Lunch was all set up under a canvas tent, it was silver service and was really lovely. To start was a carrot soup followed by an array of vegetarian nibbles and rice dishes but we had to cut our lunch short so that we could make our tour.
The tours are organised chaos. You have to be booked on them in advance and hand over your passport at every opportunity and write down your fathers name and sign a waiver to say that you agree that the government accept no responsibility for you or your safety whilst on the tour. We signed and got on our way. Not long after we had cleared the entrance to the national park we were greeted by a traffic jam and lots of people pointing and screaming and guards telling them to be quiet. Apparently there was a tiger with its kill and people could see it, I was sceptical as I couldn't see it and what made it worse was that we don't have our long lens zoom with us as Phill forgot it!! After a good half an hour or more I caught a glimpse of the tiger moving away from the kill and some people around us got some good close up shots with their very long lenses. It is very good luck to see a tiger in India and as this was only day 2 of the park being open again post monsoon it is unheard of. Alot of people go to Ranthambhore to do a few safaris so that they get a good chance to see a tiger but we had seen one on our one and only tour within an hour. Everyone was so excited, its seen as a very big deal to see one here.
We continued the tour around the park, happy that we could say that we saw a tiger but disappointed we didn't get a better view and pics for that matter..did I mention that Phill forgot the zoom lens!!
On our way out of the park we stopped by where we had seen a glimpse of the mum tiger earlier and we got to see Sultan, the cub bathing in the water. It was alot more close up, he didn't seem phased by us all being there nor the sounds of the vehicles etc and was just taking a bath.
We have a couple of photos but they are really dark so i need to enhance them.
It was really really bumpy in the canter vehicle and i kept banging my head!! The sun was setting and it was gone 6pm so we headed back to Khem Villas to get ready before heading down to dinner. There were a few English and european couples and we are surprised how people tend not to dress for dinner anymore and agreed that we always would ...always have.
Dinner was a lovely selection of veg Indian food so we tucked in and shared a bottle of red before taking what was left of it into the lobby area and speaking to my mum via skype. We were going to have a lazy morning at the villa as it was very expensive to stay there and we were only staying for 24hours but instead we decided to go on a tour around the fort at 6am with Dinesh so due to the early start we headed back to the villa for a bath outdoors under the stars, whilst listening to tribal song around a campfire in the distance.
Location:Khem Villas
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