Contiki Eternal India: Rathembore National Park

With our time in Agra concluding, we boarded our bus and had a stop at a marble shop on our way out of town. As the Taj Mahal is built out of a lot of marble, there is a lot of pride in the craftsmanship that goes into the art. The person showing us around said the business and art is passed down from father to son for generations, all the way back 18 generations ago when his forefathers worked on the Taj Mahal. The actual work is tedious and they showed us how it is all made. Something that really stood out to me was how they succession planned - essentially, as you get older and your eyes wear our from the work people transition to less detail oriented work.

Their showroom was very impressive, with pieces of artwork going up to tens of thousands of dollars. I was very impressed, so I invested in an inlay of the Taj Mahal. It was the "budget" option, but it started at a very high price and I was able to negotiate it down about 40%. They will ship it to me and it will arrive within a week of when I get home. Quite a few of us bought something, from chess boards to tables to vases to smaller tchotchkes.

Back on the bus, it was time to head for our tiger safari in Ranthambore National Park! After a few hours we stopped at a rest stop for lunch which wasn't the best, but we were successful in getting our all white Holi gear for the party in Jaipur in a few days. We paid around $15, which was a bit of a markup, but it was worth it to just have it and not have to leave the hotel to go searching for it in the future.

In the late afternoon, we pulled into the town we stayed in for Ranthambore National Park. Before going at our hotel, though, we went to the "Contiki Make Travel Matter" stop of our trip. These are low key some of the highlights of Contiki trips for me, you stop at or hear from a local charity to find out how to support them. In the past we've visited a charity that provides prosthetics for people who are victims of mines / bombs that never exploded during the Vietnam War, a restaurant / shop that gives kids hands on experience and tries to set them up so they get off the streets and don't get involved in crime, an educational program to stop female genital mutilation among the Maasai people of Africa, and others. For this, we visited Dhonk which aims to train the females of families how to make handicrafts so the men don't need to participate in illegal poaching activities out of desparation to provide for their families. We saw how they sew and create some of the items they sell. A bunch of the men all bought matching lightweight tiger short sleeved button downs to wear for our safari, it's something that I could definitely see myself wearing for a night out back home in the States.

We then went to the hotel to check in, which was quite nice and had a courtyard with a pool. After dropping our bags off in our rooms, we went out into the courtyard for high tea before migrating over to a different area for a cultural dance show to live music. The entire group was invited to join in and dance at periodic times.

The cultural dance show led into our buffet dinner with traditional Indian specialties. The food was great and, unlike some places, the chicken in all the dishes was boneless (a lot of restuarants don't debone the chicken they cut up to put into the various dishes as it enhances the flavor, but it means you're constantly spitting bones out. After hanging out for a bit, we hit the sack because we had an early morning for our tiger safari the following day.

We met in the lobby at around 5:45 AM to depart for our tiger safari! Unfortunately, all of us weren't in the same van or even going the same place as the Indian government handles the allocation of seats in safari vehicles. I was in a vehicle with only our group, but there were a total of 4 vehicles with our group taking up a small percentage of each of the remaining vehicles.

Tiger Shirt Triplets

Original Contiki Southern Africa Crew

The safari vehicles were much larger than the ones in Africa, and actually had a swing door to get in instead of having to climb over the side like I did in South Africa. After about a 10 minute drive, we made it to the gates of Ranthambore National Park. My vehicle and another went to Zone 2, others went to 3 and 4. This ultimately meant that we would have distinctly different experiences.

The park was beautiful, had a lot of trees and wasn't like anything we saw when traveling on safari in Africa. We drove and drove, but were unable to find a tiger. We did, however, see a sloth bear (Baloo from The Jungle Book), which is something that our trip manager had never seen. It even climbed a tree while we watched it. We also saw beautiful birds and scenery.

Sloth Bear

Owls

It was nothing like an African safari and reminded me how lucky I was on my two trips to Africa to see so many animals, I was truly spoiled. The cars that didn't go into Zone 2 both saw tigers, one of them very close. Someone in their car said it was their seventh safari and it was their first time seeing a tiger.

Somewhat disappointed, we headed back for a late breakfast. Normally, we would have boarded our bus to head to Jaipur right after breakfast, but Holi started a day early where we were which meant the roads were closed. This meant we had a relaxing morning until we left at 1:30 PM. Some people, including myself, elected to get a massage at the spa while we waited. The 30 minute upper body massage was just what I needed, although the set up had mentioned turning my head the whole time resulting in a bit of a stiff neck. All in all, not bad for $25!

Rested up, we departed for the next stop on our journey - Jaipur for Holi!