15th January 2008, 11:58
| #16 |
| Senior - BHPian  | Dudhwa - Tales, Tails & Travails - IIIrd stage 29.12.2007 - post lunch Continuing from last where I left yesterday, the interesting tale continues. What happened during lunch is best described by Roshun a.k.a RP since at that precise moment I received a call on my cell and was distracted. I quote: " Now, here is where I probably think and… I say probably, that we got lucky. I was looking down the road we had just traveled on, when I saw a whole herd of deer emerge from the grassland and scamper down the road. I told Mrs GD to come take a look at the deer. Meanwhile, Shona calls me to the other side of the terrace and says – “can you see what I see?” And in the grass, about 200 metres from the rest house we saw this large animal slinking through the grass. Now, don’t buy SS’s version that it was a mouse or Munnilal headed to fetch firewood! But that was all we saw and then this animal simply settled into the elephant grass and was gone. So was it a tiger? Hard to tell. It could have been a leopard. Not enough to call a tiger. Damn. We had some sandwiches, noodles and kulchas for lunch and then GD, the guide and I got into my Scorp and headed down to camp office to fetch SS, Vaishali, Abhinav, Albert, Priyanka, AG, Anil and Smita. The two Scorps – AG’s Blue and SS’s Vader, nice and clean, had just reached when we got there at about 4.30pm. http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/3...campoffvn4.jpg We then led the way back to the rest house – dousing the other two Scorps in virgin dust. The anointment done. http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2...asuite1nv8.jpg Welcome to Dudhwa. " More to come.....  |
|
| |
|
15th January 2008, 14:03
| #17 |
| Senior - BHPian | Dudhwa - Tales, Tails & Travails - IVth stage 30.12.2007 Our bookings at Dudhwa were from 28th to 1st. This was the only day when the entire team, all of 14, were together since the way we came in 2 groups, similarly in 2 groups we left due to professional commitments. My family and I were the only ones who stayed the entire period from 28th evening till 1st morning. The Head count: 1. Gurudutt, Shanno & Gauri 2. Roshun & Shona 3. Subhashish, Vaishali & Bumpy 4. Anil & Smita 5. Ashish, Priyanka, Anubhav & Albert Today was the turn of the IInd group to undertake that Elephant safari to Rhinoland. It turned out to be quiet an inetersting and unforgettable day for all of us. Here is the account: When the IInd party came in last evening and the process of registering at the Camp HQ was going on, I suggested that we should book for the Elephants now itself since only 3 pachyderms were available for the Rhino Safari. When DFO Srivastava was approached for the same he said none would be available tommorrow morning as one beast is reserved for the CGM, BSNL who was visitng the Reserve. That left with only 1 adult male and another 8 yr old brat Batalik. But after a bit of cajoling the DFO agreed and said that if the group is there the next day morning at sharp 7 then he would arrange for one. Now that was the silver lining in the dark.. But now another problem cropped up. 1 & 1/2 elephant meant only 7 people at best could go on it. So who two will opt out? While we were debating as to who will be having the overflowing 'tyaag ki bhavana', out came a chorus from Anil & Smita that they would stay back as they love their sleep very much and would rather Honeymoon. With this settled we all slept. So in the morning when we got up… the show started… Now I swear I heard someone shout… saallaa bloody scorpio show offs… but no we were not to be let down by dissuasion…. it went on and on and on…. till i heard some one scream… bas karo .. bas karo…. and we finally gave up on it….. http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/9...thiana2jn9.jpg http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/8...thiana1pb3.jpg http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/8...thiana1pb3.jpg The IInd group left in two Scorpios - AG's & SS's for Rhinoland. After two days Gauri and I had hot water baths and so did the others except Anil & Smita who were.... Later around 10 Smita, Mrs. GD & Anil managed some excellant breakfast that we all had enjoying the warm sun on the terrace. As decided before we were to meet the rest of the gang at the Camp HQ around 2 pm and then were to proceed to Nepal that was just 25 kms away from the Reserve. The International Border is called Gauriphanta and after you croos over the border the town of Dhangadi in Nepal lies. That later.. The tale of Elephant Safari in AG's words: "…. The next morning we got up early, and as described before, once our early morning light and sound show got over. SS and I set off for the elephant safari, now the estimates for “renting” out elephants was that a large elephant can seat no more than 4 people, but there was 7 of us for the safari. The lingo used by the forest officers in Dudhwa was amazing… They said…. Since VIP movement बहूत है …दो हाथी possible नहीं है….. … now that put us in a dilemma, How can then 7 people go on a safari? The question was answered in a queer manner…. We were told… डेढ़ हाथी (1 and a half) ही मिल सकता है!! Did you read right? डेढ़ हाथी….. can you even imagine what that means? As soon as I started thinking about some weird arrangements being worked out and figuring out who could have sat on Half an elephant I saw these two. Now For a moment, I thought the Calf has had it… we had our own behemoth SS to sit on him ….. http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/6...yan1m4djk8.jpg But then we found the battle weary, mast, out of “George of the Jungle” Hathee that went by the name of Battalik. Now the story behind this naughty haughty (sorry could not help it!!) is quite interesting, presumably some wild elephant in the jungle could not hold its primeval urge to fornicate, and one fine day ravaged the stables to pounce on poor unsuspecting Champakali (Female Tamed Tourist Elephant). The junglee left with the grin on his face, but left Champa ripe with Batallik. He was named Battalik since he was born on the 16th of July 1999, the same day Batalik was won over by the Indian Army during the Kargil assault. Now as RP and SS so adroitly mentioned, this beast was “crazy”, it had knocked a foreigner off and was attempting to stamp on him, he was known to simply throw visiting tourists off his back and scoot off merrily into the jungle, when he was used to ferry visitors for Tiger visits (think he must have been colluding with the Tiger for its meal), he was aptly termed as half an elephant since he was more like a naughty dog. As Bumpy (SS’ younger sibling) put it aptly, Rapist ka beta hai na, isi lie aisa hai!! Lol! Anyways, we were bundled on Champakali ……The wives along with Albert were bundled along on Battalik along with some moronic Delhiwalla’s wife, who had come with his litter of puppies, did not bother to make any bookings for himself and forced his entire family down the gullet of Batalik, somehow secretly, SS me and the remaining bunch hoped that Batalik would teach this Yuppie Dilli wala some manners. We (and the mahout) ensured that only his 1 of his members could be on “OUR BOOKED” elephant….. The mahout was a real talkie… while telling us stories of how Bareily-walas chickened out on hearing a tiger roar to how Shatrughan Sinha monkeyed from one side of the elephant to the next on seeing Panthera Tigris in action…. all fun … almost like him reading some story out of a Ruskin Bond.. Jungle tales book. Now I learnt some interesting tones and elephant lingo from the Mahouts…. to move the Elephants forward they use the word which sounds something like .. Mahae-lh! and to make them move closer together to each other they say .. Bhidh (with a chota ee kee matra) so it sounds like …. महेल्ह महेल्ह …. भिड भिड….. So have started using the same on my Beast, whenever it makes an unnecessary sound  .We spotted a mother and a baby Rhino and got some good shots of them. This was a very good alternative than going to Kaziranga and watching the last known kinds of the Indian Rhino…There was a sense of relief and sorrow at the same time… we got to see these wonderful creatures in our lifetime, but would our progeny? Anyways, given our (Priyanka and my) fate and their (SS and Vaishali’s) luck we knew at the outset that the only Pathera Tigris we will get to see is the one sipping tea next to Winnie the Pooh! So this was more than enough for us. http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/7857/clawslu7.jpg So now, after feeding the deer …….. and burping the elephant we headed for our own safari. The guide nonchalantly took us to see the croc, we shooed away some poor migratory bird on the pretext of taking its photographs.. and pretty much headed back out of the park…. The only other memorable site was the Railway track bang in the middle of the forest, for which GD has taken a mind-blowing snap of the tracks disappearing in the mist…. Once we exited the sanctuary, we teamed up with GD, AP and associated families and figured out the next steps…. Since it was the 29th, a holiday and already teaming up with exponentially high number of tourists, we decided it was best not to head out to the jungle, since we did not expect to see anything in the din…… It was then we decided to move to a different kind of jungle….. Now what I am going to describe next is a hilarious journey of 3 scoprios and 14 people…. In case you folks have not noticed, Dudhwa is in the district of Lakhimpur Khiri which shares a long border with Nepal. Now having done quite a bit of our country, we all decided we will head out to International Borders and return as - “Branded NRI’s from Nepal” all with family and cars…. The crossing of Nepal from India is via a place called GaureePhantaa (Go Figure!) and opens to a place called Dhangadee on the Nepalese side. En route GD screeched to a halt and we stalled, there was a wild turtle wandering on the road about to be souped by passing cars…. we saved a wild turtle from first being hustled into Desi Cab to be made soup for night time… http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/4489/img7765vr4.jpg Desis: Hum bhi local hain…. Hume pata hai iske saath kya karna hai (Pointing towards their open car door) Scorpio Samaritans: Nahin isse … paas ke pond mein daal dete hain… bechara… We put the turtle there… thats one good deed for the scorpio group!… and as we were scooting off from there we could have sworn we heard someone (or something) screaming "Saallaa… it took me 4 days to get to the middle of the road… and these a’holes put me right back where I started from…. a’holes a’holes a’holes…. (as we disappeared from site)" More to come... |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 14:25
| #18 |
| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Gurgaon
Posts: 5,968
Thanked: 4,642 Times
| wah wah sab. fundooo  |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 15:11
| #19 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 420
Thanked: 852 Times
| Quote:
 very interesting travelogue.. waiting for more.. | |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 15:40
| #20 |
| Senior - BHPian | |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 15:50
| #21 |
| BHPian  | |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 16:41
| #22 |
| BHPian Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Delhi
Posts: 263
Thanked: 52 Times
| |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 19:01
| #23 |
| Senior - BHPian | |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 20:00
| #24 |
| Senior - BHPian | |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 22:02
| #25 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Toronto / Kurukshetra
Posts: 677
Thanked: 168 Times
| Excellent travelogue GD sir! Perfect virtual trip. There's one gripe though - Picture size. There are some excellent photos there and I can hardly see anything due to the size. Please do upload larger versions and provide the links. Am sure others would also want to see the fantastic railway track pic in its full glory |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 23:13
| #26 | |
| Senior - BHPian | Thank you Mohit. Tried my best to compile as succinctly as possible. The photographs are in 380 x 420 size automatically done by imageshack. Otherwise I do not know how to embed pics in the text like others do.  Quote:
| |
|
|
| |
|
15th January 2008, 23:20
| #27 |
| Senior - BHPian | |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 23:22
| #28 | |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Toronto / Kurukshetra
Posts: 677
Thanked: 168 Times
| Quote:
| |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 23:28
| #29 | |
| Senior - BHPian | Yes, the "resize image?" box is checked Quote:
| |
|
|
|
15th January 2008, 23:52
| #30 |
| BHPian Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Toronto / Kurukshetra
Posts: 677
Thanked: 168 Times
| Sir then either uncheck it or select a bigger size from the selection box to the right of resize box. That way your images should come out bigger. See below:  |
|
|
 |
Most Viewed