Slouching Tiger, Pissed-Off Adam

After a brief one day stopover in Bundi, which was a nice break from the touristy places, we got a hired car to Sawai Madhopur, the village from which tiger safaris into Ranthambore National Park are launched. The safari here is up there with the Taj Mahal in terms of popularity with tourists. With no cheap backpacker accommodation to be found, we had to make do with a swish hotel, which, even though it was the cheapest listed, was still a step or two up from what we were used to (in price and quality). I even got to watch the Man United v West Ham game in our room.

There's a huge slump in tourism in India right now, which is mainly down to Westerners fearing to come here after the Mumbai attacks. In one way this isn't a good thing for us, as there's less fellow backpackers about to mingle and share stories/info with. In another way it's made things very convenient for us though, as we've never had to book ahead for accommodation, and we can dictate the price. Our luck in this way was no more so apparent than with the tiger safari itself. There are two modes of safari transport – canter, which is essentially an open top bus, and gypsy, a jeep. Gypsies are far more popular, because your chances of spotting a tiger are far greater in them. We were told that to get a spot in one you normally had to book about 26 weeks in advance. We bagged seats in one the day before our safari.

We set off for the park in our gypsy just before sunrise the next morning, along with our guide, driver, and two quiet Finns with oversized cameras. The cool pre-dawn breeze shook me out of slumber mode, and once we passed the park gates there was a genuine air of excitement. This grew as our guide heard the alarm call of some nearby antelopes, and then spotted fresh tiger tracks in the dirt road.



We followed the tracks for a couple of miles, all with cameras at the ready. But then the trail disappeared off the road and into long grass. With the gypsy's engine switched off, we scanned the long grass in silence with the utmost concentration, hoping to get our money's worth. But the tiger remained incognito.

Later, deeper into the park, the pattern repeated itself, again with no tiger sighting. The tiger hunts in the morning and the afternoon, and sleeps in the mid-day heat, an interval we were fast approaching. We had only booked a morning safari, so no tigers for us. Still, the hunt was half the fun.