My experience at Kanha National Park (1)

 My trip to Kanha National park was a memorable one. I consider myself a very lucky person as I saw 4 tigers and 2 sloth bears.

 

To be frank, going into the first safari I didn’t expect to see any Tiger. After 1 hour of seeing spotted deers, sambars, gaurs, monkeys, and wild boars we saw Bahadur. Bahadur comes from Naina’s 2nd liter. At first, Bahadur was sleeping but when jeeps started closing towards him he woke up, well at least we thought he woke up. After seeing his surroundings he slept again and was entertaining everyone by giving poses on both sides. Once Bahadur turned on the other side people behind us were screaming Palat (flip or change side). After entertaining everyone for 10 minutes he woke up and started walking towards the our jeep. As he woke up, so did my camera. I clicked photos of him, not realizing he could attack our jeep. Everyone was terrified, especially me and my dad as we were in the firing line. With no space to take a reverse, we were forced to drive straight ahead where jeeps were present. At that moment if Bahadur would have turned back this blog wouldn’t have existed. We were lucky not just to see a tiger but not get killed by one. 

After seeing a tiger on the first day my dad wasn’t feeling well. Well, Bahadur definitely didn’t kill us but he did pass some flu to my dad. We were going to the Mukki zone which wasn’t known for sightings as much as Kanha was known for. It was freezing cold going into the first 2 hours of the safari. The first 2 hours of the safari is meant to be the time where Tigers are supposed to have some movement. 1 hour 30 mins passed by and almost all Jeeps had seen a tiger T-46.

Some jeeps had seen him 3 times which saddened all of us. We took a quick washroom break which is when we got a call from another Jeep stating that they had seen a tiger just from the road we had passed by. We quickly rushed to the spot but by the time we were there he had already gone. We could still hear alarm calls from Langurs (Alarm calls are sounds made by herbivorous animals stating that there is a tiger walking). We stayed at that spot for 5 minutes which is when our guide stated that he had seen the tiger. Well, we didn’t believe him as he was the only one to see. We were waiting with no signs of a tiger. The langoor calls were reducing and that's when our legendary driver Shyam uncle came up clutch and took a reverse into a lane which is where we saw T-46. He went into the bush and we followed him until he went into a denser area of the forest. Well, my dad missed a lot!

It was our 3rd safari and as we were 2/2 we weren’t expecting any tiger. Within the first 30 minutes, there was one jeep who had seen a tiger. Umarpani Male- The largest tiger in Kanha. 

People just go on safaris to see Umarpani. His mom was Umarpani female and his dad was the legendary Munna which explains why he is the largest tiger in central India. He is a walker which is why we thought we had missed him but to our luck there he was there. We got a beautiful angle of him walking towards the water body with light shining on him: https://www.instagram.com/p/CWQGbBpjGUag3s5bgyIHgpFJaRhIdLXTsZiTu80/ 

He walked past and the 6 jeeps who saw him were very happy. While going back we saw a few jeeps gathered around at one spot. The only thing I saw was a deer but around 10 meters behind the deer there was a Sloth bear. It was by far the best safari of the trip.