The schedule at Kabini was pretty brutal for the kids (well ... and for me, too). At 5:45 every morning, we got a wake-up call, which consisted of a staff member pounding on our door.
"Tea and coffee at the Golghar!" he'd say brightly when I poked my disheveled head out the door. Translation: "If you aren't sitting in the jeep in 20 minutes we will leave without you."
So up we jumped, threw on clothes, made everyone go to the bathroom, stuffed some biscuits and water bottles in a bag and headed out to the jeeps. The park is closed to traffic between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. (because, you know, wild animals), and since the animals hide and sleep during the hot part of the day the safari drives are early in the morning and in the evening.
Our first morning drive was fantastic. We had a really great spotter who was very knowledgeable, a clear nature-lover, and good with the kids. It didn't hurt that his English was perfect. (Some of our other spotters struggled with English.)
It was a misty morning, which made for a gorgeous drive but pretty lousy photos. You'll just have to trust me that these photos don't begin to do our experience justice.
Almost as soon as we entered the park, our spotter pointed out these tiger tracks along the side of the road.
It was a young tiger headed in the opposite direction to where we were going. The Indian government requires safari jeeps to follow specific routes, so you can't follow the tracks unless they're headed in your direction. One of our later spotters was very frustrated by this rule. Anyway, there was a young tiger just walking down the road that morning. No big deal.
Shortly after we saw the tracks, this tusker (lone male elephant) took a break from his breakfast to check us out.
Our spotter said this elephant is one of the more fearless in the area and will often hang out by the main road that cuts through the reserve. I thought it was cool that he recognized individual elephants and even had names for some. He did that a few times on the drive, saying something like "Oh, that's the elephant I saw swimming across the river yesterday." Did you know that elephants are great swimmers? I didn't know that.
As we got closer to the elephant camp we saw some of the domesticated elephants wandering around. Our spotter said that this one works for the forest service. Rangers will ride the elephants if they need to get to remote areas of the park. Tigers don't attack healthy adult elephants, so I guess it's safe transportation.
Here's Samuel watching a herd of gaur. Samuel was so good on these safaris! He fell asleep for about an hour on three of the drives, but that's no surprise considering the crazy schedule. When he was awake, he whispered (I didn't even know he could do that) so as not to scare away any animals and watched everything with rapt attention.
Another wild boar prancing through the mist.
Johnny was just beside himself with excitement the whole time. Can you tell? In this photo you can also see that the gaur have beautiful tri-colored horns.
There's a lot of valuable wood in the forest, and the forest service struggles just as much with illegal logging as it does with poaching. This is a not-so-great shot of a teak grove we drove through. It was one of the most beautiful spots in the forest.
If you look closely you'll see an elephant in the mist across the river. Again, it doesn't look like much in a photo, but seeing this is one of the most tranquil, beautiful experiences I've had.
We saw quite a few birds on this drive, including this woodpecker. The noise of its pecking was really loud and sort of echoed through the forest.
Another bird we saw a lot of, but never caught in a photo, had gorgeous blue feathers that you could only see when it was in flight. There were also kingfishers and jungle fowl all over the place. Lots of peacocks, too.
After the morning drive everyone headed back to the lodge for breakfast. Then we did a little exploring.
Lunch was back at the Golghar. I'm not sure why the outdoor eating area is called the Golghar. Maybe it's named for this famous 18th century granary? John came out of the restroom to find that the sink was already in use.
After lunch we tried to get the kids to take a nap. Ha! Instead they pretended they were tigers and that all the pillows in our cottage were tasty deer. I wish I'd caught a photo of Evie dragging pillows into the corner with her teeth.
"Oh! This is my favorite kind of deer! Let's eat it for lunch! Roaaaar! Yum! Crunch!"
Then, of course, they had to have tiger fights. It was a raucous, roaring, wrestling match. Very restful.
At 3:30 it was time to head back out on safari, this time by boat. Unfortunately, we got grouped with a rowdy bunch from Bangalore, and our guide was too busy trying to keep them in line to do much more than wave a hand at the shore and yell "elephants! crocodile!" etc.
The scenery was spectacular, though. We saw the elephants and crocodiles up close and personal. We even saw some elephants swimming and a couple of tuskers fighting just off shore.
Sadly, this is when our camera's battery died, so from here on out all the photos were taken with John's Blackberry. Top of wish list: decent camera!
Here's Samuel on the boat. I think this was his least favorite of the safaris, partly because our fellow passengers were often more interested in him than they were in the wildlife. Samuel's starting to be annoyed by the amount of attention he gets here.
We saw tons of elephants along the shore.
Enormous crocodile! At this point our guide/boat driver was yelling, "Balance! Remember balance!" because everyone was rushing to one side of the boat to get a picture of this monster. Everyone obeyed quickly. No one wanted to capsize 20 feet away from the crocodile.
Here he is getting ready to slide into the water, which he (she?) did without a sound or a ripple. Talk about menacing ...
Here's another crocodile going for a stroll. I had never seen a crocodile on the move like this. It was surprisingly graceful and looked like I imagine a dinosaur would. Creepy, though.
Here's an elephant walking along the shore. We were a lot closer to everything than it appears in these photos.
We headed back to the lodge as the sun was setting.
I included this one of Johnny because of the great sunset behind him, but also because he's holding his notebook. Johnny is such a nerd! I love it! During our explorations earlier in the day, he found a book about Indian reptiles at the reception area and asked if he could borrow it. He studied the book and then made a list of animals to look for on our drives. For the rest of our stay, he dutifully checked off the animals on the list and expanded it to include anything new. Evie took a notebook on one drive and drew pictures of all the animals she saw. I love my kids!
Here's the family (minus photographer John) after the boat ride.
After the evening safaris, there was a wildlife film and then dinner at 8:30. Evie and Samuel only made it to dinner on our first night. The early mornings had them crashing right after our evening safaris, so we just fed them a snack and let them sleep. A missed dinner is better than a missed morning ride through the park!
One last shot of sunset, day 2.
Coming up: Evie starts a war with the macaques! We almost see a tiger! And a leopard! Stay tuned.
"Tea and coffee at the Golghar!" he'd say brightly when I poked my disheveled head out the door. Translation: "If you aren't sitting in the jeep in 20 minutes we will leave without you."
So up we jumped, threw on clothes, made everyone go to the bathroom, stuffed some biscuits and water bottles in a bag and headed out to the jeeps. The park is closed to traffic between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. (because, you know, wild animals), and since the animals hide and sleep during the hot part of the day the safari drives are early in the morning and in the evening.
Our first morning drive was fantastic. We had a really great spotter who was very knowledgeable, a clear nature-lover, and good with the kids. It didn't hurt that his English was perfect. (Some of our other spotters struggled with English.)
It was a misty morning, which made for a gorgeous drive but pretty lousy photos. You'll just have to trust me that these photos don't begin to do our experience justice.
Almost as soon as we entered the park, our spotter pointed out these tiger tracks along the side of the road.
 |
| in upper left |
Shortly after we saw the tracks, this tusker (lone male elephant) took a break from his breakfast to check us out.
Our spotter said this elephant is one of the more fearless in the area and will often hang out by the main road that cuts through the reserve. I thought it was cool that he recognized individual elephants and even had names for some. He did that a few times on the drive, saying something like "Oh, that's the elephant I saw swimming across the river yesterday." Did you know that elephants are great swimmers? I didn't know that.
As we got closer to the elephant camp we saw some of the domesticated elephants wandering around. Our spotter said that this one works for the forest service. Rangers will ride the elephants if they need to get to remote areas of the park. Tigers don't attack healthy adult elephants, so I guess it's safe transportation.
Here's Samuel watching a herd of gaur. Samuel was so good on these safaris! He fell asleep for about an hour on three of the drives, but that's no surprise considering the crazy schedule. When he was awake, he whispered (I didn't even know he could do that) so as not to scare away any animals and watched everything with rapt attention.
Another wild boar prancing through the mist.
Johnny was just beside himself with excitement the whole time. Can you tell? In this photo you can also see that the gaur have beautiful tri-colored horns.
 |
| That's our spotter sitting next to Johnny. I wish I could remember his name. He was really great. |
If you look closely you'll see an elephant in the mist across the river. Again, it doesn't look like much in a photo, but seeing this is one of the most tranquil, beautiful experiences I've had.
 |
| More sambar |
Another bird we saw a lot of, but never caught in a photo, had gorgeous blue feathers that you could only see when it was in flight. There were also kingfishers and jungle fowl all over the place. Lots of peacocks, too.
After the morning drive everyone headed back to the lodge for breakfast. Then we did a little exploring.
Just groovin' in the sandalwood ... er ... groove.
Lunch was back at the Golghar. I'm not sure why the outdoor eating area is called the Golghar. Maybe it's named for this famous 18th century granary? John came out of the restroom to find that the sink was already in use.
After lunch we tried to get the kids to take a nap. Ha! Instead they pretended they were tigers and that all the pillows in our cottage were tasty deer. I wish I'd caught a photo of Evie dragging pillows into the corner with her teeth.
"Oh! This is my favorite kind of deer! Let's eat it for lunch! Roaaaar! Yum! Crunch!"
Then, of course, they had to have tiger fights. It was a raucous, roaring, wrestling match. Very restful.
At 3:30 it was time to head back out on safari, this time by boat. Unfortunately, we got grouped with a rowdy bunch from Bangalore, and our guide was too busy trying to keep them in line to do much more than wave a hand at the shore and yell "elephants! crocodile!" etc.
The scenery was spectacular, though. We saw the elephants and crocodiles up close and personal. We even saw some elephants swimming and a couple of tuskers fighting just off shore.
Sadly, this is when our camera's battery died, so from here on out all the photos were taken with John's Blackberry. Top of wish list: decent camera!
Here's Samuel on the boat. I think this was his least favorite of the safaris, partly because our fellow passengers were often more interested in him than they were in the wildlife. Samuel's starting to be annoyed by the amount of attention he gets here.
We saw tons of elephants along the shore.
Enormous crocodile! At this point our guide/boat driver was yelling, "Balance! Remember balance!" because everyone was rushing to one side of the boat to get a picture of this monster. Everyone obeyed quickly. No one wanted to capsize 20 feet away from the crocodile.
Here he is getting ready to slide into the water, which he (she?) did without a sound or a ripple. Talk about menacing ...
Here's another crocodile going for a stroll. I had never seen a crocodile on the move like this. It was surprisingly graceful and looked like I imagine a dinosaur would. Creepy, though.
Here's an elephant walking along the shore. We were a lot closer to everything than it appears in these photos.
We headed back to the lodge as the sun was setting.
I included this one of Johnny because of the great sunset behind him, but also because he's holding his notebook. Johnny is such a nerd! I love it! During our explorations earlier in the day, he found a book about Indian reptiles at the reception area and asked if he could borrow it. He studied the book and then made a list of animals to look for on our drives. For the rest of our stay, he dutifully checked off the animals on the list and expanded it to include anything new. Evie took a notebook on one drive and drew pictures of all the animals she saw. I love my kids!
Here's the family (minus photographer John) after the boat ride.
After the evening safaris, there was a wildlife film and then dinner at 8:30. Evie and Samuel only made it to dinner on our first night. The early mornings had them crashing right after our evening safaris, so we just fed them a snack and let them sleep. A missed dinner is better than a missed morning ride through the park!
One last shot of sunset, day 2.
Coming up: Evie starts a war with the macaques! We almost see a tiger! And a leopard! Stay tuned.
WOW! Your blog is amazing! I don't think any of you will ever forget these experiences you are having. Thanks for sharing.
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