A very hectic work routine at the office, Aasim on a Himalyan trek – it looked like we were going to spend our 17th wedding anniversary doing mostly nothing. However on the flip side was an invitation from Kalyan who is shooting for National Geographic in the jungles of Tadoba. To hell with everything we said and decided to spend our anniversary in the blistering summer heat doing what we love most – photographing the wild with friends. Once decided everything else was a breeze thanks to all the meticulous planning by Swati and assurances by Kallu about taking care of logistics at Tadoba.
The drive from Nagpur to Moharli a distance of 184km was very smooth as the roads are awesome and we covered it in just under 3 hours. We could find the Royal Tiger Resort very easily because they gave a precise location on the website. This resort is newly built and we immediately liked the room as it was spacious with a bigger than usual bath and plenty of racks and closets to keep the ginormous amount of gear we had carried just because we could!
Kallu introduced us to Sara (aka Saravanakumar Salem) and Mandy (aka Dilan Mandanna) – who were a great company to be with. By now we already knew that we are going to have an awesome time š
The very first day we spotted 9 tigers, the Yenbodi Waterhole tigress with her 4 cubs in the morning and then the Kolsa tiger pair with 2 cubs. At Yenbodi we were one of the first vehicles to reach and also be cause it was a Wednesday we could photograph at leisure. On rest of the drives we specifically told our guide that we did not want to go to Yenbodi because the crowd was so much that it looked like some Mumbai local train stuck in a jam! At Kolsa it was a very different experience to see the Male tiger interacting with the cubs, most likely the father as the tigress did not seem to mind it. Later in the evening we got a bit delayed and got to see 2 sloth bear and a Civet cat. However the “money shot” of the trip for me was the picture of the Indian Tree Shrew
Indian Tree Shrews are also known as: Madras Tree Shrew. Tree Shrews have the highest brain to body mass ratio of any animal, even higher than humans. The species is named after Sir Walter Elliot.
The 10th tiger was what I would describe a “Whoa sighting” – just as we were nearing the central gate, this handsome male, most unexpectedly, just trotted out of the bamboo, hopped across the road and back into the bushes! It took a couple of moments for anyone to respond but then we quickly turned around the Gypsy and rushed on to the parallel road where we met him again and this time he leisurely crossed after giving us a glance.
We drove a total of 323km inside the jungle and took more than 2000 pictures in 2 days. It was the best way that we have ever celebrated our marriage anniversary. A big thanks to Kalyan, Sara and Mandy for making it all the more memorable.
There are more photos which I will be uploading to my flickr photostream soon. If you want larger versions of any of the pictures just click on the picture…
A footnote: While the Royal Tiger Resort was awesome with it’s rooms and location, this was also for the first time we encountered hospitality where things, specially food, are offered with a negative sentence construction, if you understand Marathi – “Apan hey omlette tar nahi ghenar na?”. Also being new, they are still struggling to get the quantity to food to cook right – so if you do not reach in time you are likely not to get any food and you are un-apologetically told that the food is over. Swati did have word with the Owners/Partners, they did hear her out and assured that they are and will continue to work on fixing this.