Tiger tiger...

India Consultant Isla MacFarlane recently travelled to Bandhavgarh National Park in Central India, where she found she had a previously undiscovered interest in nature.



It was hard to muster enthusiasm over the wildlife we first encountered at Bandhavgarh National Park when I had squatted over more exotic creatures whenever nature had called on the 9-hour drive to get there. I suppose I’ve never been much of a naturalist. I had always travelled to see how other people live - a fascination that did not extend to animals.
We had driven out of the sleepy temple town of Khajuraho on mud roads that could have been covered with eggs and flour and baked to their perfect golden brown. The reels of scenery – huts, goats, trees – which rolled past us gradually ran out, leaving us staring at an empty landscape. The road cracked and crumbled until it was nothing but two sandy track marks which snaked to the scorched horizon.


We rattled past the park entrance as the sun was setting. I had never been to a jungle before. I suppose I pictured a troop of elephants stomping straight out of a Kipling novel, or monkeys swinging from an Edgar Rice Burroughs series. Our driver grinned and pointed excitedly to the floor just below my window. I craned my neck out of the car expectantly. A chicken clucked up at us. He puffed his feathers out, as if desperately trying to impress. I affectionately named him 'tandoori' and asked for him to be taken to our lodge.


One of my favourite things about being in India is that I can eat curry three times a day. My appetite had shrivelled in the forty-something degree heat but it returned upon a thick, spicy waft from the kitchen. I felt much more human after slopping down velvety mouthfuls of daal spooned onto a mountain of fluffy rice. Stomach as tight as a drum, I found myself in a losing battle with my eyelids and retired.

A pounding woke me up at 04:30. I opened the door to my alarm call, but could only make out a pair of eyes and a tea tray. The eyes blinked and the tray floated towards me.

“Morning m’am,” said the eyes. I looked out into the dusty darkness and begged to differ.

I wondered if I had actually woken up at all as I sat on my porch in my pyjamas, sipping chai and listening to noises I’d only heard on relaxation tapes before. It started with a simple hum from the cicadas, but as the bruised, purple horizon faded to blue the jungle came into full orchestration. By the time I had finished my chai and biscuits its honks, howls and growls could have rivalled Delhi’s traffic.

I walked back into my room as the electricity fizzled out, resigning its job to the early morning sun. I showered in blackness with a frog splashing excitedly in the foaming puddles. I could see its white throat pulsating in the dark. How could anyone invent a fairy-story fabricated around kissing one of these? I had first discovered him on a midnight trip to the ladies – he was perched on the toilet roll like a little goblin. My hand came into contact with something rough. Knowing not even recycled toilet paper could feel that bad, I squeezed. I felt tiny joints poke through leathery skin and let rip a scream that would have made Jane Porter proud.

Shower-fresh and wearing enough insect repellent to give Pepe Le Pew a new love interest I met the others at our jeep. At the gates of the park we joined the heard of jeeps all waiting to crash through the gates at opening time. The vehicles looked like a new breed altogether, engines purring excitedly as the gates started to open. I wondered if this was how the animals saw us; a curious breed - perhaps related to the rhino - that crashes through the jungle with its babies riding its back. It would explain why the wildlife wasn’t particularly shy. The first tiger we saw seemed almost bored by us.

He was lying in tall grass by the trees. I finally understood how a tiger could burn bright in the forests of the night. His grape green eyes singed through the grass as he stared out at us. He hadn’t quite grown into his ears, which flopped awkwardly at the sides of his head like badly fitting earmuffs. I actually thought he was rather cute as he sat licking his paw - until he showed us his deadliest weapon with a single, carefree yawn. I wasn’t expecting to be impressed. I had seen tigers before - behind the bars of London Zoo and lazing around the lawns of Longleat. It wasn’t the fact I was closer than I’d ever been or that there was no glass or bars between us. It was the way he looked at us. In England I had seen tigers as victims, exhibits or novelties. Here, he gazed wide-eyed at our foreign bodies; a heard of jeeps which clicked silent, useless weapons in his direction. I was in his world now.

He tired of us quickly and sauntered into the trees with the air of a spoilt teenager. I felt rather like an unwanted guest, who’d called inconveniently at dinnertime and been left to show myself out. We prepared to move on, but waited as an elephant pushed through the trees and across our path. There was something about him that was almost prehistoric; a bald, aged woolly mammoth who charmed his onlookers with a toothless smile. Travelling in a country that was changing radically by the hour, it was comforting to see something so timeless.

The early morning mist was beginning to clear, unveiling the splendour of Bandhavgarh National Park. We were two weeks from the monsoon and the colours of the park had faded under the garish light of the sun, giving the grass and trees sepia tones. Mighty stone cliffs enclosed the park; their jagged edges making it look as though a giant tiger had taken a bite out of the skyline. Bandhavgarh is known as the national park where nature meets history. Being more interested in the latter, I asked to be driven up to the fortress that looms over the park.

Legend has it that two monkey architects built the fort. It seems they had left minions to watch their handiwork; scores of monkeys bounced around the sandstone caves to the North of the building, which showed the earliest signs of humanity in the form of inscriptions dating back to the 1st century BC.

The fort’s bricks were knitted together perfectly like red wool. The Maharajas who had owned the park from the 3rd century AD until 1968 could see their whole playground from its height. Poaching was one of their favourite pastimes, and from the fort the sport looked like shooting fish in a barrel. It was considered a good omen for a maharaja to kill 109 tigers. Today people came from all over the world in the hope of seeing just one. Prior to my own sighting, I would have been wondering, probably along with the ghosts of maharajas past, what the point was in a mere sighting.

The tigers I saw flickered in my head for days, whereas the human remains were quickly buried in my memory. Reflecting on the monuments of humanity I had seen on my trip, conservation suddenly seemed more exciting than preservation. The Taj Mahal was utterly beautiful; its shimmering white marble making it look as though it had been carved out of the moon. But it was, in essence, a tomb. The ancient, dusty ruins of Orchha made me feel as though I had discovered a forgotten Xanadu. But it was a dead city, and would continue crumbling dry, dusty tears until there was nothing left of it.

In the jungle, the animals and their habitat were very much alive and represented past, present and - we can only hope - future. Perhaps the fascination lies in seeing creatures act on instincts that lie dormant in us after centuries of evolution. They can appear as mystical as the fort that watches over them; silent and unchanging. I did feel an allure to try and understand them better.

Perhaps there is a naturalist in me after all …


Seek out tigers in Bandhavgarh and Kanha National Parks on Cox & Kings' 10-night In Search of the Bengal Tiger tour.

Ooh Aah Devi Garh

Cox & Kings’ Marketing Director, Philip Hamilton-Grierson, has just returned from a trip to Rajasthan in northwest India. Here, he writes about a particularly luxurious haven.

Devi Garh, also sometimes known as Devigarh, is probably the most ‘luxy’ of the many heritage hotels that have emerged from the rubble of crumbling Rajasthani palaces in the last ten years or so. Since opening on Millennium Eve, it has cropped up in many a glossy mag, with its crisper than crisp minimalist marble interiors, its fantasy exterior of cupolas, terraces and balconies, and the odd celebrity guest. But does its allure go deeper than a glamorous exterior and what is it actually like to stay there?

My partner and I spent two nights there recently to find out.

The village of Delwara, where Devi Garh sits amid the ancient Aravali Hills, would be under an hour’s drive from Udaipur’s airport if you didn’t get lost. We did. Our more circuitous route took over twice as long and required several stops for our driver to receive conflicting directions from arm-waving locals. Never mind - road journeys in rural Rajasthan are all part of the fun and the extra hour on the road was sixty minutes of gentle surprises and several bovine obstacles.

Devi Garh certainly has wow factor for the new arrival. A manicured drive leads through a large gate into a long courtyard of neat lawns and fragrant shrubs. Above, the palace looms large and imposing. And then you start the ascent. Devi Garh will delight many people, but not those who are unsure on their pins – there are steps everywhere and from memory almost all of them are going up. There are a couple of lifts but they can take you only so far and they don’t deal with either the lowest or highest reaches of this towering palace.

High up in the main part of the palace are the rather ritzy Aravali Suites and Palace Suites. The more ‘basic’ accommodation is in the Garden Suites in a separate ground level area - but basic isn’t even faintly basic, it’s just relative. You’ll have noticed that there’s nothing so humdrum as a ‘room’, just 39 individually designed, elegant, luxury suites.

We were shown to an exquisite Aravali Suite, with two enormous balconies complete with resident parakeets. All the suites have a different theme, usually based around one of the semi-precious stones. Ours majored on inlaid mirrored glass and a lot of white. There was an elegant white bedroom, a long white sitting room leading onto the main balcony, a white dressing room leading onto the other balcony and a vast marbly (white) bathroom. Marble is to Rajasthan what ice is to Antarctica and much of it has ended up cladding the walls, floors, ceilings and pools of Devi Garh. The detail in the rooms is superb, from delicate inlay work, to water bowls sprinkled with scented petals and intricately embroidered silk cushions.

So the interiors are undeniably glamorous, but what about the guests? In a place where relaxation is the main activity, high quality people-watching is a necessity. On this score we were not disappointed:

The Poseur: Our trip happily coincided with a two-day fashion photo shoot. The focus, a male model, was an Indian narcissus of such absurd vanity that every movement was contrived to look like a pose. Every minute he was not in front of the lens or a mirror was spent with a mobile phone pressed against his ear. In his wake trailed a small entourage of people carrying clipboards, make-up, huge lamps and white umbrellas.

The Europeans: The British contingent was primarily made up of well-to-do folk of a certain age and the Queen’s vowel sounds. The other Europeans, mostly Germans and French were younger, smart-looking types who were sufficiently hooked on fashion for the absurdity of the poseur to have been lost on them. But they added a bit of boutique chic to the pool-side.

The Japanese: There was a conga of five or six young Japanese, mostly women, who processed round the palace taking lots of pictures and looking rather self-conscious. These were those cool, sulky looking Japanese, rather than the ever-smiling kind. I suspect they might be big news in Japan – maybe a Spice Girls type outfit.

The Noisies: The peace and beauty of dusk viewed from our crow’s nest was briefly shattered by a gaggle of young women, possibly Bombay rich-kids, who started blasting out a series of faded hits by the likes of Pat Benatar and Bryan Adams from a stereo in their private jacuzzi area. Songs that were agony in the ‘80s were insufferable as the sun set on a gorgeous Rajasthan evening. But once they were asked to turn the sound down we never saw or heard from them again.

The Celeb: On the first evening we took dinner on a lofty restaurant terrace overlooking the pool and beyond. We were talking to the waiter about the kind of people who stay at Devi Garh and, indicating the adjacent table, he whispered: “well here we have Mr Eric the Hollywood actor”. Thinking about it, Hollywood Erics are something of a scarcity – Eric Estrada from the ‘70s motorcycle cop show ‘CHIPs’ sprung to mind but not much else. But turning to the left we made out the unmistakable profile of that star of the silver screen, cod (make that ‘sardine’) philosopher and sometime footballer, Monsieur Eric ‘Ooh Aah’ Cantona. That was more than glamour enough for us and confirmed Devi Garh as a people-watching hotspot.

A reminder of what Eric used to do best...






The following night the hotel suggested we try a private dining experience. There are all manner of niches, courtyards and terraces around the hotel where they will set up a table for a romantic dinner. Ours was a splendid room; left untouched since it was excavated, it was covered in faded mirrored tiles, frescoes and stained glass windows. Lit up by candles it made a wonderfully atmospheric setting for an excellent dinner – with the added bonus of our own musician sitting just outside the room who made some delightful tinkling sounds with an instrument that looked to be made of a series of up-turned jam jars. We just pitied the waiter who had to take on those stairs to reach our eyrie from the kitchen every time we felt the need for some more naan bread.

The only question mark about Devi Garh is whether it is too alluring. Attentive but discrete service, spectacular rooms, excellent food (though not quite so excellent if you stray onto the ‘continental’ menu) a glorious deep green pool and a sumptuously appointed spa don’t give the guest much incentive to go out and about to see the sights - and apparently most stay put. This is a place to relax and unwind, and its many charms and high prices might be rather extravagant for those wanting to spend active days visiting Jain temples, Rajput forts and the like.

However, travelling through India provides such a bombardment of the senses that a truly luxurious haven such as Devi Garh as a sanctuary for reflection at the end of an exhilarating journey is an appealing option. Otherwise, you could always go straight there, forget ‘culture’, live it up like a Maharaja and be indulged for a week. Up to you.

Devi Garh features in the luxury version of Cox & Kings’ 12-day Princely India private journey. It can also easily be incorporated in tailor-made itineraries.