We had left the island on a bus to Indore, only to book another 14 hr sleeper bus to Jabalpur. The sleeper bus (non-AC) was quite the experience. The distance between the 2 cities is only 494 km, but due to poor road conditions and traffic, the journey takes 14 hrs. The ride was extremely bumpy, and, for me, sleeping was near impossible. This is also where I discovered probably one of my only major issues with India; lack of public toilets for women. Sathish tried to explain to me, unsuccessfully, that Indian women are expected, even trained, to not have to use the toilet on a 14 hr bus ride. I think that is physically impossible, and out of all the gender inequalities in India, for some reason, this is the one that upsets me the most.
Nonetheless, we made it to Jabalpur to catch, you guessed it, another bus- the third of this leg. I'm learning that travel in India, even seemingly short distances, is never quick and easy. But it does make for a fun adventure. We finally arrived at Kanha National Park and checked into Panther resort. After a quick, much needed shower, we walk to town to have tea and discuss marriage. I have never thought more about the institution of marriage than I did on this trip. And I'm still thinking, I'll have to write more about this topic later. For dinner we walked to a dhaba near our hotel that was recommended to us by a drunk fellow who couldnt remember the word for "left." The owner told us what veggies he had and asked what we wanted to eat. We had a delicious meal of gobi parotha, dahl, rice, curd?, roti, pappadams, onions, and a lovely homemade tomato relish. Dinner was accompanied by a debate about whether Facebook networking can actually bring about social change, and we all pledged not to kill any tigers we may see at the park the next day.
Woke up at 430am to get ready and meet our driver, Sandeep Yadav, at the front desk. We picked up our guide, Chandrakanth, and headed to park. It was early in the morning, and a bit chilly. Kanha stretches over some 1000 sq km and is home to ? 89 tigers. This place inspired Rudyard Kipling to write the novel, Jungle Book. We saw guar, jackals, birds, spotted deer, swamp dear, peacocks, but no tigers! After driving around for a few hours, we were ready to call it quits. We dropped off our guide and as our jeep was just leaving the park, the gate keeper told us he heard over the radio that a tiger was spotted. We turned around, found Chandrakanth, and headed over to the tiger. You have to ride on an elephant to get to the tiger (natuarlly), so we climbed up a scary ladder and onto the elephant's back. A short 5 min ride later, we came upon a tiger, napping in the grass. There he was, Shere Khan.
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