India: Tigers, Tigers, Tigers. March 2009

Tigers are without question one of the most beautiful of the big cats.  In central India they live in forested reserves, which combined with no off-road driving, and excellent camouflage makes them one of the most challenging to see! 

We spent time in three of the Tiger parks; Pench, Kanha and Bandhavgarh.  With early morning starts and long days in the vehicles our group was rewarded with sightings of 10 Tigers.  Some of these were from the back of an Elephant, which allowed us to get really close to the tigers.  Each of the sightings was exciting, especially the ones where we were the only vehicle.  Magic!

This expedition was not all about Tigers.  In the Tiger reserves we saw many other animals and thanks to having a couple of keen birders on the trip (thank you Marian and Lisa!) we managed to leave with a respectable bird list.

We also spent time on a river looking for the freshwater dolphins, gharials and other water life.

Towards the end of the expedition, we left behind the binoculars and visited some of the most amazing temples, villages and markets where we were able to take some really interesting photographs.The last point to make is that Indian food is fantastic, possibly our best meals were at the roadside Dhabas.

Julie and Adam