All by myself....

Fri 11 May, TATR

Last Tuesday I have been on a jungle round with Samir. We hoped to see the mother tiger and her 2 cups, but that didn’t happen. We did see Sambar, Chital (spotted dear/bambi), sloth bear (lippen beer), wild boar (ever zwijn), Indian buffalo, crocodile and monkeys. Samir will take me again, so maybe next time.

Wednesday visited Mohurly, where the SCF Office is located. Shanoo and Sunil are the managers of the handicraft project that’s situated in this office. It was nice to have a look at how and where the ladies work. Totally different than what we are used to in the Netherlands.
The ladies where rather surprised that I am not as tall as Claudia.

Getting to Mohurli is a nice story, but getting back to Tadoba even better. The bus was supposed to leave from Tadoba at 10am. It didn’t arrive till 12, because it first had to go to a wedding. Can you imagine! Connexion doesn’t show up, without notice, because the bus is needed for a wedding…

Well in India, especially in May, that seems to be a very normal event. May is the month of weddings, and when people need a bus to drive the guests, well than other people will mot be able to go somewhere, or are late.

So we (Ramrao and me) got to Mohurli and round 4 pm we were supposed to get on the bus going back to Tadoba. It didn’t show up, not an hour later, not two hours later, just not at all. In the mean time it was warm, I was running low on water, started to get hungry and felt tired. Not a perfect combination if you have to wait for a bus, without knowing if it will come, and in the case it doesn’t show, what to do?? Luckily the elephants that live in the Mohurly side of the park got their dinner, so I watched them eat. Next time I will ask if I may feed them a rice-cone. This time I decided not too, because you should safe some experiences for later…

Ramrao assured me that we would get back, since more people who needed to be back in Tadoba would be picked up later from Mohurli. Good to know. To do something about me feeling hungry, we had dinner with Ramrao’s oldest brother, who is gatekeeper at Mohurli gate from 12 midnight till 8 am. The dahl I had there was really nice. Not too strong with chilli, but some nutty taste, which I really liked.

Round 8.30 pm Samir came to pick us up in the gypsy. We then picked up his father and an other Tadoba person from Mohurli bus stop and drove on, through some villages to a very colourful house to get some petrol. The men all had some sweets, which looked really strange to me. Like dough balls, with green and orange bits in it. From here we drove to a gate on the other side of Tadoba and from there on was my 1st night safari… Spectacular, even though you don’t see many animals, I did see an owl and a mongoose (grond eekhoorn).

Yesterday was the first big thunderstorm. Rain comes down pouring, like a swimming pool is turned upside down. It was nice, but also a bit scary, since the thunder was really loud too.
Ramrao, Anusia and Komol, left in the afternoon to go to their village. Ramrao will be back Sunday, so I will have a couple of days on my own. It’s good, since I got a bit nervous with someone being around me all day, follows every move you make and is so curious that he doesn’t think that maybe some things are not meant for him to read. That might be a culture difference too. Here everyone shares and lives together and I am used to have a lot of privacy back home…