BACK FROM THE WILD!!!

Date: March 12, 2006

Time: 4am Location: New Delhi
Baggages packed, car fuelled we are all set to leave for an exciting journey to Jim Corbett Wildlife Reserve for a 3 day trip!

Time: 10am Location: Dhikala, Jim Corbett Park
We are driving down to our guest house which is situated inside the reserve. Our room is in the second floor and the balcony faces the Ranganga reservoir which is a manmade resrvoir for the animals...And there is the Kosi River in the far end and the Nainital hills beyond that...a very scenic place!
We have our breakfast and make the bookings for the open jeep safari for 5.30am the next day...Had plans of going for rafting in the river but lack of water spoilt the plans.

Time: 1pm Location: Corbett Hills
Me n my bro go for mountain climbing. We were asked to practice a bit on ground on hanging to ropes and then how to use the foot clamps etc and then we climbed the hills for quite sometime with our guide! It was a bit scary n then we were fine..Later became pretty tired n we came down...Coming down ws fun but a bit dangerous but we were pretty much fine :)))

Time: 5.30pm Location; Forest Guest House
We are bk in our rooms as we are not allowed to wander outside after 5.30pm...We were able to see lotsa deer near the river and were told to keep a lookout 4 tuskers and tigers....We waited and waited but :(((((((
We had our dinner around 8pm and cm bk went 2 d balcony n heard some weird noises....Peacocks n other birds were screaming which meant we could expect a tiger or some wild animal...
And then we saw a her of elephants nopes TUSKERS elephants with those huge tusks....It ws a v.long view but then these are huge creatures so we neednt hd 2 strain much..My bro hd borrowed a pair of binoculars with which he ws irritating me a lot but then it ws k...
And then we went to bed early with hopes of seeing lot more animals in our safari the next day!

Date: March 13, 2006

Time: 5.15am Location: Guest House Entrance
our jeeps are all ready...We had also packed our breakfasts n taken lotsa biscuits n bananas coz v were told there are lotsa baboons too which we can feed! :))) Ours was a green jeep n only d four of us so it ws kewl...And so we start....Our first spotting is an antella (belongs to the family of deer with huge horns) and then a barking deer....As we moved on we spot lots of birds - parakeets and few others whose names am unable to remember now.
All of a sudden everyone ws quite n there were lots of ssssssssshhhhhhhhh shhhhhhhh....A rare variety of python - rock python ws spotted... It had just had its prey and was resting. The prey whatever it was (the guide ws like it is just a rat coz the bulge was pretty small) was being digested...

We then get back for our breakfast around 9.30am! N then crash a bit get up 4 lunch n then go 4 r next round of the safari...Then again lotsa deer, wild boar, buffaloes etc...but our luck no other wild animals came over! Finally we return around 5.15pm n thats it for the day...That night again there ws a forest fire somewhere as a result of which there was a huge stampede of these tuskers and elephants near the river...We couldn't see it clearly but the sounds made it all pretty much evident. We were prohibited from going to the terrace so all we could see was from the balcony.
I then heard the next day that 2 baby elephatns had died in the stampede!!!:(((

Date: March 14, 2006

Time: 9am Location: Devi Mandir
There is this awesome Devi Mandir situated on a small hill(around 65 steps) on the Kosi river. its around 20kms from our guest house. They have built a small bridge (rememebr the movie KAAL) for us to cross...u cd also cross thru the water...As usual me n my bro walked through the river....There wasn't much water coz the ice hasnt melted yet. We had the darshan took snaps played a bit in the river n cm bk...

Time: 1pm Location: Corbett Falls
The last place of our visit...It was around 40kms from our place of stay...And this time i did the driving as the road was also kewl...Again not much water here but did lotsa trekking as there weren't much people around...Hardly a handful of visitors....Man me n my bro hd hazaar fun there...Shl upload all these snaps too...

Date: March 15, 2006

Time: 3.30am
We finally say bye bye to Jim Corbett and start driving back home....We reach around 8.30am n i hit bed n finally get up around 3pm for lunch...