but sadly no tigers! |
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