Rants of a born again Bangalorean: Our Ranthambore experience

Our Ranthambore experience - Part II

Getting to Ranthambore

When we planned our trip to Rajasthan, we fit in Ranthambore despite a tight schedule. I'd been to wildlife sanctuaries for the past 30 years, but never have seen a tiger. I've encountered a freshly killed leopard (by wild dogs), and don't fail to add that detail whenever I discuss my failings on the tiger-sighting side (like I just did). I also don't fail to describe the still encrusting blood that was flowing out of it's throat's puncture wounds, and the colorful butterflies that were sitting on the blood (like I just did, again). :)
But the fact still remained - no tiger in the wild.

Ranthambore forest tours can be booked online, and booking almost 2 months in advance - we could get only the 20 seater canter vehicles.

On the flight to Jaipur, while I was exercising my fingers swiping at colorful fruits on my phone, my neighbour was busy watching photography videos. The kind that show you a 100 ways to shoot a waterfall. So, a quick bathroom break later, I chatted him up - a very pleasant gentleman named Shashi. He started showing me his awesome wildlife photos from Kenya.
He was on his way to Bharatpur bird sanctuary. My tone did have a touch of "while you're shooting itty bitty birds, we'll be looking for tigers" as I told him we were going to Ranthambore. He nodded, and gracefully opened his Ranthambore album.
There he introduced me to 'Machli' ( translates to 'Fish' in Hindi) - one of the most famous tigers in probably the world. "She's 17 years old, and has been filmed by lots of folks including the BBC" he said "it isn't expected that she'll survive past 2013. She's not able to catch prey easily, and has been now displaced by her daughter from her regular area - a lake.Machli is now in zone 4 - while she previously was in zone 3 before her daughter chased her out of there".

Day 1: Ranthambore Zone 8

After a day at Jaipur, our friends Surendra, Chandra, their two kids & us went down to Ranthambore. Due to the inevitable delays in eating/feeding our little tigers, we ended up being late to Ranthambore - past 2 pm at the forest office counter.
Our online booking was invalid now. We ended up joining the last minute tour bookers at the counter begging for a space on one of the 6 seater Maruti Gypsy's or the 20 seater Mitsubishi Canters.
We finally got a Gypsy, and were given zone 8. While we waited for Khalid - our driver - we were accosted by some private looking guys who offered to take us to zone 9.
"Zone 8 is all mountain sir. Lot of birds, no tiger - sir. If you want Tiger, go to zone 9. 5000 Rupees, I take you to zone 9, sir"
But Khalid said zone 9 was more than 1.5 hours away to the entrance, and we could try it the next day.

Khalid explained on the way - Ranthambore originally had 5 zones.. and now with the increase in tigers, they've expanded into 9 zones. But, he said - the guides in the zones past 5 weren't really experienced, knowledgeable, nor could speak english. They were just guys given jobs by the govt. to make up for the loss of grazing land for their animals.
True to Khalid's words, the guide we picked up was good for the space he occupied and the money we paid him. He also is mandatory - in case you're wondering why we took him along.
The jungle wasn't the typical Indian jungle we see in the south - there literally was no vegetation other than one kind of shrubby tree and grassland. He was also giving us hopes.. the forest ranger saw a tiger the previous evening.. and it might still be around.

We saw plenty of spotted deer, and a few great looking Sambar deer. We did spot a paw print or two, but no tiger. There were babblers, and treepies and us babbling about no tiger.
Khalid, however - was quite informative and naturally funny - and kept us in good humor. He mentioned that the Sambar deer was the tiger's favorite. As we started wondering about how it's meat might taste different, he added that it had poor eyesight. It made up for it by better than normal hearing and sense of smell, he said. But the tiger could counter those by approaching downwind and being silent.Anu(my dear wife) then suggested to Khalid we could catch a sambar deer, and then use it to attract a tiger.
He also mentioned that monkeys and spotted deer all have special calls they use to warn each other when they spot a tiger. We paused in silence for minutes at a time to see if we could hear any such calls.

Khalid - born and brought up at Ranthambore - told us tales of his tiger sightings. And Machli came up again.
Once - when she had 3 kids - she had killed near a water body. When she went to fetch her cubs, a crocodile started dragging the kill to the water. The angered Machli came up behind the crocodile and tore up his neck starting behind the jaw. This is unusual for tigers because crocodiles have a very tough hide, and that damages the tigers' canines. And loss of canines is a sure-sign path to starvation for a tiger. But, the anger at losing food for the cubs probably overruled caution in this case. Although tigers operate differently from us, it felt almost like hearing a bollywood movie story - mom/dad gives up everything for the kids' safety, and the kid later on kicks the same person out - Machli's daughter now has moved her out of her once-plentiful hunting grounds.
Sure enough, over the next year, Machli's canines fell out. She's left with only one canine, or none- depending on whom you talk to.
Khalid clearly loved tigers.He mentioned how despite having seen them so many times, he still doesn't get bored looking at a tiger however long he gets the chance to. He contrasted it against a lion- "looks like it's been in the mud all the time, lazy.., colorless " he trailed off. True or false, it got us laughing.

Finally, the excursion ended without seeing any tigers. The way back was pretty cold.. with the temperature already being close to zero and adding the windchill travelling in an open gypsy.

On the way back, Khalid also made an offer to take us the next day to zone 9. The biggest male tiger in Ranthambore is in zone 9, and we could go there - for money given directly to him. We had a prior online booking and he told us to ignore that. I agreed and we said our goodbyes.
He asked us to really keep warm coz it was going to be very very cold - and we'd be heading out at 6am.
At our hotel - Sanctuary Resort - a very basic, but clean & cheap hotel - the manager discouraged us from that. He said since we'd booked it online, we'd get an allocation in zones 1-5 and we should not chuck that away for zone 9. After some back and forth, we called Khalid and cancelled our trip with him the next day. He tried to dissuade us - saying we had a better chance in a gypsy in zone 9, than in a big noisy canter.
It was a tough decision, but I finally said 'no' to him.
The night was cold, and we had to nebulize our kids coz their asthma acted up. Anu decided she & the kids won't come the next morning.
Surendra, Chandra were bravely game on bringing their whole troop in the morning.