Once upon a time in Ranthambore

And its more than a week now since I went for one of the most amazing trips ever!! As the weather was perfectly cold and it was a great time for sighting, my boss suggested that we make a trip to Ranthambore, Yes, one of the largest national parks in northern India. The first thing I thought was, that this would be another exciting work trip as one of our clients has his property over there. To my pleasant surprise it turned out that it was nothing more than an exclusive office fun trip being planned !! So me and my office team set out for our first officially unofficial weekend getaway 😀 

After having left at 9, obviously pretty hungry, we stopped at a small place on our way. When after waiting for a very short while our order was there on the table, it was the most amazing sight of the day. Samosas, cheese omelette, masala omelettes and French toasts, I felt like it was enough for the rest of the day. As we were leaving the place I noticed the beautiful juttis and lehariya dupattas in the shop and felt like a total international tourist.

With our tummies and heart totally feeling content, we headed for Sawai Madhopur (the place where Ranthambore is situated). After a pretty roller coaster kind of drive, we finally reached our destination at sharp 12:30. Enter ‘Tiger Home’; a small sweet home that belonged to my boss’s friend who lived there with his family. There it was…a steaming hot meal on the table. The fulfilling meal of rice, chapattis, paneer and dal was followed by us crashing into bed and a tiny power nap ahead. After doing the ‘wildlife check’; fully packed with layers of clothes and a fully charged camera, we soon got ready for the trip’s first safari 🙂

As we drove in the bumpy lanes of jungle, there she was. Lying carefree and resting in her bed of mud and wilderness, and then someone in our gypsy said that she probably is ‘Machli’. Little did I know about her by then, a 17-year old tigress, T-16, better known as the ‘lady of lake’, she’s the most photographed tigress in the entire world. We waited right there for about half an hour when she actually got up and walked towards us. As she moved ahead, her eyes met our gaze and even though I had my camera right in the line of sight, my hands were shaking while capturing her. While my friends talked about being able to sight many more, but honestly, my day was made !!

After reaching the guest house we were super duper hungry and the nice homely kitchen was right beside our rooms. We had plates full of vegetable maggi and headed for the long awaited roof top bonfire. With a few rounds of ‘rapid fire’ and quite exciting dumb charades, we had a crazy time singing and laughing away to glory.

At 5:30 a.m. the alarm rang and it was time to get set for an early morning safari. Well first thing’s first ! It was time for some photography amongst ourselves 😀 Had a short yet awesome photo session and then the gypsy arrived. This safari began with entry in the no-zone and it was more adventurous than what I had thought.

We weren’t moving or driving on any roads, we were actually roaming in the middle of the jungle where there were no roads. I had been to Ranthambore a couple of times before, but this surely was a first. We spotted a leopard far far away where I didn’t even make an attempt to click it. Just staring at it was good enough as its said that leopards are a very rare sight over there. After watching it vanish in woods, we forged ahead with the hope of spotting some more ‘tigers’, if only wishes were horses. Even though we found no trace of tiger, the trails reminded me of ‘Wrong turn’ and Karan Johar’s ‘Kaal’ at times and every moment of that journey felt like a pure bliss ! Despite our gypsy driver’s persistent efforts, tiger wasn’t spotted but we did get to see a lot of deer, birds, sambhar, mongoose and the beautiful sunrise as well 🙂

We got back pretty late and stuffed ourselves with stuffed paranthas and vermicelli. It was time to leave the place and end this super fun trip. On our way back, we visited Dastkar Ranthambore, a pretty stop to buy some handcrafted stuff, where I picked up some little creative key rings. Buying some amroods (guavas) from the famous streets of Sawai Madhopur, we headed back to Jaipur looking at all our pictures from the trip and already feeling nostalgic 🙂