Our latest
trend of trips has been to national park tours. My craze for elephants is
driving us for doing more & more national park/ wild life safaris. Few
years back we had been for Jeep Safari to Bandipur National Park. It was peak
summer because of which the land was dry & parched. Bandipur is a teak
forest. But there was no green around us. We were able to spot some heap of
ashes too due to forest fire which is a common phenomenon during summer.
We were welcomed to national park by the tiger’s paw. But I was more keen on sighting wild elephant. When our guide showed us the paw, I was like those were jeep tyre mark. It didn’t scare me. But then suddenly what started eating my brain was “what would we do if we had an actual encounter”. We were on an open jeep. So, I took the pen knife which I usually carry in my bag (for my personal safety 😉) thinking I would tear its tummy & come out alive as though it is going to swallow me flesh & blood, LOL.
Luckily, we
saw only deer & monkeys. And it was during our last phase of our trip that
we saw two elephants which were very far. I wasn’t satisfied with that view. I
was like something is better than nothing.
And now, we
were on our way back to our resort through Bandipur Forest Area. The safari
which we had chosen for was noon session. So, it was getting dark when we were
passing through it on our return journey. I was watching outside through window
glasses of the car praying for a view of elephant herd. Dillu on the other hand
was talking about lot many things to make me cheerful. But I was clinging to
the window glass teary eyed (Hope you understand my love for elephants). Dillu
was driving fast as the forest would be closed in few minutes (Night travel
restrictions through wild life). So suddenly I screamed out of joy and
requested dillu to turn back our car as we have already passed “SOMETHING”
which I wasn’t sure of. He turned the car with a little bit of hesitation and
we went back 2-3 kms and started to move slowly and it was then we realized it
wasn’t just my imagination. There were a herd of elephants which were waiting
to cross the road once the vehicles stop. The beam of lights from the vehicles
were stopping them from crossing the road in the dark. My heart was beating
fast & I could literally hear it out. It was very dark and I could see a
baby elephant which was trying to jump out to the road and its mother &
rest elephants in the herd were trying to pull back with their trumpet. I was
very very happy that I wanted to jump out of the car. We enjoyed the sight for
a while thinking they would cross the road any moment. But our wait seemed to
be endless and also, we had to come out of restricted area before they close
the entry/exit point of the national highway. And occasionally I try to
recollect those scenes which still bring goosebumps & smile. Till date it
was the best safari for me.
Next safari
was the one at Minneriya National Park in Srilanka. The safari duration was for
3 hours. We could spot only monkeys, deer, peacocks. But one thing I must say.
The peacock in that national park were really colorful. They were really
bright.
We had reached half point of our trip and our guide said, it was time for our return journey. I was really upset because we could only spot barking deer, number of peacocks, a group of spotted deer, a couple of monkeys.
The moment we turned our jeep from the reservoir, we saw a 2-3 elephant head. And that was just the beginning. We saw a herd of elephants coming out of the forest to drink water from the reservoir. There were close to 20 -30 elephants which had 5-6 baby elephants too. Even though they emerged out of the forest in a big single group, they formed small groups of 4-5 elephants once they were out in the open land.
The baby
elephants kept clinging to their mom elephants and once they reached the
reservoir, they started playing in the water splashing the water on each other.
It is then we noticed that there were only female adult elephants, no male
adult elephants. It is then our guide said that the elephants even though move
in herds, they are led by a matriarch. Usually, the oldest female who leads the
group of her daughters, sisters & their offspring. Male elephants often
stay independent. They stay with the herd through adolescence and then move
away as they grow older.
The group
also had one pregnant elephant which always stayed a couple of feet away as
though it needed some alone time. She was just munching on the dried grass and
didn’t go to reservoir to drink water. We spent almost half an hour watching them
play & drink & eat.