Bandgavharh Day Five

This morning was pretty much a bust for everyone in regards to tiger viewing. None of us have seen a tiger in a couple days, but that’s the way it goes with nature sometimes. I think people sometimes have the misconception that wildlife photographers get off the plane, take a few pictures, have a few laughs and go home with great images. When there are a lot of good sightings it almost feels that way. When there aren’t any sightings, it is 7 hours a day of driving around on bumpy mountain roads, hanging on for dear life. That’s okay though as it is still driving around a beautiful forest and mountain side. To be fair, there are tons of spotted and sambor deer and monkeys all over the place, but we are here for the tigers, so 90% of the time we speed on past them. Thankfully I have a few pictures of them. Spotted deer are beautiful. They are much prettier than any deer that I have ever seen before.

Large Male Spotted Deer

 On our way home from our morning game drive, we did come across a large troop of languor and red faced monkeys as well as a herd of spotted deer. The deer and the monkeys work as a team as they both send out alarm calls if they see a tiger. It is entertaining watching them as the monkeys will break off large leaves the size of my foot from the tree tops and drop them. The deer love to eat the lush green leaves and don’t leave any behind.

I was trying to ask my guide some questions today and he tried his best, but gets frustrated with me when I don’t understand him. The Indians are very nice, but they say certain syllables in ways that we have a difficult time repeating and we say words that they have difficulty with as well. That, combined with the broken English that they speak and we often have communication difficulties.

My question for my guide this morning was “Have you been to Pench National Park before?” We are going there in two days and I was curious what the park was like. The response came back “Yes it is very beautiful. The forest is teek”. I nodded that I understood. “Yes, your forests here in India are very thick.” I replied. He looked at me like I had a hole in my head and responded “teek, teek. “The forests there are very teek.” This game continued for about two or three minutes until I figured out what he was saying. What he was trying to say is that the forest is very teak. The forest has a lot of teak trees in it.

That is just one example of the communication break downs. We have them daily and sometimes it’s kind of entertaining.

This sign is located at the exit gate of the Bandhavgarh National Park.

My Indian Images...

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve Day 4...

Tigers Day Four

Finding a tiger in the Bandhavgarh National Park is somewhat like finding a needle in a haystack. The park is only about 30 square miles and the tigers roam in and out of the park, so it is difficult to say how many there are, but they guess about 25. We drive around all day looking for fresh tiger tracks on the sandy roads. Both sides of the road is thick jungle in most places with the occasional open field or sparse forest. From there it is guess work and signs of nature.

This morning we found tracks. Based on the tracks the guides can tell whether the tiger is male or female or cubs. Based on the area of the park and where the last sightings were, they can tell which tiger it is because each tiger traverses a territory. We were driving this morning and came across a terrible sewer smell, so based on the tracks and the area; the guides knew which male tiger it was. Due to the smell, they knew that he was on a kill (I would imagine that when the tiger perforates the bowel or large intestine of an animal, the stench from those organs was probably what we smelt). We knew approximately where he was and figured he was resting after a big meal. There was a watering hole about a kilometre away so we figured that he might like a drink after his meal. We positioned ourselves on the road between the smell and the pond. Then we waited quietly listening for alarm calls. There are a lot of monkeys in the tree tops that we don’t see. Once the tiger starts to walk, the monkeys start making an alarm call and that is what we were listening for to determine where to position the jeep and where to look. This system of course is used by all of the drivers in the park. With 11 jeeps per route, once the drivers see the tracks and hear the monkeys, a group of jeeps converge on the area that the tiger is in quicker than a squad of police cars on a thief.

With no tiger sightings in our route we stopped by an owl nest on the way back. The nest is just a big hole in a tree and the male and female owl were perched on the edge of the hole sunning themselves. Unfortunately they weren’t going to let us spoil their rest and wouldn't even open their eyes. Oh well, the pictures of them are still pretty cute even though they were sleeping.

This afternoon we found mother and three baby tiger tracks, but unfortunately couldn't find them.  We waited near where we thought they might be and a monkey was quite busy sending out regular alarm calls. 

We have three jeeps (two photographers per jeep) and we all got skunked today. Hopefully we will have better luck tomorrow. We have two days left here at Bandhavgarh. From there we drive about eight hours (so they say, but I will believe it when I see it. What ever they say drive duration is, it is wise to add two hours. This is India!). Once in Pench, we have 5 more shooting days, then we drive a couple hours to the local airport, then we fly back to Delhi and back home.

So far this trip has had a lot of cultural lessons...and a few faux pas. No, I didn't mention all of them. Some of them didn't include me believe it or not:)

 I have been in Muslim countries before and I've always enjoyed my time with the people. They are very kind. Always smiling and very accepting and welcoming of strangers. Although we must stick out like a sore thumb I never feel like any more of a tourist than if I am in the States. Actually in many ways I feel more comfortable here because they know that we are foreigners and go out of their way to make us feel welcome. It is kind of funny. In some countries you don't dare take the locals' picture as they feel that you are "stealing their soul". Here when people see you with a camera, they almost ask if you could take their picture. They love posing for the camera and showing off their pretty saris. The women of any age take it as a compliment that you want to take their picture. They love the attention and don't ask for anything in return.


My India Images

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve Day 3...

Day Three

We didn’t have any tiger sightings this morning in our jeep. Chris and Mark had a sighting for a minute and a half. It is difficult photography as it is very common to only see the tiger in plain view for up to two minutes. This doesn’t give a person much time to get the metering and settings right. You kind of have to do it on the fly and you either get good images, or they are all throw-a-ways. Again we stopped to photograph the langur monkeys near the end of the drive.

My highlight this morning though was feeding “pumpkin”. There is a stray dog with a broken leg that was never set. She walks with a pretty bad limp, but is very sweet and doesn’t beg, so you can’t help but to sneak her some food. I’m sure that is why she hangs around the entry gate to the park. If it weren’t for the tourists, she likely wouldn’t get fed at all.

We named this stray dog 'Pumpkin' and
and temporarily adopted her during our stay.
We smuggle her food from our meals.

I couldn't put my finger on what exactly bothered me about the animals here. I think I finally figured it out. The dogs in North America are often happy to see people and get a pet and some affection even from the average stranger. Here, no one pays any attention to them, so most of them just look lifeless. They have no expressions; they just look like blank slates. The other interesting thing is that I have only seen one domestic cat so far. Apparently cats are bad luck, so no one will have them in their homes. The only cat that I have seen (except for the tigers of course) is a very small grey cat that was very skittish and I am assuming wild.

Afternoon drive- We kind of slowly wandered around the park, taking pictures of monkeys and spotted deer. We puttered around at a slow pace and the park was pretty quiet. Then we heard that there was a sighting of ‘broken tooth’ and the pace picked up significantly. We got a couple brief sightings of him through the bush, then one last sighting as he crossed the road. When he went into the bush the last time, our driver looked back and said “hold tight!” We had 30 minutes to get back the gate before the park closed, so our driver drove like a maniac to get there on time. I was trying to hold three cameras and lenses so they didn’t 

bang into one another while attempting to hold on for dear life. My colleague photographer in the front seat looked back at me and said “If anything happens my blue cross insurance card is in my passport in my jacket pocket.” I had to laugh although when we’re going that fast through the bush and on windy mountain roads I suppose it is a reasonable comment. :)


Here are my wildlife images from India.

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve Day 2...

Tiger Safari Day Two:

This morning we started the same as yesterday. We were on route D-B and saw some peacocks and a barking deer, then quickly saw tracks on the side of the road. The guides said they belonged to Contucky. She is a mother of two cubs. I wasn’t getting too excited as we saw lots of tracks yesterday. Basically you are on a sandy/rocky road and there is dense jungle on either side of the road and occasionally you come across a small open field or small watering hole. We made our way up the mountain on this very twisty, rocky road, then started back down again. On the way down the guides heard an alarm call. (When the monkeys see a tiger, they freak out and sound an alarm for the other monkeys that a tiger is in the area. The deer hear that and they go into a tizzy too). Coming down the mountain side, we come around a corner and see 5 jeeps on the side of the road. 

First Tiger Sighting; For the Bandhavgarh
enthusiasts, I believe this is 'B2'.

Our guide briefly talks to one of the other guides, looks back at us and says “hold on”. All of a sudden we are flying down this small twisty road with hair pin turns. He slams on the breaks and about ten seconds later this large male tiger meanders out of the bush on to the road. He walks toward us a bit, then the driver again puts the pedal to the metal so we can wind down the road one more turn to get us into position for a few more shots. Sure enough the tiger appears from the jungle again, walks towards us 20 feet, then heads back into the jungle again…And that was my first sighting of a male Bengal tiger in the wild. A sighting that I will likely remember for years to come.

On the way back to the lodge we found a troop of lamur monkeys and although the sighting wasn’t as exciting, the light was perfect and we sat and photographed them for about half an hour.

On our afternoon safari, we went back to the area where the male was seen in the morning drive and waited for a couple hours. Drivers were taking this opportunity to have a little snooze, everything was quiet, there were 11 jeeps full of tourists and photographers just waiting. All of a sudden we heard one alarm call (It sounds like a high pitch “oo”) from across the valley. Seconds later, eleven vehicles were started and went racing down the narrow mountain roads. (The Japenese have nothing on our Indian drivers with their controlled slides). All of the vehicles lined up and we watched as the tiger was about a kilometre away on the mountain side. He was too far away, so one by one we headed back. We got to a corner and spotted a female tiger and the excitement began again! The idea is to get ahead of the tiger and guess where she is going to go so we can get good pictures of her. So we take a few pictures, then the driver says “hold tight”. That is your two second warning. By the time he starts the engine, you had better be in your seat and holding on because it is pedal to the metal within seconds. The guide doesn’t just want to get ahead of the tiger, but he also wants to get ahead of all of the other vehicles, so he can position his photographers for the best shot.

All in all a very exciting day. The only good pictures that I got today were pictures of baby langures, but we have about ten more days of tiger safaris, so hopefully on some of those drives we will encounter nice tiger photographic opportunities in nice light.

A fun day. On the way home we even stopped for a quick sunset picture showing the mountains in the background where we were photographing the tigers.

Here's my wildlife images from India.

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve Day 1...

Tiger Safari- Day One:

Bandhavgarh is set up into four zones and each vehicle is assigned a zone for each drive so some areas don’t become too congested. There are 11 vehicles allowed per zone.

As soon as we got in to the park we saw several peacocks. Nice, but not what we are here for. On the safari we have also seen jackals, owls, a lot of spotted deer and sambar deer. In the morning we saw a mahout on his elephant. It was pretty neat as he rode passed us. The park has a dozen or so mahouts on elephants within the park. The jungle is quite dense and the people can’t see the tigers in the thick bush so the mahout rides around through the jungle making lots of noise in the hopes that he flushes out the tigers on to the road or open area so that the people can get a glimpse of one.

On the morning drive we were on route B,D and we drove by three sets of tiger tracks. They were easily outsmarting us as we would drive by once and see tracks on one side of the road, then by the time we doubled back only 15 or 20 minutes later, we noticed a second set of tiger tracks on the road. One of the tigers that was in the area has three cubs under 5 months old, so we were pretty excited about the opportunity of seeing her and her babies, but no such luck.

Anyway, that’s it for day one, so the score for the first day is tigers 1, photographers- 0.

You can see my Indian wildlife pictures here.

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal

After traveling all day we finally made it to Agra. The light was perfect and we were excited to check it out. Once in Aga we hit the heavy traffic again and watched the sun starting to set as we were once again in bumper to bumper traffic. We finally got out to “The Garden” and there were no flowers, the river was mostly dried up and it really wasn’t attractive. I was thinking “really? This is all the rage? The seventh wonder of the world? What the heck is the hype all about?” So it’s off to the hotel. What a first day. We spent the whole day in the most miserable traffic imaginable, we miss our sunset and the pictures are brutal!

Taj Mahal day two…

The ladies arranged for us to get to the Taj early before it opened and what a great idea that was! We were there 30 minutes early and there was already a line up of easily 60 people. Security there is very tight at the Taj as Taliban groups have been caught twice plotting terrorist attacks on the Taj Mahal. We weren’t allowed to bring in any shutter release cords (as they look like detonators to the security guards) and no tripods, no backpacks and no food. Once inside it is obviously pretty stunning. 

Moments later a guy grabs me and shows me the exact spots to stand for the best pictures. I give him 30 rupees and thank him. I thought that would be the end of it as the picture views were very good. By the time I tried to get back to my group, I couldn’t find them. Meanwhile he is dragging me all over the place. “Stand here and shoot there. Now stand over here and look there. Lay down on your stomach here.” I took some pictures and gave him another hundred rupees. (About 2 bucks. I didn’t have any more change). I thanked him and tried to get back to my group. At this point I had paid him way too much. He told me not to worry, he claimed that he knows where they are (of course I know he is full of it, but he shows me the sunrise and insists I follow him) “Hurry, hurry” he insists. Well, I don’t have anything to lose. I couldn’t find my group anyway and there was a sunrise. He took me to the exact spots with the best views of the sunrise behind the Taj Mahal. The tiles that he had me stand on are dirtier than the others. Clearly he had done this before…like every day! I gave him half of what he was asking for and he still made out like a bandit and made about $15 which is crazy considering most people would have made about $1 or $2 tops for those services. Finally I met up with someone from our group and she is with another guide doing the same thing. I tried to show her the spots he showed me but the sun had changed and opportunity was over. From there we spent time photographing adorable Indian toddlers and Indian families in the most perfect light with the perfect background.

Feeling guilty we looked for the rest of the group. As it turned out, I may have overpaid my guide and they tell us not to over-tip. He will eat well for the whole month, but he earned it. I think I got some great shots, so I certainly have no regrets.

Namastae

My one regret was that once again while we were racing around like maniacs trying to find the perfect pictures, I noticed that there were headphones and tour groups. I may have gotten some great sunrise shots, but I don’t know anything about this place. Thankfully, our guide has a degree in Indian history. He told us the entire story of the Taj Mahal with such passion. I don’t think any tour leader or recording could have come close to as good a job as he did. He had us fully engaged and completely interested in his story. I was almost teary eyed and simply blown away once I heard the story. From the reason it was built to the fact the Taj closes to the public every Friday so 2000 workers can clean and provide maintenance on it one section at a time. The city of Agra even re-located all of their factories as the pollution was causing the marble of the Taj to get dirty and hard to clean. The Taj Mahal is really is India’s treasure and one of the worlds most amazing wonders!

I will have to order a good coffee table Taj Mahal book when I get home. (I don’t have room for anything extra with all of my camera gear) and I will butcher the history of the Taj, but will try to summarize the story briefly.

• Two teenage sweethearts fall in love. She was 14 years old and he was a just a few years older. Although she was part of a harem, he only loved her. He had 14 children with her and she also had three miscarriages.
• She never left his side. Even in battle they were together. This was unheard of as women never socialized with their husbands.
• After 19 years of marriage she became septic and died. On her deathbed, her last wish was that he didn’t re-marry.
• For two years he was stricken with grief and didn’t leave his home
• He decided that he was going to build a monument in her honor.
• The Taj Mahal took 22 years to build with 20,000 workers. It is built entirely of marble and the decorations that you see on the wall aren’t paint, but precious stones that are inlayed in the marble.
• The Taj Mahal had a ramp that went around the building. That was two miles long, so they could get the marble to the top.
• The Taj Mahal was built in 1630.
• Taj Mahal loosely means beauty beyond comparison.
• The four pillars around the Taj are built at varying angles. One is 92 degrees, one is 91.2 degrees, etc. Each one is at a slightly different angle. The reason for this is it can withstand an earthquake of 8 on the richtor scale. If there is an earthquake that is significant enough to damage the pillars, the pillars will fall away from the dome one at a time, ensuring that the dome is not damaged.

A close up view of two small sections of the court yard wall surrounding the Taj Mahal. On the left, you will notice that section looks older than the section on the right. 2000 workers come every Friday to clean and perform maintenance on the building and grounds. As shown, this includes replacing the fancy trim around the perimeter of the grounds.

From a photographers’ perspective, the Taj Mahal is amazing for architectural and lighting reasons.

As the sun rises and sets, the Taj Mahal lights up differently, accentuating different parts of the monument and grounds. It is simply amazing!


In case you didn't notice my links, you can see images from the Taj Mahal here. You can also see images of the people at Taj Mahal here.

Heading for home, I kind of had to laugh at myself. Yesterday I was annoyed about the crazy slow congested traffic with the incessant honking that just never ends. This afternoon on the way back, I was relaxed with out a care in the world. We came very close to getting in to two accidents, came very close to hitting a pedestrian at least twice. We saw the effects of three accidents and yet I was completely relaxed. It is amazing how quickly our senses adjust. There were as many starving cows eating garbage today as there was yesterday, we still saw dead animals on the side of the road, the honking, congestion, dirt and garbage was still everywhere, but it doesn’t take long to dull your senses and get used to it.

The Ultimate Faux Pas

The Ultimate Indian Faux Pas…

There is always a story with me. This time I don’t know what my excuse is. Maybe it was because I arrived in Delhi at 4a.m., then just a few hours later headed out on our Agra excursion or if it was because I hadn’t eaten in so long or the heat? The lack of sleep? The crazy drivers in India? Or maybe I can blame it on a little culture shock? Or perhaps all of the above. Regardless, I definitely committed the ultimate faux pas in India.

We drove for hours in bumper to bumper traffic. Cars and trucks were constantly honking, the smog is unbelievably bad and it seems that everywhere you go there’s wall to wall and curb to curb people and vehicles. It is stressful witnessing near accidents so regularly. Traffic lights, one way streets and painted lines on roads are merely suggestions. I don’t even think they know why there are street lights, lines or stop signs seeing as I didn’t see anyone adhering to any of them. I think they just figure they are for mere decoration.

So, I am low on sleep, low on sugars and trying to gain a little rapport with our driver. We are chatting about their festival Dariwal, he tells me about how much Indians like to move to Canada, he answers my various questions quite politely and we discuss his religion briefly as we pass by various mosques. It was then that my hunger started really getting the better of me. I was light headed, feeling a little weak and queasy and we were still several hours away from Agra in bumper to bumper traffic. So what do I do? I of course get a snack out of my bag and start munching. I couldn’t possibly imagine being rude to my new friend. He is busy driving in the nastiest traffic you could imagine, so I offer my bag of food by putting it up near his face so he can see it. Nice right? I’m hungry, he’s probably hungry. He’s busy with both hands on the wheel, swerving, and honking etc. But what do I offer him?…BEEF JERKEY!! I am such a fool!! Cows are sacred to Hindus. Reincarnation ring any bells?!! I may as well have been eating his ancestors in front of him. Then I ask him if he would like to share them with me! Insult to injury I had to hold the beef jerkey up near his face so he could get a good wiff of it! As I was offering, Chris; one of the other photographers was trying to say “No”, but she was just a little bit too late. I had already practically shoved my dead sacred cow in his face.

Okay, the beef jerkey thing was not the highlight of the day, but it was just weird all around. I saw several people urinating or bathing in the street, entire families of 4 or 5 on motorbikes, babies sitting on mom’s lap as dad swerves the bike in and out of traffic without the appearance of anyone other than the driver actually holding on to anything. We saw a lot of things for sale along the side of the road, the most common being motorbike helmets. Ironically though, we only saw a handful of people actually wearing helmets.

We finally got to Agra late, took a few pictures of the Taj Mahal in bad light from across a mostly dried up river then drove an hour back to the hotel that is located ten minutes away. Supper was good though and I’m really looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight!! Tomorrow’s another day. I will try not to exchange beef recipes with my Hindu friends. I did apologize, but somehow an apology just doesn’t make up for eating their sacred animal, then offering them a taste!