Bandhavgarh – Day 03 – Part 2

We came back to Bandhavgarh in the afternoon, now appropriately escorted by Mr. Raj and Dino, a very skillful driver. We had been very happy in the morning joining the Tiger Show and the expectations were growing, since we have been so successful in all game drives so far.

Despite being to the park everyday and running his business there, Mr. Raj has an endless eagerness to spot tigers, as they are his passion, and he was avid to track tiger that afternoon. He saved a prayer for Siddh Baba whenever we passed the shrine past the entrance of the park, to ask for protection and for good sightings.

As we started the game drive, we met John Aitchinson of BBC with Digpal Singh waiting near Siddh Baba, they would bet on the New Male again for the afternoon

We set our course to Nilgai, the area where Jhurjuhra female and her cubs had been seen in the morning feeding from a kill, as she would probably be taking a rest somewhere still around there. As we drove through the park we saw, the brown fish owl flicking its big eyes near its nest on the top of a tree. A jeep was always there, on stand-by, with wildlife photographers who were chasing this owl, but this was the first time we could see it so clearly.




As we stand-by around the site, Raj told us that the rangers saw the New Male being chased out of range by B2. New Male had been taken by surprise by B2 patrolling the Chakradhara Meadows. New Male was looking for Chorbhera tigress when we saw him in the morning, but B2 is still very active and keeps his territory and the harem of females within very close attention and have put New Male to run. Maybe B2 and New Male could be hiding in a cave around the Siddh Baba area – good luck for John and Digpal.

Raj prefers to focus on Jhurjuhra female and the cubs, so we held still following some intuition of Raj and track signs. A mongoose steals our attention making a cracking noise behind us, just to make our imagination fly high – maybe it could be a tiger – well, not that time…




After some time spent there in total silence, we start to hear alarm calls coming from just in front of us. Chital deers calling is a strong sign of predators approaching; the peacocks joined the chorus raising our attention. I started to record the sounds (the ones I have posted before). Dino tries to change the position of the vehicle to have a better view of the hill just in front of us, but the vegetation is thick. Some more minutes of apprehension made us starting to look everywhere, at that time it seemed the alarm calls were coming from all sides – perhaps we were the predators being alarmed…but not. The silence suddenly swallows the jungle sounds and we could clearly hear a roar – it was low, coming from somewhere on the hill, but seemed still not being from so close.

We finally realize that the roars are getting louder indicating that the tiger was coming down toward us. Dino, moved the jeep once again and we finally saw it, unfortunately, it the tiger had stopped moving and decides to stay put. Well, we could barely see the tiger amongst the dry bamboo, but despite photography was not excellent, we had another of those exciting encounter.



Raj says it can be Jhurjuhra tigress or one of the cubs, but from there neither Dino nor he could tell for sure.

We can’t stay longer there as we are far from the gate – the Bandhavgarh Fort glows with the sunset lights - another fortunate game drive gets to the end.





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Day 01 – Delhi - Part 1

09:30am. After 14-hours flight from Sao Paulo to Dubai, 5 hours waiting for transfer to Delhi and more 4.5-hours flight from Dubai do Delhi, we finally arrive in Delhi. The long trip and the +08:30 time gap between India and home left us as zombies, but we were very excited the trip was just beginning, so after immigration proceedings we went exchange some money (“some money” indeed is not appropriate since the dollar-rupees rate produced a huge pile of 100 rupees bills) and next were already searching for Mrs. Daljeet, our local agent from India Safaris. We have been in contact for so much time planning the trip that we were truly anxious to meet her personally.

Everything was ready, the driver, Johnson, took us for our hotel in Delhi (The Luthyens Bungalows) – a very simple guesthouse located in the embassies regions, called Imperial City. The place has a country-side style (not so well-conserved to be honest), but fair enough for a couple o nights as the main objective of this trip was not in Delhi.

We have quickly got installed and have been briefed by Daljeet about the plans, trains tickets, vouchers and everything, and after a late-breakfast we have soon departed for the first part of the visit to Delhi. Actually, Delhi has surprised us with a quite green-look (not a vertical city with lots of buildings and no trees) and we headed towards the Red Fort for the first ancient site in the list.

Pictures:
1. Tuc-Tucs
2. Parakeet in the hotel backyard

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The Red Fort is located in Old Delhi (for local people Delhi city is only one, there is no Old Delhi or New Delhi, actually the Old Delhi is newer than most part of New Delhi, because the Old/New reference is far behind in India’s history and Old Delhi has been destroyed and rebuilt after Delhi had been already expanded toward New Delhi’s side). Red Fort built in Delhi by the emperor Shah Jahan, has been inspired in the Agra Fort, so that the same architecture and design has moved from Agra to Delhi after Agra lost its post of Mughal Empire capital to Delhi.

Pictures:
3. Main Gate (Lahore Gate)
4. Diwan-i-Aam courtyard view from the throne balcony

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Actually our objective is not to tell the details of the history and architecture (we admit that there is a lot of interesting things we have learned after listening to the guide’s lectures, but we would have to spend dozens of pages just telling the years of stories around the monuments), we would rather share the beautiful pictures taken in these places to give you an idea of them, and let you decide if it is interesting to visit them if you ever get to India.

The Red Fort is all surrounded by a big defense wall and the buildings inside are all made of red sandstone or white marble with all sort of gems inlays. There is a lovely green garden, very pleasant to refrain a bit of the heat of India’s summer.

Pictures:
5. Diwan-i-Aam pavilion columns
6. Lady´s Chamber columns
7. Courtyard with white pavilions in marble

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Out of Red Fort, we’ve met Surya waiting with a rickshaw driver to take us to the mosque of Jama Masjid of Delhi, also located in Old Delhi just a few blocks far from the Red Fort. The rickshaw ride is really crazy because the driver find his way through the narrow streets of the Chandni Chowk amongst other rickshaws, tuc-tucs, cows, buses, people, dogs, cars, bikes, scooters, motorbikes, unbelievably without shocking with anybody or anything in the middle of the way. It is a good opportunity to see the alleys where the small businesses dedicated to selling the tissues, saris and brocades for the colorful Indian wedding clothes.

Pictures:
8. Rickshaw ride staring point
9. Chadni Chowk market stores

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The rickshaw dropped us at the entrance of Jama Masjid mosque (Friday’s Mosque), where we had to leave our shoes by the door and Alessandra had to wear a Muslim’s dress over her clothes before entering. The building is a mosque (what else to say…), it is a huge massive mosque also built mostly on red sandstone – the time of the day was not so good for pictures since we had the sun shining hard at noon time when we were there, but we have selected some interesting angles to give a slight glance of it for you.

Pictures:
10. Jama Masjid main façade
11. Jama Masjid main entrance from inside
12. Jama Masjid ornaments

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After this session, we started heading back to New Delhi area again, where we have started to see the second part of the first day in the city.

Note: you can click on the picture to take you to the original size picture in our Flickr album page, being better to see the photographs you like. Or if you may want to go straight to our Flickr page, please access the link Our Flickr Page