We spent 12 hours sharing travelling gossip with a lovely American-French couple, Brett and Vanessa, whilst on the Varanasi-Mumbai train crossing this huge country. We were mainly de-briefing on the weird and wonderful experiences of Varanasi, but also fighting off a hungry travelling train rat and discussing the state of America's paranoid immigration systems (which made for a Romeo & Juliet inspired story on how the two met).
We left them in the evening, in Jabalpur where we got off for our planned tiger safari excursion in Kahna National Park. Many of these parks are quite expensive (by Indian standards), so we had decided to make it one of our little travelling treats (i.e. not roughing it for a few days). However, we weren't really prepared as we stepped off the train, weary from another long day on the move, for just what kind of a treat we (Ruth) had managed to book.
Ude, a big bear of a man with a great smile and our guide for the three days, met us at the station and escorted us to a large, immaculate, chauffeur driven car with AC. The drive to the park was another three and half hours, so the owner of the Courtyard House in Kahna, Neelesh had arranged for us to have dinner with him in his family house in Jabalpur before setting off. Our jaws dropped as the gates opened to a beautiful drive leading up to the elegant house. As we stepped in we both suddenly felt under-dressed and dirty as we were welcomed by Neelsh and his family, as well as by a table set for a small feast. The food was out of this world and set the tone for the days to come.
Tiger safari is early morning business so off we went at dawn after only 3 hours in our luxurious room. It was Indiana Jones excitement as we entered the park in our open-top jeep with Ude perched at the front tracking the stripy cats down whilst pointing out all the other wonders of the park. We saw 3 types of deer, samba, spotted and one other with big horns, we saw eagles, vultures, and hundreds of brightly coloured birds, there were elephants and wild boar, jackals and langur monkeys. All these animals are best buddies when it comes to one task, never allowing the big tiger to sneak up on them. They break out in loud alarm calls whenever a tiger or leopard is near and it was basically this noisy theatre we were tracking. Several times our hearts were racing as the monkeys were singing their warning songs, and Ude played out all his tracking tricks he had learnt since first coming to the park in 1967, but the closest we got to seeing the elusive tiger was seeing some pretty large footprints on the dusty roads (which we did suspect, at the beginning, were man-made for our tourist entertainment).
However, feeling the tiger's presence and hearing the forest go crazy when a tiger was near, mixed with the magical misty mornings with the sun breaking through the trees, or the lazy afternoons watching the deer graze in peace on the big open plains, was an incredible experience. We went into the park over two days, once every day in the morning and once in the late afternoon, each time was just as exciting. It is no wonder that Kipling found his inspiration for the Jungle Book in these very parts of India.
When back at the Courtyard House we were royally treated, Indian colonial style. The house is built around an open courtyard with restrained elegant art work and heavy comfortable wooden furniture. The staff served up some of the best Indian food we've had to date whilst Ude happily taught us about his beloved India; from Gandhi and Independence tensions to sexual taboos and Indian food culture, to marriages, politics, the British, waste management, bureaucracy and corruption, Ude had an opinion, and a very interesting one, to all of them.
As we got taken back out of our little bubble of colonial romanticism, we felt that we had experienced something really special. Back on the train, it was business as usual, this time around we had an old lady shout at us in Hindi every waking hour of the trip to Mumbai, we smiled, waggled our heads, and smiled again, raising our hands in surrender, but I think that when we got off the train she still thought we had understood her.
The trip from mesmerising Varanasi, via peaceful Kahna, and on to Mumbai couldn't have been a trip of starker contrasts. Mumbai is at once loveable, the Barcelona of Asia, British Raj architecture in its full glory, food culture to satisfy you for years, and a mixture of smiling people from all over India; it is a place that defines the very word city. Its geographical island confinement makes the sea at once present, and as we strolled through the afternoon along the famous Marine Drive we both felt as though a completely new journey was about to start. Dusty, crazy, spiritual India of the north was giving way to the salty shores of the Indian Ocean. We had expected Mumbai to be too much, like Delhi, dusty and without respite, so we had booked our Goan train the following morning. Instead both of us fell completely in love with the place, in just one afternoon. But like with a lot of places we have been to so far, they tempt you to stay longer (at the expense of visiting other equally incredible places), so when setting off the following morning we promised ourselves that we would return; wanting more from this magical place.
