There is not much to report about the actual town of Ranthambhore but we had travelled here for the sole purpose of going on a tiger safari, the prospect of which I was extremely excited about as we had read it was the best place to spot a tiger. So, we opted to do the morning safari which meant getting up soo early and waiting around at the hotel reception for our jeep to arrive. Our names were the first to be called so we shot off to get into our jeep and get going. When we got there the jeep was full of locals apart from 2 seats at the front so it was here we sat and we were then driven to the reserve. As we were about to embark on our search our guide came up to us and said sorry but everyone else on here is Indian so I will be doing the tour in Hindi, ask me if you need to know anything but I promise you I will find you a tiger and you will have to give me a big tip as the others won't. Oh, brilliant! After about half an hour of the others messing around buying 'merch' our nerves were already being tested but we set off and started to get into safari mode.
That was until our first stop when the guide said something and everyone got up out of their seats to look and we had no idea what was going on and couldn't see a thing. There was one man who was getting all in about the place and sitting next to the guide like he was in charge, it was quite annoying and I thought that's it, enjoyment over! They did get a little less excitable though after a long time of only seeing peacocks, deer and wild boar until we saw a crocodile which was so far away it looked like a log and then just stopped in the middle of the trees and everyone hurried off leaving only Daniel and I and 2 other ladies. We were slightly confused until we looked around and all the men were weeing into the wildlife. Ah, toilet stop!
Off again and we picked up an old wise safari man (we knew he was wise because he had a beard and a stick) who was on the trail of a tiger and he pointed out fresh tracks for us to follow. We raced through the forest until we came to a clearing with a lake and there he was on the other side of the water, sitting there looking all majestic, a tiger! We had done it against the odds (apparently it usually takes 3 or 4 visits usually to see one) and it was very exciting especially when a wild boar turned up and the tiger went for it although he was unsuccessful and they both went their own ways. By this time we had overstayed our welcome and we literally shot back out of the forest stopping only to ask if any one else had seen a tiger that morning, they hadn't it was only us. And so we drive back to the hotel, the guide with a greedy, smug smile on his face and us with our pockets a little lighter but still feeling warm with excitement!
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