[gd1418]

Along with 3 more families, I am planning to go to Dudhwa in December end. Will drive from Gurgaon all the way. I was informed that there are 2 approaches - one via Lucknow and the other via Bareilly, Pilibhit etc. The latter is shorter I believe.

Anyone here visited Dudhwa, then would like to know the best route and petrol pumps (remember it is 'Uttam' Pradesh) and place to stay at Dudhwa. How comfortable are the Tharu huts? Has anyone stayed at Satiyana. And any logistics that I need to know.

Thanks in advance..

[gd1418]

Tanveer, visit this link - Dudhwa National Park,Dudhwa Wildlife Sanctuary Tour,Dudhwa Wildlife National Park in India

I'm very surprised that here none have heard of Dudhwa.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Its the first time in my life I have heard of this place.

[Pakua4581]

Heard of Billy Arjan Singh and his efforts at setting up the Tiger reserve,I remember seeing pictures of him when he was 70 something,he was built like a Tank very very muscular,I wonder if he is still alive.Hats off to him!!

[gd1418]

This thread started by me on 17th November had a simple query - route to Dudhwa National Park. I got gasps of disbelief and blank faces. My dear friend and Mod Tanveer even said that he heard this name for the first time.

What surprised me more was that our legendary mile cruncher Kumar had nothing to say a word about this place or even nearby..! Meaning this was one virgin route that was not explored by him.

So where do I begin. To start with, I'm a member of the M&M Scorpio forum on the Yahoo group and a few members of this group from Delhi/NCR (5 of them including me - Ashish Gupta (AG), Roshun Povaiah (RP), Subhashish Sarkar (SS) & Anil Sharma (Anil) - all owners of CRDe SLX except Roshun having a 4x4 Dx version & I owning a '04 GLx), do periodic drives and outings, the last one being a day drive to Sariska a few months ago. Here we decided that we would celebrate the New Year with an expedition.

Around 30th of Oct, it was decided that we all shall go off to Jaisalmer which turned out to be another name for Ranthambore. During this time AG and I spotted an ad in the HT papers and came to know that Ranthambore is an alias for Dudhwa!! So we shot of emails to the group almost simultaneously, inviting bids from the Northeners on the trip. Some where there was consensus amongst the four of us Beastly beings on this trip.

Anyways, the days rolled and then we started with some conspiracy theories…

The roads are bad …. well..

The bad lands are full of el-mafioso … eh!!

Benazir has been shot, shall we go to Dudhwa? … HUH!

No, but seriously at a point in time except me the rest had doubts well. But finally, when enough was enough, I said that come what may I will head out to Dudhwa and stay there for the entire period convinced (read coerced) others to say … Chalo Bhai…Chalo… dekhi jayegee….

Will try to keep this as concise as possible, so bear with the overtly curt language. Also the fun starts later!

Now as SS has mentioned we laid out our plans with one cavalcade going on the 28th and the rest will follow suite on the 29th. So it was RP & his sis and I with wife & daughter to leave on 28th and the rest to leave on 29th due to their extended professional commitments. After a lot of research on the route and talking to Ishaan also for road conditions till Moradabad it was decided that the 1st party would reach Dudhwa via Shahjahanpur and the 2nd party would take the route Pilibhit, so that we had inputs for both routes.

The Journey - 28th December '07

Got up at 3:30 in the morning, woke my co-passengers and gave a wake-up SMS to RP. SInce I stay in Gurgaon and RP in Vasant Kunj in Delhi, we decided to meet at 5 at the Adchini crossing just a kilometer & half before the IIT crossing. I reached there at 5:10 and RP was waiting having arrived 5 mins back. We proceeded with me in the lead and our target was to cross Ghaziabad by 5:30. We were right on schedule and then we hit our first road block. Just after Ghaziabad on the Hapur bypass road is the commercial tax collection centre that had huge trailers and trucks choking the road for miles. We thought that here goes our shcedule as it appeared that it would take hours to clear the jam. Then I spotted that some call centre Sumos were driving on the wrong side of the road and racing away. I gestured to RP and took off after them. Boy, was that a right move to make? You bet it was and I would advise every other driver to do so coz I was later told that it was a daily affair at that time and all do the same.

We pulled into Gajraula at 7:45 for breakfast


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A few hot paranthas later we were on our way. A bit about the roads. Good so far and work on flyovers are being carried out at frenetic pace. If this continues then kudos to Mayawati though I'm not a great admirer of her. There were some bad patches enroute but nothing that the Scorpio would not take in its stride. We pulled at Shahjahanpur at 12:30 pm. Called our 2nd party and they were ecstatic about the road conditons and the speed that we made.

We decided to fill fuel in Shahjahanpur and pulled into an IOC pump at 12.30pm. I promptly grabbed a hose from a guy who was watering plants & hosed down the Bull. I also completely foxed the IOC pump attendant by pulling out my chemistry set & feeding Bull with its daily fix of acetone + 2T.

Mileage: RP = 11.6 kmpl (with 60% AC use). GD = 13.9 kmpl (no AC use)

We then stopped at a nearby restaurant for lunch – kadai chicken, dal & rotis – just about so-so. That stop was a bit too long, as we left only at 2.15pm from there.

Now the tale starts. That will come in the 2nd post....Intezaar kijiye thodi der tak..

[ntomer]

Originally Posted by gd1418

Around 30th of Oct, it was decided that we all shall go off to Jaisalmer which turned out to be another name for Ranthambore.

During this time AG and I spotted an ad in the HT papers and came to know that Ranthambore is an alias for Dudhwa!!

I am confused sir. Jaisalmer another name for Ranthambore; and Ranthambore alias for Dudhwa !!!

We were right on schedule and then we hit our first road block. Just after Ghaziabad on the Hapur bypass road is the commercial tax collection centre that had huge trailers and trucks choking the road for miles. We thought that here goes our shcedule as it appeared that it would take hours to clear the jam. Then I spotted that some call centre Sumos were driving on the wrong side of the road and racing away. I gestured to RP and took off after them. Boy, was that a right move to make? You bet it was and I would advise every other driver to do so coz I was later told that it was a daily affair at that time and all do the same.

This is Vijainagar toll post, and yes a big pain i a**.

\N

[SumitB]

GD its always a pleasure reading your post and now that I have seen your photos on T-BHP, I can only imagine your face when you must be speaking. I really long for a T-BHP meet. I hope to meet you people someday :P

Eagerly waiting for the rest of the travelogue.

[gd1418]

I must mention here that right upto Shahjahanpur via Moradabad Rampur, Bareilly is NH 24 and in pretty good condition. While at some places it becomes 4 lanes, in most of the section it is single lane with 2 way traffic.

From Shahjahanpur - 28.12.07

Now this is where we got misled. Some dodo at the Pathik restaurant directed us on to the old SH25, which goes via Gola, Lakhimpur… and phew, it was a terrible road. Getting to that road itself was a nightmare – through narrow gullies in Shahjahanpur, with two-way truck traffic! By the time we reached Gola – I could hear plenty rattles in the Scorp.

It was nearly 4pm and we were still nearly 80 kilometres away from Dudhwa. We were worried that they may close the park if darkness fell and we’d probably have to shack up in some seedy Palia hotel.
Somehow, it seemed as if someone upstairs was being kind. For, from Gola the road to Khuttar was smooth – so smooth that I thought I had gone deaf. We covered that 25km distance or so in record time. I assumed that this was the state of the road all the way to Pilibhit, and promptly called AG, to categorically tell the second team, leaving on the 29th to take the Pilibhit road.


While we were approaching Mailana some kid sitting on the roadside chucked a stone at RP's Scorp. Fortunately, it hit the plastic cladding, but he was really mad & screeched to a halt and reversed up to where he had been sitting but he scooted away into the jungle. Idiot! Anyway, no damage done – other than to RP's blood pressure. If it was just bad roads, we would have managed, but those grinning monkeys by the side of the roads were most irritating and to say that this lasted for over 40km… well best left unsaid!

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Around Mailani another “fun” incident happened… How many of you have driven on railway tracks…. yes railway tracks… well beast did as well… since the metaled bridge was being constructed and hence no road… the Bull got onto the rails… and boy did we give the ol’ hooter a run off the rails!!. Crossing the railway bridge into Palia was fun.

We finally got into Dudhwa at 5.15 pm, just as darkness was descending. Getting cellphone signals at the park’s camp office was quite a chore – I had to hold the phone in a particular angle at a particular spot to establish a connection. The forest ranger got our hopes up, saying it was mating season and tigers were moving about in droves. Someone apparently spotted six tigers a day before. But I wonder why it’s always someone else who spotted Stripes.

I finished the formalities and booked in to the forest resthouse at Sathiana, and got ourselves a guide – Ramas Rana – who was to stay with us for the next four days.

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The rest house is about 13km away from the camp office, through a forest trail.

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This was a fantastic drive. It was something straight out of the ‘Blair Witch Project’. We half expected Stripes to be sauntering down the dust-laden road. RP tried keeping some distance from the Bull as was kicking up clouds of dust. But each time he dropped back, I would stop for him to catch up, ensuring that his Scorp was given a complete dust bath.

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After this drive, I expected to drive into a little clearing in the jungle with some log huts and electric fencing. But no, what we drove into, can best be described as a proper two-storey bungalow, with large verandahs and a watchtower terrace, lawn, garden and a porch to park my Scorp! Better still – no electric fencing – so wildlife could happily knock on your door if they so wished. We were told that solar power had just been installed, so now the place had lights! This was getting better by the minute. But wait, ‘running hot water’ had stopped running though, a couple of days before – as the solar water heater was not working. The bathrooms were otherwise really spacious and had regular plumbing, showers and anglo-indian WCs. There were four bedrooms with proper beds, mattresses & pillows and two drawing rooms – one with a fireplace.

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We were then introduced to our resident Jeeves aka Munnilal who welcomed us with open arms… well, not quite. Very soon Mrs GD aka Shanno got Munnilal to stoke up the flames in the kitchen ‘choolah’ and we were served steaming hot cups of tea in nice crockery.

Thereafter, while dinner was being prepared, RP & I grabbed a couple of beers and headed to the terrace to gape at a star-filled sky – a rare sight for us who’ve got used to city life. There was only one cell service working – BSNL Cellone – over which we established contact with the other team.


The conversations that followed – as remembered by AG:

GD: Yeh Jagah Hai? Yeh Koi Jagah Hai? How dare you guys doubt my judgement?

AG: Arre Woh main nahin… woh SS kar raha tha!

RP: Man this place is out of this world, (Thinking) hah! what a bunch of suckers for not coming along with us today.

AG: Woh to theek hai, but is there place to sleep?

GD: Full 2 kitchen 4 bedroom 3 drawing rooms

AG (Thinking): Abe saala jungle mein gaye ho kee hotel mein? Kambal Hai?

RP: Err… Haan Lots of Blankets… Loads of Beds .. no problem just come over…

Dinner was ‘ready to eat’ channa masala and kulchas, after which we hit the sack – it was too cold to have a bath and as for hot water – it would take Munnilal an age to heat up.

Sleep descended immediately, but it seems RP was awakened by the sound of roaring. Wow, was it Stripes? No such luck. That was just snoring from the next room that I occupied, that even had the deer calling out in alarm...he, he. RP said this to me in the morning..How would I know when I was roaring or raring to chase the tiger in dreams..

[gd1418]

No need to get confused. Let me explain. We first zeroed in on Jaisalmer. Since 1 of us had done jaisalmer and 2 of us Jodhpur, there was a bit reluctance. Hence we thought of Ranthambore. So Jaisalmer turned out to be another name for R'bore.

Around that time this ad for Dudhwa appeared in HT. Ranthambore was a much visited place by all and hardly anyone had heard of Dudhwa so we decided to visit this pristine place. So Dudhwa became an alias for R'bore.

Hope this clears the confusion.

On the Vijainagar front, we all Scorpers are in total agreement, with or without another name or an alias...

Originally Posted by ntomer

I am confused sir. Jaisalmer another name for Ranthambore; and Ranthambore alias for Dudhwa !!!


This is Vijainagar toll post, and yes a big pain i a**.

\N

[suman]

Originally Posted by gd1418

it seems RP was awakened by the sound of roaring. Wow, was it Stripes? No such luck. That was just snoring from the next room that I occupied, that even had the deer calling out in alarm...he, he.

Lol GD, ROTFLMAO; you are hilarious man! Excellent travelogue already & I'm going to nominate you for the "No-bell" Peace Prize for Hilarious Literature

[gd1418]

Name, fame and frame travels fast and far...Thank you Sumit.

Originally Posted by SumitB

GD its always a pleasure reading your post and now that I have seen your photos on T-BHP, I can only imagine your face when you must be speaking. I really long for a T-BHP meet. I hope to meet you people someday :P

Eagerly waiting for the rest of the travelogue.

[SumitB]

Haan, suna hai kartoot aur kaarnaamey aag ki tarah failte hai. Rest our news channels take care off :-D

[pjay_in]

Great start.. awaiting the second part.

[gd1418]

Before I start the narration for the IIIrd stage, a little info about Dudhwa National Park -

Lying in the North-Eastern part of UP, this straddles the Indo-Nepal border. From mosaic grasslands and dense sal forests to swampy marshes, the terrain of Dudhwa National Park is as diverse as the wildlife population it harbors. While the northern edge of the Park lies along the Indo-Nepal border, the River Suheli marks the southern boundary.

A Tiger Reserve since 1879, Dudhwa became a National Park in 1977 and adopted the Project Tiger in 1988. Although the Tigers at the Park are numerous, sightings are rare due to the thick forest cover of the area. Besides Tigers, Leopards, Hispid Hares, Swamp Deer (Barasingha) and Rhinos thrive amidst the vegetation.

A metre gauge train line passes right through the middle of the forest and apart from the poachers across the International border is also a means of killing the animals who are caught crossing the tracks.

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Apart from the swamp deer, there are at least 37 species of mammals and 16 species of reptiles. Dudhwa Wildlife Sanctuary is said to have 77 tigers and four leopards. Recently, the hispid hare has also been spotted in the area.

It was here in 1984 that a major rhinoceros rehabilitation project was started since these forests had been the habitat of the rhinoceros 150 years ago. Five rhinos were relocated from Assam but two of the females died due to the strain of transportation. These were replaced in 1985 by four more females from Nepal.

Dudhwa's birds, in particular, are a delight for any avid bird watcher. The marshlands are especially inviting for about 400 species of resident and migratory birds including the Swamp Partridge, Great Slaty Woodpecker, Bengal Florican, plenty of painted storks, sarus cranes, owls, barbets, woodpeckers, minivets and many more. Much of the park’s avian fauna is aquatic in nature, and is found around Dudhwa’s lakes- especially Banke Taal.


Day 2: 29th December:

IInd Party leaves for Dudhwa

Since I cannot really tell much about the journey of the IInd group, reproduced here is what AG mentioned about the trip to Dudhwa:

"Conferenced with SS and AS, that we are all well provisioned for food and the cold… so we decided to head out early as in by 4 am from Gurgaon. Having ganged up with the Wife (Priyanka), Brother (Abhinav) and Albert (Gora Sahib). We all set out with AS scooting off to SS’ place earlier. In tow, we reached SS’ pad to sort out the cars and head out around 4:15 am a full hour before the first lot. The first pit stop was just before Gajraula, where the worlds one an only Multi-Level Loo’s exist… Now why Multi-Storey you think…. Well cause Rani-loos are on the ground floor and the Raja-Loos are on the first… as if to test the male holding capacity to 20 feet above the ground…. go figure!

Anyways, with relief in our bellies we headed to have the morning cuppa at the pit stop. Everyone said they are not hungry and planned to head out of there soon… what happened though was that we gorged on like 20 parathas…. 10 idli vadas… and proved that in all ravenous beasts were headed off to the jungle. We finally started from Gajraula and were halted at a rail crossing at Pilibhit… Now we reckoned SS has 2 women (Smita and Vaishali and Anil in tow)who have entertained him through the drive till now …. what will he do… and suddenly we understood why was headed smoking towards the train.

So we left, tanked up at Pilibhit and moved on to a place called Puranpur on a petrol pump for a quick snack… Now we were hungry and quickly greedily gobbled up what came our way.

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I could have sworn that moment I heard someone shouting … OYE BHOOKHE!!! Given the state of affairs (SS and AG) it was not surprising. Around Mailani too, we called up GD and were promptly told to get some raw supplies which GD causally mentioned as …

Arre THODEE Allooo Gobhi le ana (note the THODEE)…. so as was told so was done, I just bought “some” veggies… and then the women came to know what was being purchased…. the trouble began……

Anil was sent helter skelter to get the Oil and Masala’s and more veggies. SS went where he knew best …. Murga center……. and in tow was Albert to see the Desi way of doing things… now the fun part…. in case none of you have seen the desi way of chomping Murgas… here goes… I did not know we had such voracious meat eaters in our midsts that it would give Tigris a sweet tooth! … too bad the dog was not to go with the chicken, I am sure we would have had a hearty meal for the next 3 days!

I immediately skooted off the scene and do not know how Albert managed to get this for “consumption” but this is what he had to say….. Now it is not that my dutch is rusty… it is as good as Gorbhachev trying to understand Mera Joota Hai Japanee.. But considering the shock in his voice and expressions, what I do know is that he came back and said that after watching this he done with eating meat…. Phew! Another Vegetarian in our midst thought Priyanka and I! But we were naive to think what happens when the chicken appears in front when cooked…. It gets quickly reduced to zilch.

reaching the forest guest house was a story onto itself…. We drove through 10kms of core jungle to get to the rest house..one of my disappointments with the trip is that none of us were able to take a picture of the guest house we were in…. corrections anyone? But it was indescribable… almost a 1 storey bunglow… in between the elephant grass.. there was also a kitchen window which was twined by a wild elephant looking for food. Was exactly how GD had described … however… there was one piece of information missing… Then happened the arrival fiasco…..This is how it went (again liberally modified.. are bhavnao ko samjho….)

Mrs GD: Aa gaye moh utha ke… koi khhaaana nahin hai…

AG (Looking at GD): Yaar aapne bola tha veggie lane ko..

Mrs GD: Itne se kya hoga 4 din katne hain jungle mein…

AG Looks at GD for help… GD is contently looking at the sky…. Some one shouts… it is all because of AG… after his ***..

Mrs. GD: Yahan to Blankets bhi nahin hai…

All Eyes of AG….

AG to RP: You told me there were plenty of blanket…

RP (Looking Blankly): Maine to nahin bola tha….

Again someone shouts… where is AG’s ***… someone kick it…

AG RUNS….

Anil “Kancha” Sharma meanwhile does a lingo jig to get some blankets for all from the locals there… Had it not been for him… at least someone of us would have lost a pinky out of frostbite at night.. given the state of affairs that someone would have been AG (sorry for the third person… but this is actually everyones story..)

Back to the revelry of the night … some one decided that there will be no more drinks for Mr Anil “Kancha” Sharma…. what were we to realize that the drinks were to have effect much much later on the next day…. but we will get to that part later….

Having settled well at night, as SS has well described, we went onto the night hoping that the remaining half lot will get to see some stripes the next day… at least Rhinos!! We settled to a game of - sleep while you fart - since the ladies were bundled to different rooms…. and decided to get up early so as to ensure our elephant safari was not snitched off under out noses…"

The next post contains our adventures of the IIIrd stage.

[gd1418]

29.12.07 - Ist Party's adventures

A cold and foggy morning greeted us safari goers. RP, Shona, Shanno, Gauri, guide Rana and I clambered into RP's 4×4 and headed out into the fog at 7 am.

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Nary a leaf was stirring. It was pretty cold and I was sure all the animals including Stripes would be nicely tucked away at this time in the morning.

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We got to the elephant safari location – about 20 odd Km away across another jungle trail – and only managed to spot some deer and monkeys.

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There we met Chikoo – a tame hog deer, and our rides for the morning, Sundar a veteran pachyderm, and the young Batalik, an 8-year-old “L-board” elphie. Shanno, Gauri, Shona and I climbed aboard Sundar, while GD & guide Rana got on Batalik (he has weight restrictions, and is known to sometimes drop his passengers and scamper off).

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We then headed into the Rhino Zone – the entrance to which looks just like Jurassic Park – huge gate and electric fencing all around. The moment we entered the enclosure and veered of the track into the thick I spotted this huge colourful spider in all its glory

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The fog was still quite thick, but we did manage to see four rhinos in all and spotted deer, but still no Stripes.

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After the elephant safari, we bundled into the Scorp again and headed down the jungle trails in search of Stripes. We saw a croc and many more deer – hog deer, swamp deer (Barasingha) and spotted deer. The drive itself was very entertaining – lovely dirt tracks – which had the Scorp in its element. RP even put it in 4×4 high just to let the tranny exercise itself when we went through some slush.

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We were driving around some grassland when the guide suddenly says STOP! RP stopped and switched off the engine. We could here the alarm calls of deer. We were at a cross- roads, and our guide assured us that Stripes was on the move and may just walk in front of us. Ten minutes we sat in complete silence. The deer, however, went silent too, which meant that Stripes had decided to settle down again.

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We then drove around to a Machaan – and looked out over the grasslands. We saw plenty of birds – the migratory Siberian crane as well – and more deer.

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At the bottom of the Machaan – we saw fresh pugmarks that headed down a slushy trail bordering the grassland.

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I wanted to go down that route – but the guide would have none of it – even though we were in a 4×4. However, he did relent a bit and we drove around to the same trail from the other side and stopped and waited. But no luck with Stripes. For all you know, the bloke would have been sitting 5 feet away in tall grass and gazing at us stupid tourists.

After a few more deer sightings (oh deer, what a boar) we headed back to camp office and then back to the forest rest house by 1 pm. By this time we were ravenous and as Mrs GD and Munnilal stoked the wood in the kitchen, Shona, RP and I went up to the terrace.

More to come.....

[ntomer]

Originally Posted by gd1418

Still nothing is lost. You can write your experiences of that time. Will be a good comparing point with that of mine - as and when it comes...

My trips were nowhere as interesting as yours. It was about 12 years ago, I was studying for my. B.Tech. in Pantnagar. 7 of us took the train from Pantnagar to Mailani (37 KMs from Dudhwa).

The train reached there at about 1:00 AM, we spent the rest of night at the platform (it was scary, like in the horror movies, noone else on the platform ;-). We took a bus from Mailani to Dudhwa in the morning, stayed in some cheap hotel (we were engineering students, perpetually broke) near Dudhwa railway station. We went for 3 safaris, and spotted tigers twice.

The next trip was around Holi holidays and 4 of us went there, this time too we spotted a tiger.

Incidentally those are the only instances when I spotted any predators. After that I had been to Ranthambore, Panna, Bandhavgarh, Corbett and Kanha; but never had found any tiger.

\N