Desperately Seeking Tigers

Online Marketing Executive Michael Pullman recently travelled to India to seek out tigers in Kanha National Park.

It’s our first morning in Kanha National Park and after a 5:00 am start my eyes are playing tricks on me. In the pale early morning light, every rock is a monkey, every deer a tiger, and there are plenty of false alarms as we head through the forest.

After driving for ten minutes, Dev, our guide, suddenly brings the jeep to a halt. “Monkey alarm call” he whispers as we also register the calls made by the languor monkey, which sound a little like the honk of an old-fashioned car horn. Our eyes scan the forest as the alarm calls intensify. Languor monkeys are known as the eyes of the forest, and often frustrate the tiger’s stealthy hunting methods with their loud cries. These calls mean either a tiger or a leopard is on the move, and such is the commotion in the trees above us that we know the unseen big cat must be very close. After 5 minutes of holding our breath and keeping absolutely still we give up and drive on, and then, as we turn a corner, I notice the shoulders, rear and finally tail of a large cat disappearing into the forest in the clearing below. “Tiger” I shout, but neither our guide nor driver has seen it, and the rest of the jeep’s passengers caught only the tail. So frustratingly, my first tiger sighting cannot be properly verified, and I start to doubt whether I actually saw it at all.

Kanha National Park is a beautiful setting for seeking tigers, with dense forests, streams, sweet-smelling meadows and abundant wildlife. During our stay here we will see bison, jackal, mongoose, deer and numerous birds including kingfisher, eagle and the beautiful Indian roller (left). Of course everyone wants to see a tiger, but I cannot imagine a more perfect setting for the hunt, as we drive along narrow dusty tracks, through forests of green sal trees and past stunning lakes, hives of activity where the larger animals come to cool down.

Whilst Kanha National Park is one of the best places in India to see tigers, the animal is as threatened here as it is everywhere else. Poachers and loss of natural habitat are the main causes, and the latest figures are rather depressing, with there being just over 100 tigers inside the wildlife conservation area of Kanha. Part of the problem is space, with the average male tiger requiring a territory of around 40 square kilometres.

Given that Kanha stretches over 940 square km you sometimes feel that you would have more chance of finding a needle in a haystack than seeing a tiger. We spend the remainder of the first morning on a wild goose chase following reported sightings, and when we do catch up with one we can barely see it, even with binoculars, despite our guide clearly being able to see it with his naked eye. The tiger’s camouflage is quite remarkable, with its stripes breaking up its body shape so it can become almost impossible to see until it moves. When it finally does move we all wondered how we never saw it in the first place. This long-range sighting, whilst thrilling, does not sate our thirst for tigers.

Luckily, Kanha National Park has a series of elephants expertly controlled by ‘mahouts’, who can veer off the roads into the jungle and thus seek out and get close to any tigers in the vicinity. After our long-distance tiger spot we race off to a kind of elephant bus stop, where visitors can catch the next available elephant (which always has room for one more on top), and clamber aboard in pairs. The mahout then directs our elephant, by prodding behind his ears with his bare feet, to within metres of a tigress resting in a shaded cave. The first thing that strikes us is the size of the animal, with its powerful shoulders and huge paws. The heaviest of all the big cats, tigers weigh around 40 stone. What also strikes us is how nonchalant it seems in our presence, as she looks up and yawns, rather like a domestic cat. The relationships between the mahout and the elephant, and the elephant and the tiger are fascinating to observe. It is hard to believe we are perched on top of an elephant only feet away from a wild and extremely dangerous animal.

Our close encounter with a tiger sends us home happy, but not before something wonderful happens on the way back to our lodge. We notice three jeeps parked by the side of the tracks ahead, and stop next to them. “Tiger” whisper the excited members of the jeep in front, and we follow their pointing fingers and this time the sight is unmistakable. A female tigress walking across the meadow in full view for about 30 seconds until she disappears into the forest, provoking monkey calls and a general sound of jungle panic all around her. It is an extremely emotional experience, much more affecting than the close encounter we have just had with the sleeping tiger. This feels more natural, less intrusive, and we feel privileged to be witnessing the tiger as it goes about its business.

A word of warning: Kanha National Park is not easy to get to. However, our sightings and the wonderful hospitality at Kanha Royal Tiger Resort, where we stayed, made the epic trek, which involved an internal flight to Nagpur followed by a six-hour drive on typical Indian country roads, more than worthwhile.

Our experiences of tigers have also made us all determined to do whatever we can to save this beautiful animal, which is currently in such a precarious state. Visiting one of India’s National Parks is a start, as the more tourism benefits the surrounding local communities the easier it will be to stamp out poaching. You can also donate to one of the many tiger conservation charities, such as Global Tiger Patrol or the Save The Tiger Fund.

Cox & Kings' 10-night In Search of the Tiger tour visits Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Parks and starts from £2445 per person. The 10-night Safari in Style tour also visits Kanha National Park, as well sa Bandhavgarh and Pench National Parks, where accommodaiton is in newly opened Taj / CC Africa properties.

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.