Kanha National Park & Jabalpur

Kanha National Park is very famous national park in india, it is also called as "Land of Tigers". Shooting of many documentries shown in Discovery and NatGeo are done here. So you wanna spot a Tiger,, come Kanha there are lots and lots of them. We were visiting Mandla, native place of Anki and kanha is 90 kms from here.  As there is no direct connectivity to Mandla from Pune, we went till Jabalpur via train where Anki's parents and mona came to receive us. We planned to explore Jabalpur and around on that day, we visited Chousath Yogini Temple first. It's temple on small hill dedicated to Shiva-Parvati and then there are 81 statues of yogini's around the main temple in a circle. Each yogini statue was different from another one, and statue of Shiva-Parvati on nandi in main temple was also one of it's kind. A local guide who was actually a small boy from nearby village explained us the history of the Temple, there is a nice view of scenic bhedaghat from the top. 

Next we went to Dhuadhar waterfall, Dhuadhar and bhedaghat are actually a very special place. Here river narmada pass through the marble mountains, shooting of a very famous song from movie "Asoka" was done here. There is a newly built ropeway on the river, looking at it i thought yeah mann MP Tourism is doing good,,, MP has lot of places that can be developed for Tourism. We enjoyed the ropeway ride on top of Dhuadhar waterfalls, it was a very Nice view. After exploring jabalpur we moved for Mandla. After two days staying in mandla, we left for Kanha National Park in the morning. We reached kanha by 1 Noon, Kept our bags in hotel and had spicy lunch @ Dhaba.  

Bafati uncle met us there, he was our guide in Kanha. He is also known as "Birdman of Kanha" bcoz of his vast knowledge on Birds. I was very impressed by his knowledge, his capability to identify birds is just amazing. He arranged for a vehicle for us which was a open gypsy. Ticket for one time entry for single vehicle was 1500 bucks, we also read "to do's and no to do's" in the Jungle. Some of them were very interesting, you cannot step down from your vehicle, you cannot give food to animals, don't take pics while flash of camera on etc. etc.   most interesting was if an animal attacks you.. still you cannot attack back, It is their territory. Me, Anki and Mona had a debate on that jungle rule, Bafati uncle was making fun of us he said you cannot do anything.. tiger will come.. he will select which one to eat and take you wid him :).

Entry time in kanha was 6 - 12 in morning and 3-6 in eve, we were making entry at 3 pm.  We entered through the main gate and with our vehicle almost 30 more vehicle's but kanha is so huge and there is web of so many small paths in kanha, your vehicle will be alone most of the time. I just loved the flora and fauna of the place, huge bamboo trees and various other trees on which Bafati uncle and driver of our vehicle gave us brief knowledge. As we  moved in jungle we found deers, deers and deers, place is full of spotted deers. Bafati uncle told us that more than Tiger kanha is famous for "Swamp Deer" or "Barahsingha". We spotted it as soon as we entered, this is one of the species which has got special protection.

After sometime we got separate from other vehicles and moved on different track. Suddenly Bafati uncle told driver to slow down gypsy, he heard call of peacock, this term "call aa  raha hai" we heard hundred of times in our two days stay :). It means any small animal making an alert sound after seeing an predator mostly "Tiger". Driver stopped the gypsy we were enthusiastically waiting for a glimpse of tiger. After some time we heard BIG roar from the jungle, this was the confirmation that there is Tiger out there. That roar was loud and we got scared hearing that, it indeed was a voice of King. We waited for 10 mins but could not see anything and then Bafati uncle pointed direction saying something is moving there. It was tiger but it was very far, we could hardly see him. Driver told us that there is another pathway, tiger might be close from there and may  be if we are lucky he will cross the road from there. Bafati uncle agreed and we moved in that direction. We reached there and just after 5 mins of waiting we saw the king of jungle came toward us and he crossed the road just 2 metres ahead of our vehicle. It was pleasure watching that animal in his territory. I took lot of pictures and a short video. Tiger was moving on the road then and we were slowly following him, after 5 mins he then disappeared into the jungle searching for food. Bafati uncle told us that he is a young male and about 3 yrs old.

Mann that was like dream come true watching a tiger like that, we were so happy. Later we spotted Asian Deer (Sambar), Bison and many other animals. Also spotted lots of birds, bafati uncle gave lots of information on each one of them. We were back to our hotel by 7pm, we watched small documentry arranged by MP tourism.  Next morning we woke up early as we wanted to enter kanha asap. Entered in kanha at around 7 am, explored various routes of kanha and heard roars from jungle at one point. There was call of langur, we waited for some time but moved ahead after some time as we could see nothing. We spotted fox, barking deer that day. We were back by 12 noon, told good bye to bafati uncle and after some time we were on our journey towards mandla. Kanha journey was very special and that "Tiger" really made our trip.

-Jyotin