[traveloholic]

Keep it coming CrankShaft. Always love reading the TL's of jungle visits. A more detailed report would be much appreciated

[vivekiny2k]

nice to see my hometown (jabalpur) again after a while. did you enjoy the poetic commentary by the local guys who steer the boat in bhedaghat?

[CrankShaft05]

Originally Posted by abheekg

Here are some pics of you from my camera and some pics from the same drive.

abheekg - thank you for the pics. They are legendary and live upto the expectation of what Arun told me about you and your photography skills. He is currently drooling over your bird photographs. Wish i had spent more time with you and your team at Pench, i could have picked up a tip or 2 on wild life photography. Next time for sure..

Originally Posted by abheekg

I must say that you have been really lucky to have spotted and photographed a Leopard during your drive. A leopard is more rare than a Tiger to spot and more so to photograph in this park. Hats off to you and your team.

Oh yes, we now realize how lucky we were to spot the Leopard, albiet for a few minutes.

Originally Posted by abheekg

There were a few mistakes in your planning which I have already mentioned to you. I will enumerate them here.

While I partially agree with you (since you are the master of these parts), the overall trip was a grand success. Like Arun indicated, we spotted a plethora of wildlife (except only 1 tiger sightings - 2 cubs and 1 female), enjoyed every bit of the cold and the jungle. It is not very often that we get to travel 1000KM into the heart of the country from Hyderabad to visit the premier wild life sanctuaries. Humongous planning went into organizing the trip and I must add the MPTDC did a fabulous job of taking care of accomodation, food and safari's. It was like an all inclusive package which we booked directly in Hyderabad - Thanks Satish, Arun & MPTDC

Originally Posted by abheekg

Never select a random, unknown driver and guide during your wildlife visits.

We took all random drivers that were allocated to us at MPTDC and they did a fab job. They pretty much knew what they were doing, it was just that we were sheer unlucky in not spotting the tigers in Pench. The landscape and other wildlife was nevertheless breathtaking. Further we felt all the drivers and guides at both places were very knowledgable.

Originally Posted by abheekg

You always end up paying more and getting less when you take a package in a Jungle trip.

This is where I would disagree. The rates (as far as our research goes) are pretty much standard i felt. 3000 for a safari ride, max 6 pax. This is the same quote given to us by all private operators as well. Further we paid 1000 per head per night for the dorms @ pench which included all meals. It worked out to the same cost @ Bandhavgarh as well. Now thats a steal! Most private operators gave us a quote of 700-800 per head per night which didnt include meals. I am sure we might have spent another 200-250 for all meals per head per day. Also, the service at MPTDC Pench and Bandhavgarh was EXCELLENT! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Total paisa vasool! Add to that, i strongly feel that MPTDC is the only party which might invest the money (partially though) we pay to them into the upkeeping of the tiger reserves. Bucks spent on private parties and private players will just go into their pockets.

Originally Posted by abheekg

Never take random routes and always research on animal movements from previous day's drives before selecting routes for the next day.

Hmm, i didnt know we had the freedom of choosing routes, especially at Bandhavgarh where a random route is allocated by the forest officials. Will try pushing for different routes for different safari's next time.

Originally Posted by abheekg

While you guys were elsewhere, Varun (whom you met during your Python sighting) was checking this guy out at Ghorademon

Thats a mammoth of a Tiger! Varun did tell us he had quite a few tiger sightings. Excellent snap there!

Originally Posted by abheekg

Responsible conservation minded tourists from Hyderabad

Thanks for the compliment, abheekg. We are just the humble tourists.

Originally Posted by abheekg

By the way, the first teaser shot from this trip adorns the poster for our next Bandhavgad expedition.

Let me know if anyone is interested in joining us.

Will surely let you know if any. Can you share what are your charges and if any of the expenditure we incur goes into development of these parks?

[CrankShaft05]

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

Hey guys, awesome pictures. My home town being Jabalpur, now i am thinking of planning a trip. Only problem i need to start from Bangalore.

Thanks mayank, i am glad i took your home sickness away. From Bangalore might be a challenge keeping the distance in mind, but seeing the trend on Team BHP off late, distances no longer bother the average team bhpian

Originally Posted by fazalaliadil

Dr. Ghosh,
Awesome shots there. Your 300 L prime shows in each photograph.
Will join you at Nagpur tomorrow and catch up with live action.

Friends on the forum, see you all after Tuesday hopefully with something to meet up to your expectations.
Regards,

Fazal - How was your trip? Eagerly waiting for your travelogue!

Originally Posted by traveloholic

Keep it coming CrankShaft. Always love reading the TL's of jungle visits. A more detailed report would be much appreciated

Thanks Nikhil! Was caught up with a lot of office work, the detailed updates should start trickling in now on. Sorry for the delay.

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

nice to see my hometown (jabalpur) again after a while. did you enjoy the poetic commentary by the local guys who steer the boat in bhedaghat?

WOW! The commentry was amazing. Seems that they are trained by a local guide and only a limited number of boatwalla's are trained on that commentry. He is definitly doing a commendable job! Bedaghat/Dhuadhar was the next part of our trip. I will post the 3rd safari at pench and start with Bedaghat.

[CrankShaft05]

Now that we have completed 2 safaris and only 1 left at Pench, the group is with mixed feelings i.e., happy and amazed at the beauty of Pench but disappointed for not sighting a tiger yet!!
As we have enjoyed sighting of various animals and flora and fauna of the jungle, the only missing thing is the "Bit Cat".
After gulping some HOT tea at the resort, we are set for the final safari at Pench. After completing the formlities at the entry gate, we entered the park with great enthusiasm and hope!!
Our driver Shiv Shankar is also with great passion to take us to the locations we haven't visited in the last 2 safaris and to try his best to show us the tiger.
We have taken a different route in the jungle and suddenly stopped at some pug marks on the road. Hoping for the best, we waited there for sometime and finally decided to move ahead. Although everybody are hoping for a tiger sighting, we still are enjoying being in the jungle.
We heard couple of alaram calls and halted, hoping for the big cat to come out of the bushes but nothing of that sort happened!!
After couple of such halts, we move ahead and suddenly stop at the sighting of a Wolf!!!
Cameras started clicking and haven't stopped until it vanished into the wild
Our guide said that the sighting of a Wolf is very rare!!
After doing some rounds in the jungle hoping to sight the stripped one, we finally drove towards the exit gate with great memories of "Pench" in our mind.

Crowd at the gate


The Queue








Beautiful Landscape


Very rarely sighted "Wolf"


Wolf Again










Pench Map


The Kingfisher


Pench at its BEST


Forest crew in the jungle!!






Testing my 55-250 lens

[CrankShaft05]

Hello All. Hectic schedule at work has kept me away from TBHP for sometime now. Finally I could find sometime to continue this thread.
Here we go

After completing the 3 safaris at pench as planned, we came back to the resort and started packing our luggage. Our next destination is Bandhavgarh with a hop at Bedaghat. After a nice breakfast, we said good bye to our driver and hotel staff and started towards Bedaghat at 12 noon.
As Arun and Satish were in the driving seats, I took a nap in the back seat dreaming about our next destination.
The roads are good and we wanted to make sure we reach Bedaghat at the earliest so that we can spend sometime there and them move towards Bandhavgarh. Our plan is to reach Bandhavgarh before 11PM.
As we had a heavy breakfast at our resort in Pench, we did not think of a halt for lunch.
As per our research, we plan to visit 2 places at Bedaghat - Dhuadaar falls and the boat ride on Narmada river between the marble rock formations.
Finally we reached Dhuadaar falls around 3PM.
We took the rope way to reach the other side of the falls. The scenic beauty while crossing the river was spell binding!!
We reached the other end and spent sometime enjoying the beauty of dhuadaar and taking some nice snaps.
Then we came back to complete some shopping and then to go ahead with boating which is 1.5km away from that location.
We reached the bank of Narmada river and hired a special boar for just 6 of us. There were 2 guys driving the boat and 1 explaining us about the location.
I would say that the ride was amazing and fantastic!!
The guys use some poetic phrases to explain us about the locations on the way and they really were hilarious. We got to know from them that they got trained on that by some guy in that location.
There was a point where the boats should return back but an "extra charge" would take us ahead and I would recommend anybody to pay the extra charge and go ahead as the locations are too beautiful!!
While coming back, we took turns to ride the boat and all of us had fun doing that.
As we approach the bank, the aarthi to Narmada maiyya just started and we felt ourselves lucky to be there at that time.
We all stayed there till the completion of aarthi, including me and Arun participating in giving aarthi to Narmada maiyya.
Finally we had the "prashad" and left the location with a great feeling in our hearts.

The road from Pench


First look of Dhuadaar Falls


Ticket


Ropeway at Dhuadaar






Amazing view!!






The GANG


Fantastic Four!!


View from the top


Marble Rocks




Marbles!!










Boat Riders!!




Satish trying his hand at riding the boat


Its Mithun's turn


Me and Arun now!!


Aarthi to Narmada Maiyya


Arun giving aarthi


Prashant giving aarthi

[ExtremeTorque]

Next up was Bandhavgarh. The route from Bedaghat to Bandhavgarh completly bypasses Jabalpur via Umaria and is fairly good. The last 8 KM upto Bandhavgarh gate was the most horrible strech of the entire journey. Someone in an earlier TL said that the road is kept that way so as to restrict vehicles to lower speeds. Makes sense, as we did see a lot of spotted Deer and Sambar even in the dead of the night!

By the time we reach the Tala gate of Bandhavgarh, there were many vehicles already lined up for safari's. It is always recommended to book your safari's in advance.



The first thing that greeted us at B'garh, a Lesser Adjutant Stork in slumber:





The Sun was just rising over the horizon






15 mins into our first safari, we saw a lot of commotion ahead and quickly realized we were in luck. The jeeps ahead had just spotted a Tigress and its 2 cubs. We confirmed this with the presense of the elephants around, taking tourists for a closer look.



And the Cub walks right next to the line up of Gypsy's (sorry for the pic quality here, this is all i could do with my P&S)

[nomadabhi]

This horn seemed to be from a kill or lost by the deer in a fight. Our guide was kind enough to pick it up and have us look at it up close

The horn you pointing to generally falls off on aging. With the onset of New season, it grows back. The new one's have hairy surface and are enrich with blood.
You will be amazed to know that these are very rich in calcium and deers eat them to meet their calcium deficiency.

Our guide Ramesh @ Pench was also humble to pick it up for us and did not forget to keep it as it was. According to him none of the natures wealth is disturbed by them even if they are fallen trees. He also explained the nature cycle (which we all know but have forgotten in our daily urban lifestyle).

[thedreamcatcher]

Very luring pics. I have seen so many reviews on this forum, including those on bandhavgarh. And they have instilled a desire in me to go to the place soon

I will definitely need to go through all these threads to make a good plan for the visit and off course, I wont be going there without getting my self a prize lens ;-)