An afternoon at Rajaji National Park - Tiger Reserve

June 14, 2012. This was my first visit to any wildlife reserve in India. I am a wild life enthusiast, enthralled by documentaries shown in Discovery, National Geographic and Animal Planet channels. As my daughter was 10-odd days from her ninth birth anniversary, I was tempted to introduce her (and me) to some wildlife experience, and if it catches her imagination, I plan to take her with me to more wildlife reserves in the country (and around the world, if possible).

I zeroed in on Rajaji National Park (RNP), near Haridwar-Dedradun state highway, than the more popular Jim Corbett National Park. As I tried searching for more information about RNP, I across websites that plagiarized materials so heavily that it became very difficult to distinguish where the origin of the write-up was. Very few discussions/ blogs/ forums carried people's experience in Rajaji National Park. My notes are an effort to add more material about Rajaji National Park, and help build people's interest to visit the less explored neighbor to Jim Corbett National Park.

It was peak of a very miserable summer season, when we entered Rajaji National Park. The park is open to from 15 November to 15 June. Entry by visitors between 6:30 AM to 9:30 AM and then from 2:30 PM to 5:30 PM. They operate it like clock work, not a day more or less, not a minute before or later. We were lucky to be there on the penultimate day (June 14). We entered the park at 2:30 PM through Motichur gate, paid Rs. 150 per adult (its Rs. 600 per person for non-Indians) and another Rs. 500 for the SUV (no differential princing for non-Indians).

The RNP has seven entry points - Chilla, Ranipur and Motichur from Haridwar side, Kunngo from Rishikesh side, Cherring Cross on Haridwar - Dehradun highway, Mohand and Ramgarh on Dehradun-Delhi Highway side. We, while returning with Mr. Narendra - the forest guard, came to know that Chilla has high probability of tiger sighting in the park and also suggested that we should consider staying in the guest house for a couple of days and prefer going out with forest staff at dawn or at dusk for best time for wildlife sighting.

As the sun was hot and scorching, not many wild animals came out for the dense foilage. We went on the oft taken forest roads and saw oft seen animals (spotted dears, sambars, etc.) and some birds (nightjars mostly). I then decided to wait for the dusk and settled a little away from a waterhole near an anti-poaching guard house. The guards there informed us that herds of elephant come to the waterhole for quenching their thirst. I set up my camera and waited patiently. In the 2-3 hours that I spent sitting there, I had some amazing experience of sighting birds, animals and wildlife that I did not expect to see. The canopy of green trees across the waterhole was beautiful, energizing and mysterious! We also saw Imperial Green Pigeon, a jackal with fresh catch of wild rabbit, many, many spotter deers (Chitals), spotted doe with her fawn, red wattled lapwing's eggs, a herd of elephants with two newborns (hardly a fortnight old!) and lots of green foliage (from my vantage point). For more pics and notes on RNP...visit my pictory on facebook.

  

We returned to Dehradun, carrying wonderful memories of a beautiful place called the Rajaji National Park and also wiser...to stay in the forest reserves' guest house in future and avoid day trips.

Shirdi - leap of faith and a sea of humanity

I am a regular to Shirdi - the small, holy town in Maharashtra famous for its association with Sai Baba. My wife is an ardent follower of Shri Shirdi Sai Baba and post marriage, I am a convert to her faith :).


On December 2, 2011, we started our travel by train - the Hazrat Nizamuddin - Shirdi Sai Nagar Express. Its a special train that ran between Sept 16 and Dec 11 this year, once a week to-and fro Delhi and Shirdi. We started our journey from Hazrat Nizamuddin station in Delhi  Friday morning (12:20 AM!!!) and reached Shirdi, 3:00 AM next day morning, five hours later than its scheduled time. We booked our tickets in II AC coach but III AC and I AC coaches were much better - the quality of materials used for berths and seats are much better, they have plug-in points to charge the mobiles and laptops among other things. If you ever get to use the train, DON'T book in II AC coach.


We were travelling in a group of four - my mom, my wife and my daughter traveled with me. At around 5:30 AM, when the train stopped at Gwalior, a couple of elderly women joined us. A very uncooperative pair of women who wanted to know everything about us (deja vu!). We helped them book a room in the same hotel in Shirdi, where we were staying - Eshosans Palace, helped them get negotiated price, shared our three-wheeler auto-rickshaw with them for them to ungraciously turn away from the hotel at its gate and go looking for another place to stay in Shirdi. We decided to "do good and forget it!"


For my feedback on our stay at Eshosans Palace, please see my review on TripAdvisor (click here). All in all, I'd recommend this hotel for all budget travelers. We checked in at 3:30 AM. While my daughter and I decided to catch lost sleep, my mom and Sucheta (my wife) took a quick bath and rushed to Shirdi temple to attend the kakad aarti ( the daybreak prayers), which starts by around 4:30 AM. They were back in room by 6:00 and hit the bed. We all woke up again by 9 AM, freshened up and were out of room for our breakfast and darshan.


As we entered the temple premises, passed through security and turnstiles, it dawned on us that the wait for mid-day aarti and darshan is going to be long. And long it was! We walked through barricaded pathways from one hallway to another. Through all my travel to Shirdi, I have never experienced the crowd this huge (except on Thursdays, Dussehra, Ram Navami and other special days). It was a Saturday! As we walked through winding barricades, the mid-day aarti got over, the crowd of humanity elbowed, pushed and sometimes even stifled others to move ahead. There were times when I felt my 8-year old daughter nearly crushed in the crowd and I used brute force to create space for her and others in my family.


When we entered the main hall, we were "cattled" by guards and volunteers and in a jiffy, before we could even spend time to interact one on one with our idol and our guru's image, we were out of the temple's main hall. For the first time, I could not even touch the samadhi of our guru - Shri Sai Baba. It felt like an incomplete experience to wait in queue for over three hours to reach the main hall and not spend a few second of peace, connecting and communicating with our guru. Shirdi has changed over the last five years. It's become crowded, less spiritual and more commercial, devotees are huddled, queued and barricaded!! I hope things change in future and the Sai Sansthan explores ways to make the experience more spiritual. We quickly collected the prasad and vibhuti, made donations and moved to Dwarka Mai!


Dwarka Mai was crowded. Again, long queues! As we were short of time, we bowed our heads in reverence from outside, made a quick visit to Chavadi and rushed to our hotel. From Shirdi, we traveled by road to Thane (Mumbai) by road.