Excitement on the way to Tadoba...

As I slowly open my eyes, the sun is yet to shine and the monsoon clouds are threatening the sun from coming out. The scenery infront of me is a green grassland fully wet, droplets on leaves that are shining like silver to my photographic eyes and an occasional human attending to nature’s call on the field. As the train gains speed, the view outside my window keeps on changing from farm lands, mountain range, little peaks, small villages, a lonely tree, old bridges, dried up rivers, herds of sheep grazing what's left in the land and never once boring. I get excited as a child would on all train journeys. There is something wonderful when travelling by train that I couldn't pin point. I sit in our side lower seat (the most preferred when I travel by train) and try reading the station names during the brief time the train takes to cross it. One of my favourite pastimes after staring out of window. The language on the station board changes from familiar Tamil to the sprawled jilebi characters and then turns to omnipresent Hindi announcing the crossing of various states indirectly. 

All these beautiful scenes are on our way to Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, one of the few places in the world to spot to tigers in the wild and this time our focus is only on safaris on all four days. Try to soak in as much of the forest as possible before returning to our concrete jungle. We are hoping the monsoon wouldn't play spoilsport on our safaris. Fingers crossed.

We had just come back from Gir Sanctuary with great experience of sighting jungle king in all safaris we took, which made us to think about seeing another famous cat, The Tiger. After a lot of googling we finalised Tadoba Andhari as our next destination. Place is finalised and next comes logistics:-

• There are no direct trains or flights. Nearest airport is Nagpur and train station is Chandrapur (~30 km).
• Buses run between Chandrapur and Tadoba, but are less frequent and not scheduled. A taxi ride would cost about 1000 INR one way.
• Cost of one safari – entry fee 750 INR (weekdays) or 1000 INR (weekends) which can be booked online along with camera tickets of 250 INR (only above 200 mm - book it on the spot for 200 INR). A gypsy ride 2000 INR have to be paid to the driver after the safari, guide fee is 300 INR will be collected before safari at the gate – totally 3550 INR. 
• MTDC run by the government is by far the most economical stay available at Tadoba. It has 4 dormitories accommodating 8 persons each, around 28 suites both ac and non ac, and 2 vip suites. 
• Best season to visit is during summer April to May when the chances of sighting a tiger is more. Monsoon and winter season has its own charm of the jungle, but be prepared not to spot a tiger. 

We took train this time and stared from Chennai in Bikaner express (Probably the best train we ever traveled in so far) to Chandrapur. Our taxi picked us from Chandrapur railway station and proceeded towards Tadoba. We crossed Durgapur power plant and saw a direction board that took us to buffer zone entrance gate of the reserve. Actually there are two different zones: core zone and buffer zone. Buffer zone also looked like a forest, green trees and dark road welcomed us, looked like it has rained few hours back. The car whizzed past green trees and farm lands and oh I think I spotted a fox (or was it a wild dog? I wonder). It gave us a glimpse of what to expect the next few days. Check-in at MTDC resort was smooth and the room was comfortable and big enough. The resort is located at an excellent location, a huge property on the banks of Lake Irai, about a kilometre from the safari forest gates. It has suites spaced a bit farther to provide privacy at the same time providing a sense of community. Gypsies pick up and drop us from the resort for the safari. 

A guide and driver is assigned on a rotation basis by the forest department. Your safari experience depends very much on the guide and how efficient and interested he is in helping us spot wildlife. The entry to the forest reserve is roughly split across six gates – Mohuarli, Kuswanda, Kolara, Navegoan, Zari and Pangdi. Online tickets are sold for each gate, mohuarli having the highest number of entries. We are free to move into any of the zones after entering at any gate. But entry and exit happens through the same gate only.

More details in my upcoming post about animals and birds spotted in the safari.