rrrrrrRanthambore!

We left Pushkar at the break of dawn. I was still a little sick, but strong enough to carry my backpack. 

First, we had to take a bus to Ajmer, where the buses going to Sawai Madhopur  await at 9am. We took some chai and biscuits and waited for the bus.

Ajmer, covered in early morning mist, looking like a mirage.

We were surprised that it took 8 hours to get to Sawai Madhopur, which is the closest town to Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, one of the best places in the world to spot a tiger. By normal standards, it should be 2 hours, and by Indian standards, 6!

We passed through a lot of villages, some of which turned out to be very interesting when we read about them after, but at the time all we wanted was an end to the swirling dust. The landscape was, as usual, fantastic - Rajasthan does not disappoint in that department, and we had a lot of time to admire it because every few meters away were herds of sheep in the hundreds. That meant we stopped every 5 minutes to wait for the flock to be ushered to the side.

We were dropped off at the corner of Sawai Madhopur and Ranthambore, and the guesthouse manager picked us up at the roundabout in a safari jeep. Hatim, our friend from Mumbai (whom we met in the safari in Mudumalai), recommended the guest house because he comes here often, and I got to bargain the price of the room even before we got there :D


Ranthambore is arguably the best wildlife park in India, and as such, has its own share of "official" scams. Tourist agencies can book a three hour safari for you for 1,200 for a bus and 1,300 for a jeep; however, getting tickets from the government office would save you 400 rupees. So we went to the booking office on our own the next day, only to realize all the touts had reserved the jeeps and are selling the seats for ginormous amounts! That means, no one has a chance to book a jeep on his own without a tout in between. The only spots we could get were the bus seats, which are noisier and less private - but to save 800 Rs (that's 400 per ticket) we took the bus seats instead.

Touts galore! The bus reservation line is on counter 1. Spot Henri!

Ranthambore is beautiful and enormous! But that also means there's more hiding places for the tigers.

It used to be a fort, but later abandoned.

Now it is a wildlife kingdom. And home to the biggest deer in the world.

Spot the crocs!

A bird lands on our seats.

The guide told us they spotted a tiger that morning at this creek. We even saw the tiger tracks.

But the bus was noisy, so I guess we scared them away.

We stoped a couple of times to listen for the warning call from the animals. But there was an Indian family that brought a baby and a noisy four year-old, further lowering our chances of seeing the shy tigers.

So once again, we didn't see any tigers.

But it was a sunny day and the drive up and down the hills through the ruins was fun, like a rollercoaster ride except with giant stags.

The next day, we were back in the wild world of government buses, for the six-hour ride to Jaipur.