DAVID: Well, it’s true. The feacal coliform content of India’s holiest river, Mother Ganga, final conquered my immune system. It started as the infamous “Delhi belly” and then climaxed with a fever and mysterious cold that has left me with a bad cough.
SUSAN: Poor Davey. At least he had AC and Indian TV to keep him cool and entertained. I, on the other hand, decided to venture out into the furnace-like heat to honor a promise I had made to meet a rickshaw driver (according to travelers we’d met, this guy was a gem in a city of scam artists - an honest, reliable driver who would take me to all the best spots and charge me only what I wanted to pay!). So, off we went, Raj and I, to take the sari shops of Varanasi by storm. He even took me to the Muslim quarter, where I saw workers weaving the saris on century-old machines, following a method first developed during the time of the Mughal emperors. Raj did not disappoint. (click here to our see Varanasi photos)
DAVID: After a couple of semi-queasy boat trips on the Ganga, by the last day I was feeling well enough to hop on a train for an overnight trip to Moradabad.
SUSAN: When we arrived at the station we hurried to buy a last minute ticket to Ramnagar, pushing away equally rushed locals trying to shove ahead of us at the ticket counter. Self-effacing Canadians no more!
DAVE: We then found ourselves in a Darjeeling Limited moment as we ran frantically to catch the local train. It had wooden seats, glassless windows with bars, and was on a route rarely taken by pillow-fluffing, AC-demanding foreigners (us). Sure enough, once on the train, we soon found ourselves to be the center of attention.
SUSAN: After a few hours of me enduring the unblinking stares from our 6 berth-mates (all men), Dave decided to strike up a conversation. Instantly, our berth became party central as seemingly the entire train tried to crowd in to catch some of the action.
DAVE: After a few brief conversations in broken English (mostly surrounding the outrageous price that I paid for my Adidas knock-off watch in Bangalore—325 rupees, around $7), a young brother and sister, educated in a private, English-speaking, Christian school, approached us. “Why do you travel on such local trains?” she asked in disbelief. For us it was a matter of convenience and serendipity. “Because it’s cheap”, I lied (hoping to regain some of the face that I’d lost when I blurted out the price of my watch). They all had a good laugh at that.
Actually, our reason for heading to Ramnagar was to see the Corbett (as in, our dear friend Field) Tiger Reserve (whose name, for us, was one of the main drawing points in deciding to see this out-of-the way National Park).
SUSAN: Fortunately, we were not disappointed. Thank you, Field, for having such a fortuitous last name! It also lent itself well to many hilarious resort signs such as “The Corbett Aroma Welcomes You Again!”
DAVE: Wildlife abounded in this well-protected sanctuary. Susan and I sat (and stood) as we traveled in an open-roofed Maruti Gypsy jeep for three hours into the heart of the park. Dhikala was the name of the electric-fenced compound where we would spend one night, crammed into a sparse, over-priced. “tourist hutment” atop some bunkbeds, shared with boisterous Indian families (who felt that 4:30 am was a good time to turn on the lights and engage in loud conversation).
SUSAN: As the jingle from “African Lion Safari” commercial from my childhood rang in my head, and, unfortunately, Dave’s ears (thanks Toronto, for putting a bunch of lions in a big barren compound and polluting my mind with your musical promises of family fun!), we bounced our way around the open grasslands and jungles, in search of the elusive Bengal tiger. Apparently, very few had been seen in the past week and our chances were small, but I was still hoping against hope that we would be able to commune with the splendid beast.
DAVE: Our jeep driver, Mr. Patwal, was excellent (with over 30 years of safaris under his belt!) and, thanks to his sixth sense, we were dazzled by peacocks, peahens, jungle fowl, four species of deer (in large herds!), langurs, macaques, wild elephants (also in herds, using the trees as toothpicks!), wild boar, kingfishers, jackals, turtles, woodpeckers, and monitor lizards…but no tiger…only some fresh tracks. By the end of the morning safari of the second day, Susan and I had given up on tiger-spotting. Apparently the tigers were seeking shade somewhere in the endless fields of wild Cannabis that dotted the landscape.
We packed our stuff and hopped in the jeep, weary of the three-hour trip in the heat of the day that awaited us. No sooner than we left Dhikala, we spotted yet another deer, his antlered head bowed to drink water from a roadside puddle…
SUSAN: As we drove near we thought, this deer must be fearless. He wasn’t running away like the others. Something was wrong. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and fresh wounds gaped from his rump. “Tiger food”, Dave said to Mr. Patwal, who nodded his head gravely. I was sad, feeling sorry for this deer who had so narrowly escaped and was now nervously licking his injuries. Perhaps he would recover? But Dave explained that in this weakened state he would easily be picked off.
DAVID: Just as I was picturing the offending tiger, I turned my head to see what had grabbed Mr. Patwal’s attention. “Tiger!” I gasped as I pointed in the direction of the striped cat that was now staring us down from a nearby jeep trail. We fumbled for our cameras as Mr. Patwal gunned the jeep up the trail towards the tiger, just as it began to slink its way into the jungle. Engine running, we snapped and filmed – the only shooting we would be doing on this particular safari (sorry Bengali Natural History Museum, see Darjeeling photos). Not wanting to disturb the tiger much longer, Mr. Patwal backed away, and Susan and I continued our trip down the dusty road back to civilization, grinning like a bunch of fools.
SUSAN: After this bonding experience, Mr. Patwal invited us over for dinner at his house on a lychee plantation, where we met his four daughters, wife, and baby grandson, and were fed India’s most delicious pakoras.
DAVID: As I replayed the footage from the last couple of days, I began composing a letter in my head. “Dear National Geographic…” (click here to see photos from our Tiger Hunt)
