TIGERS & CULTURE: FIRST TIME INDIA FEB/MARCH 2024

[KaliCA]

After this tiger sighting, we drive to the river and see two domestic Ellis on patrol, followed by a baby Eli.

 I understand that a few years ago, people were able to go on elephant back in search of tigers. This practice has been discontinued.

 

 

View across the river from the other side

 

Looking at Dhikala Camp across the river

 

 

Ellis at the start of the reservoir lake. I'm always surprised to realize how different wild elephants look compared to domestic elephants. 

 

 

Thanks to @AtravelynnI learned that there are two types of Crocs to be found here. This bad picture in glaring light shows the two kinds. The one with the long skinny snout is a first sighting for us and it's called a Ghariale Croc.

 

 

Later, we encounter two wild female elephants,

 

as well as a few Sambar Deer cooling off in the river.

Edited June 12 by KaliCA

[KaliCA]

After a little nap interrupted by cleaning noises on the top floor, we go out again. Alam is spotting drag marks close to where we saw the four tigers. He thinks that the tigress has dragged her kill across the road and moved it into the gully. Not that Alam is telling us, but CB always has to translate after I ask, "What did he say"... and I must say that I'm getting a little tired of having to pry out information of the both of them. 

 

 

 

We sit and wait, hoping to see the tigress with her cubs come out into the dry riverbed. Sadly, it was not to be... 

Alam says he has seen tigers here before.

 

 

On the way home, Alam needs a long bathroom break and Phil wants to be dropped off early in camp. Alam, CB and I continue towards Sambar Road and stop for a barking deer. Why am I telling you these details? Because these three stops cost us a tiger sighting. We missed seeing the cubs by about five minutes! So sometimes, this is how the cookie crumbles on safari. How many times have we stopped next to a car in Kruger only to hear, "You just missed a leopard!"

Timing and luck are not on our side today.

 

 

 

 

On the meadow before the gate, we see three Golden Jackals and one of them has a kill, and then we witness a beautiful sunset.

This is the direction we are not allowed to go because it's evidently dangerous tiger territory.

 

During dinner with CB, I mention how it was too bad that we missed seeing all four cubs in the morning. Then CB is making a grave mistake: He says, "Well, you wanted to go and stay in the good light. Alam and I had a plan to go up to the jungle first thing in the morning, but you wanted to stay in the light."

In other words: It's my fault, because I asked to go down into the riverbed where the sun was shining, we missed the tigers!

BUT: CB never discussed this plan with us. We had no idea that there even was a plan. Of course, we would have gladly given up the light for a chance to see more tigers. In the evenings, the guides sit and exchange information that we, as guests, are not privy to, so many times, they know exactly where to begin a search the next day. But CB never shared any such information with us, or even said, "Let's first go up into the jungle and see what we can find". Nothing at all like that. So how are we supposed to know? 

Well, this doesn't sit well with me or with Phil. Phil is getting upset and is asking CB, "Why didn't you communicate your plan to us? You can't expect us to know your plan if you don't communicate it to us! And it's really upsetting that you are blaming us now, after the fact."

As you can imagine, this was not a fun confrontation to have with our guide and some tension remained until the end of the trip because of this incident. 

Now I know that this is a rather unpleasant thing to be writing in a trip report, but I cannot help but to be honest when describing our subjective experiences. As so many things in life, nothing is one hundred percent good and pleasant. It's not even that we missed seeing three more cubs, but we are hurt that CB put the blame squarely on us and took no responsibility for it at all. 

He never apologized.

 

Edited June 16 by KaliCA

[janzin]

@KaliCAI totally understand your frustrations at the sometimes lack of communication with guides in India (and to be honest it has sometimes happened in Africa as well, when guide and driver are talking in their own language.) But not as often and in Africa I've found the guides in Africa generally more willing to repeat or share what's going on, if asked. But in India...so often do I have ask the park guides "what's going on", "what are you discussing", "what's the plan" etc. Sometimes they answer, sometimes they don't. In one of my early trips (the first Ranthambhore trip) we had that problem with the guide and driver and it drove us crazy.  Of course it shouldn't happen when you have a private guide--that's one of the primary reasons to book with a private guide! like we had on our last two trips (Rajen and our guide before, Anoop, who always were easy to communicate with, shared plans, answered questions, etc.)

 

Now, since you had your own private guide (CB) that sort of mis-communication definitely shouldn't have happened, but we also had similar issues when CB was our guide in Gujarat, which I won't detail here, but it was so problematic that I never even wrote a trip report for that trip as I couldn't figure out how to do it without it sounding like one long complaint.  I appreciate that you are being upfront about it!

[KaliCA]

@janzinI truly appreciate your kind words. 

As much as it pains me to mention negative stuff, it is, however, part of our story and experience.

 

(I repeat for a certain reader: OUR story, OUR experience)

 

Edited June 14 by KaliCA

[KaliCA]

The last day of our time in Dhikala has arrived and with it the last safari of this trip. The mood over the river Ramganga is magical again with mist swirling in the riverbed.

 

 

 

Alam finds some pugmarks of a male tiger, but, alas, this is as close as we get to the real thing.

 

We veer into a new road for us and find a few Ellis who are grazing peacefully in the early morning sun.

 

 

 

The bull is standing in the shadow, but when the females start moving into the tall reeds, he, too, ambles after them with his neck nicely decorated in greenery.

Eventually, they all move up into the jungle and then are swallowed up by the tall bushes in the forest. Amazing how such big animals just disappear!

 

 

 

I'm happy with this last major sighting in Dhikala, because seeing Indian wild elephants was second on my list, behind tigers, of course.

As we enter camp, we see a mahout and two domestic Elephants walking down the path. I ask the mahout if I could touch one of them and he commands them to stand still. Both Ellis are wearing a chain around one foot. 

 

Both Phil and I are delighted to be so close to these majestic animals and we pet the trunk of one of them. It is curling up its trunk and opening its mouth, clearly begging to be fed. The mahout laughs, and they all continue out the gate where they are put out to pasture where yesterday I saw the jackals. 

After a quick breakfast of toast and omelets, we are off, back to the town of Ramnagar, 35 kilometers upriver. My goal is to be there by 11 AM, grab our luggage and make it to our hotel in Delhi by 5PM. This way, we will enjoy a room at the Radisson Blu for five hours, before having to leave for the airport and our flight back to the States.

 

Our last sightings in Dhikala:

 

 

 

 

Our team back in Ramnagar: From the left: Our driver Raj, CB Singh, our private guide, Phil and I, and Alam, our Dhikala driver

 

I'm happy to report that my plan works out quite perfectly. We say good-bye to CB at the Radisson Blu and he insists to pay for our last dinner in India, which was not included. Very nice gesture and we appreciate his thoughtfulness. Then we spend 5 hours eating dinner, packing, and cleaning up, before Raj is driving us to the airport. We spend a long time in long lines for check-in, security, and passport control and we are glad we arrived a little early. Our flight is taking off after 2 AM with us two weary travelers, and eventually we land back safely in Florida. Our Indian adventure has come to an end.

 

To recap the highlights:

 

I have seen 25 different tigers in 4 different National Parks (Phil has seen 21, because he got sick and missed two safaris.)

We have seen our first ever wild Indian Elephants

We saw some beautiful landscapes

We interacted with some wonderful hotel personnel

We marveled at the beauty of the Taj Mahal and some other edifices

We saw many beautiful birds, especially owls

We loved the colorful bazaars and the Arti Puri ceremony

We were happy with how CB organized our trip, transfers, and hotels perfectly (Exception is the Ranthambore property which was awful)

 

Some lowlights: 

We sadly, did not enjoy Indian cuisine

We were put off by the garbage heaps everywhere

We were not impressed with most forest guides

We had some issues with expectations and communications with our guide, CB Singh

Phil got sick and missed two safaris

 

Thank you to all who read along here and pushed the LIKE button.

I appreciate all of you riding along with us on our first ever India adventure.

Kind Regards, Katrin

 

 

 

 

Edited June 14 by KaliCA

[AKR1]

@KaliCA

 

Thanks for sharing your comprehensive trip report. I, and I’m sure several others, enjoyed following along. Glad overall you liked India and you  certainly had some really good luck with the tigers!  

[Zubbie15]

Thank you for sharing @KaliCA, warts and all. Overall I think you have to look at the trip as a success, hard to beat 25 tigers! Plus all the other cool animal and cultural experiences. I'm not sure why communication issues seem to be more prevalent with Indian guides, although I wonder sometimes if the relatively high percentage of Indian tourists that you see on these trips, who obviously can understand the discussion between guide and driver, means they sometime forget the need to communicate more with foreigners. India is definitely a complex country! 

[xelas]

As others, also I have enjoyed travelling along with you in India. India is a different destination to Africa, and I appreciate a lot all your personal comments. Tahnk You and see you soon with another excellent trip report.

[Botswanadreams]

On 5/15/2024 at 3:41 AM, Atravelynn said:

Hope CB continues to do well personally and in the tourism business.  He is such a dear man.

 

CB is doing well after all the struggle in the Covid time. We traveled with him nearly 5 weeks of our two month trip in 2018 as he was guide for WWI and another 4 weeks in 2019 to Ladakh with his own company. Never ever we had a communication problem with him. We came to India as strangers and left as friends. When we would go back to India than he would be our guide again. 

 

Since a lot of personal impressions were mentioned here in the trip report, the picture should be complete. CB had invited his guests for dinner together at the end of the tour, but the host was quickly disinvited. His presence was not wanted, but of course he was allowed to pay there dinner.

 

A lot of things just leave me speechless.

[TonyQ]

@KaliCAthank you for a very enjoyable report. Great to see Dikhala through your eyes!

 

@Botswanadreamsit is good that you give a positive endorsement of CB. However, I have re-read the paragraph about the meal in Delhi. I do not see how you come to your conclusions.

 

“CB had invited his guests for dinner together at the end of the tour, but the host was quickly disinvited. His presence was not wanted, but of course he was allowed to pay for their dinner” I am not sure how you know this was the case. How do you know he invited them for dinner together? How do you know his presence was not wanted? How do you know that given the flight was so late he preferred to leave to travel onwards. I am not convinced that what you say makes the picture complete.

[michael-ibk]

Another thanks for a report I enjoyed a lot. You had great sightings, definitely much more than when I was in Dhikala. I also think it's good you describe what you were unhappy with. I do get what you are saying about "colonial" - we had that impression with our driver during our first trip. A very nice man and an extremely skillfull driver. Try as I might, there was always a huge distance between us, and it was impossible to make him not adress me as "Sir". Not a big issue as such, I liked him a lot, but it still was just strange to us.

 

I remember there are others who spoke of CB Singh very highly. But it's ok that not everybody is not happy with every guide. We are all different, and some people click and others don't. Just my two cents.

[Botswanadreams]

@TonyQ I'm in contact with CB and we had a very long call after he returned from this trip. I'm still annoyed about myself that I patiently answered about 15 to 20 emails in the run-up to the tour in order to prepare her as best as possible for India and how different the game drives in India are to self-drives in Africa.

[janzin]

Well as Michael said, we all have different experiences/impressions and some people "gel" with a guide, other's don't. We had similar issues with CB on our Gujarat trip, as I mentioned...actually even more problematic than @KaliCA's, to the point that it made my husband miserable and we told WWI we never wanted CB as a guide again. If anyone wants more details they can send me a private message. Perhaps it's best not to de-rail this fine report with this any longer.

Edited June 15 by janzin

[wilddog]

I feel I need to step in here. There has been a lot of criticism of the guide, but also endorsements from others who have met him.

 

it is time this aspect ended within the TR. It you wish to discuss this further, please use ST messages.

Thank you.

 

FYI@Game Warden

 

 

 

 

Edited June 15 by wilddog

[KaliCA]

Wow! This is my first time being personally attacked a number of times by the same person who can’t let things stand as I described them from MY experience. 

Please let me defend myself of the latest accusations.

 

1. Neither Phil not I recall a dinner invitation

2. We did not want CB to wait for us for 5 hours and then drive two hours with us and Raj to the airport. 
3. We assured him that we can manage just fine with Raj the driver and besides Raj lives closer to the airport and we are used to manage airports. 

4. Our guide used this hotel in Greater Noida for us because it’s close to his home. So he had been away many days and we thought he should go home to his family rather than being inconvenienced and wait around for our ride to the airport only to have to come back after dropping us off. 

5. When we got ready to pay  for our dinner, the waiter said, your guide is paying for it and he made arrangements for CB to pay via WhatsApp. We were surprised and appreciated this nice gesture. 
 

That’s the whole story and the truth. 
 

But, as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. 
 

Edited June 15 by KaliCA

[Game Warden]

And this is where I'll ask members to take the discussion to private message or follow up emails. I admit to not having read through the whole trip report but but I think reading the last few comments it's best discussed privately.

 

Thank you.

 

Matt.