Bhandavgarh National Park, MP

From Kanha, we moved on to Bhandavgarh and stayed there for 2 days. Bhandavgarh was our last chance of spotting tiger in this trip.

Bhandavgarh National park (26& th 27th Dec)

For the first day morning safari, we didn’t have the vehicle booked by the hotel. In the morning, we went near the park gate (Tala) to find if someone can share their safari vehicle with us. After a hard search, we found an American who was ready to help us. We thought that we were lucky to get the jeep, and now our luck of spotting the tiger would soon follow :) After 3 days of safari in Pench & Kanha, I was not very keen in experiencing the forest. The forest here is very much like Kanha with Sal trees & Bamboos and I must say that the scenic beauty of this park didn't impress me. My only interest was in spotting animals, especially tiger since that was one of the biggest reasons for this trip. It is commonly said that, in Bhandavgarh the chance of spotting tiger is 99%. Before we planned for this trip, we heard from many people that there is no way that anyone could come back from Bhandavgarh without spotting a tiger. At least, we can spot the tiger in the ‘tiger show’. All these words made me feel very hopeful about spotting tiger in at least one of the three safaris that we have planned in Bhandavgarh.

We did all the three planned safaris in Bhandavgarh and in each of the trip we came out of the forest without spotting a tiger. I must say that I was disappointed after each trip and the hope of spotting the tiger was gradually wearing out. Every trip we made, we were always close to the tiger, but could never spot it. There was a time that a small tiger cub moved into a bush (spotted for very brief moment by a guide in another jeep) and didn't bother to come out for more than an hour of our waiting. It had two other siblings and the mother Tigress was not around. All of the jeeps waited there with the hope that mother would return in the evening. But, she didn’t come. May be she chose to take a different route that day! There was another time, when we heard a loud growl of the tiger - The guide mentioned that the sound is arising not from too far, and it should be within 100-200 meters off the road. It was really thrilling to hear the wild growl of the tiger. I wished that he comes out and gives me a look :) But, that didn't happen. Some other time, there was a deer in the meadow which got alerted and started making the alert calls. We waited there for a long time only to watch the paranoid lone deer.

Anyway, after 3 safaris we didn't spot a tiger in Bhandavgarh. The reasons mentioned by many were - It is winter and the tiger can easily settle inside the forest as the water reserve is high. Due to peak season, there are too many vehicles and many more such obvious reasons. But, how can all these be true only for Tala zone in Bhandavgarh? In the same forest, due to peak season, another zone named Magdi was opened up. The general idea is that the spotting of tiger in Magdi is difficult as it is denser than Tala. However, in one safari, there were 3 sightings of tiger and all the jeeps could spot them! So, the reasons quoted are just means of convincing people and does not really apply to the happenings. I say, it is mere luck! So far, we had 7 safaris in total in this trip and the luck didn’t bother to pass by my side. I went through height of disappointment and convinced myself that I would visit in summer again. Our driver was mentioning that "In winter, people ask if you spotted tiger, whereas in summer, people would ask how many tigers you spotted!".

After all the disappointing safaris, we were just wandering in the streets of Bhandavgarh. We had another half a day in Bhandavgarh and then our plan was to go to Khajuraho. The disappointment was really bothering me and decided to take another safari in Bhandavgarh, not wanting to miss a chance. I didn’t want to blame myself for just freaking out on the Bhandavgarh roads, instead of spending the time in the forest. But, the problem was we neither had permission nor the safari vehicle. Anyway, after some hassle, we ended up sharing it with few MBA students who had come from Pune. Now, in this final trip, I didn't have any expectation. I took this trip so that I don't later regret that I should have made another try somehow. Anyway after 3 hours of safari in the last trip, I didn't spot any tiger. We were coming to the end of our safari number 8 and all I saw was wild cat and mangoose! yee... But, wait! suddenly things changed. There were hoards of jeeps waiting in one area and our driver immediately understood the cause and rushed towards it. There she was! I saw a tigress doing her 'cat walk'. It was an absolute beauty. After walking for some time, she attempted to climb a tree - All her four paws on the tree and her tail waving in the air. What a scene to watch in the wild! It was one of my dream come true. The excitement maddened me for few moments - My luck was pushed to the last 5mins of my 33hrs of total safari time. Never mind, I got her in wild and it was an extraordinary moment (No photos though, since it was slightly dark and slightly far). It is one of the most unforgettable moments in my life and we moved out of Bhandavgarh with a success story to tell!

Our next stopover was Khajuraho and we headed towards it. Rest of it in the next posting.

Kanha National Park, MP

After Pench, we visited Kanha National Park and stayed there for 2 days.

Kanha National Park (23rd & 24th Dec)

On both the days, we went around the park in the morning. The park is about 2000 Sq.Km. and each safari lasted for about 6hrs. The mornings were really cold and I was typically quivering in the first hour of safari. After an hour, with sunlight passing through the tree gaps, the temperature in the air rose and the cold became manageable. Kanha is undoubtedly beautiful with lush green forest and huge meadows. Sal trees and bamboos are the prominent vegetation here. Anytime, Jim Corbett National park is the best park in India. Anyway, who can deny Kanha was the inspiration for Kipling's classic Jungle book and it reserves a special place among the Indian national parks. After all, it is one of the well maintained park in India.

For the safaris, Saleem and his friend Anand joined us. Saleem manages few safari vehicles in Kanha and he is also a naturalist. Anand is the manager of the resort we were staying at. Both of them are nature & wildlife enthusiasts. In the first few hours of our safari, we spotted lots of birds - Some of them which I still remember are Rocket tail Dracon, Seven Sisters, Woodpeckers, Golden Back Kingfisher, Parakeets, Plum Headed Parrots, Kites, Owlets and the rare Snipe. Lots of peacocks were freely moving around in the meadows and we spotted lots of Chital, Sambar, Barking Deer and Bison. We also saw the not so common Wild dog and Barasingha . Barasingha is present only in Kanha and is preserved here from extinction.


Here, in Kanha, I wanted to incentivize myself by spotting tiger in the wild. This was a highly motivating reason for me to visit the national parks this season. At many times, I came very close to spotting a tiger in this park, but didn't manage to see any. We saw fresh pug mark of a big male tiger which according to our guide, should have just crossed the road & moved inside the dense region. I also saw deers alerting each other with their alert calls - It was in a meadow and I was dreaming that a tiger is gonna come pouncing at the deer :) There were other missed chances like in the interior forest camp area, the male tiger was walking around freely for about an hour. We missed it by about 15mins. While going along a trail, first of the three jeeps spotted a tiger crossing the road. But, our jeep was 5th in the line and we couldn't watch that.

After such a long search for the tiger, I became desperate to spot the tiger in "The tiger Show". In tiger show, elephant mahouts spot a resting tiger and take people to that place by elephant so that the tiger don't get disturbed. On the first day of safari, Saleem had very high hopes of spotting the tiger in wild and we reached late at the centre where we need to register for the tiger show. We were 58 in number and the jeeps till 55 got to see the tiger! On the second day, we were a little proactive and enrolled for the tiger show earlier and were 13 in number. But, the tiger show didn't happen that day since the forest rangers couldn't find any resting tiger! There were many such instances happening through out our presence in Kanha national park. However, these didn't disappoint me as Bhandavgarh was next in our list.


In Kanha, other than the safari times, we spent our time walking around the small village. While walking around, I saw couple of trees with all its branches, full of butterflies. They belonged to same family (same color & pattern) and they were eating the tree leaves. It is the first ever time, I saw thousands of butterflies in one place! It was truly interesting to watch.

We had some of our meals at Mohan dhabha near the Khatia gate. Parathas & Lassi were very tasty. While you are there, I suggest you to try out this place. We met Mr. Yadav while we were traveling from Pench to Kanha. He is the owner of Pugmark resort in Kanha. He had invited us for evening tea and we visited him. He is very friendly, but very talkative too. He is an ex-army and police service man and was mentioning about his service experience to us. His resort is pretty good with fine rooms charged at nominal Rs.1200/- In Kanha, there are many resorts in this price range. For people caring for budget and cleanliness, these resorts are of good choice.

Kanha to Bhandavgarh

From Kanha to Bhandavgarh, it is about 400Kms and we had all of it to be covered in a day by regular local transport buses. We took the first bus at 6:30 a.m from Kanha and had to switch over to multiple buses at different points of our journey. The experience was all tolerable till 3p.m, after that it became really frustrating. The body started giving up and the back started complaining. But, I chose to travel by bus and got to do it. It is part & parcel of experiencing the local culture. After a long day of travel, we reached Bhandavgarh at 8:30 p.m and then came to know that Gypsy for the next day safari is not booked (though we have the permission to enter the park). We tried through different people to get a Jeep booked, but couldn't. We were too tired to do anything further & decided to take care of it in the morning.

Stopping here for now. I will post my Bhandavgarh experience in next posting.

Brief details on route to & accommodation at Kanha are at How to Reach & Where to Stay