India Summary...

India Summary

Words learned:

I am very weak at learning words from different languages Forgive me, as the spelling will not be correct. It will be written as it phonetically sounds to me.

Soo Korea- Thank you.

Rrokoe- STOP!

Chello- Let’s go

On safari, you use the word rookoe ( you roll the 'r's backwards if that makes sense) any time you see something that you want to photograph and Chello when you are done. And of course, Soo Korea is used a lot as I am always grateful when people help me with something. After all, Canadians are polite right?

One of the photographers in our group kept on saying “no problem” in Hindu to every stranger that he met. Kind of drove me batty to be honest, but it was also futile, as no one ever knew what he was saying. I think there must be a lot of different dialects from one area to the next as he would be told that he wasn't saying it correctly, so they would correct him, then the next place we went, they didn't understand what he was saying either and they would correct him too. This happened every time we arrived at another pit stop or another village, city or resort. 

Favorite Foods:

Bada- A traditional deep-fried appetizer. It has bread, potato, and onion and is rolled in peanut crumbs. It reminds me of a really really good tater tot.

Naan- a bread that is served with lunch and dinner. 

Tikka Chicken- As either a kabob or part of a meal with rice.

Aloo parathas- is a potato/bread pancake that is served at breakfast and is delicious! The recipe is in the link.

Food:

Indians truly are masters of spice. It’s lke they have access to about 100x the spices that we have access to. I hadn’t even heard of 90% of the spices that they mentioned that they cooked with. At the same time, it was my experience that of the typical six dishes served in each buffet; at least three of them each would have a curry base. According to my taste buds, regardless of how many spices you add to something when the base spice is curry, the end result flavors don’t change much. Of course, this may just be my experience and maybe my palate isn’t sensitive to different flavors. I don’t know, but honestly to me one curry dish tastes just like the next.

I found the food to be very high in fat. The curry dishes were quite rich with what I would imagine must have been cream. Also any time meat was served, it was swimming with grease. Our fast food restaurants have nothing on the way they serve their meat dishes.

From a health perspective, I loved the way they presented rice. I find in Canada I don’t eat much rice because I don’t like consuming a lot of sodium and every time I eat rice, the sauce that comes with it is almost always drenched in soya sauce. In India, it would be a healthy chick pea/curry sauce, which I thought was a much healthier alternative.

My favorite foods of the trip were the aloo parathas, bada, a chicken sausage (I have no idea what the chicken sausage is called. If it is a traditional dish and anyone out there knows, I would be delighted to find out.) and tikka chicken.

Summary:

India is a different and amazing place. I can understand how people love India. I can also understand how people hate India. I really have a love/hate view of my experience with India. I love the beauty and cleanliness of their national parks, the kindness of the people, the colourful clothing, the wildlife; specifically the spotted deer, leopards, peacocks and of course the Bengal tigers. I loved the Taj Mahal. Honestly, I could spend at least two full days photographing the Taj Mahal before I got all of the sunrise and sunset views that I would have liked to have captured. I would also have to plan to be there during the full moon as the views of the Taj Mahal during that time are supposed to be amazing! I loved some of the food and the cooperativeness of the people amongst the absurd traffic. Most of all, I really loved the people. The people I met were all so kind and accommodating and incredibly hospitable. The wildlife and Taj Mahal were the highlights of my trip, but I will never forget the beautiful people.

I have a few “hates” too and I very rarely use the word “hate” in my vocabulary, but in this case I will make some exceptions. I hate that while we have snow banks in the streets in the Canadian winter, they literally have garbage banks in the streets all year! And if it isn’t in a pile, it is plastic and paper waste strewn everywhere! Their sacred cows aren’t fenced. Unfortunately it means that they wander loose in the streets where there is no food, so they eat the garbage and die what I can only imagine would be an excruciatingly painful death. They then lay there decomposing in the street. It disturbed me seeing people relieving themselves in public everywhere and anywhere without even trying to go around a corner or at least turn their back to traffic. In cities and villages I literally don’t think I went ten minutes without seeing someone going to the bathroom..not in the bathroom!

It bothered me that men always tried to open doors for me and always offered to get my bags while ignoring my roommate who is a foot shorter than me, 80 pounds lighter than I am and a woman. I don’t need help with my camera gear. It is light to me. It is not light to a woman who is 5’1 and 115 pounds. Because she is a woman, they would always try to help me and talk to me when it was her who organized the trip for our group and had all of the information that they required. They knew she had the information too, but still wanted to talk to me.

I hate the fact that it is very difficult to even get an Indian visa because their system is so incredibly flawed that many people have to go to the visa centre four times before they are finally accepted and you can only book one visit per week unless they make an exception.

I of course hated the traffic, but was thoroughly entertained at the same time. I hated that they don’t seem to care about their animals and would just assume throw rocks at a dog as pet it. I love animals. I love pets and I had a difficult time not petting all the dogs and even the cattle that roamed without any interest, expression or enthusiasm. I realize this sounds strange, but our cattle look healthy and even though they are destined to end up on our plates, they look full of life. The cattle in India are just lifeless. As strange as this sounds, it took all I had not to reach out and pet the cattle and show them some affection. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to risk being bitten or diseased somehow so I refrained from touching any animal other than 'Pumpkin', my temporarily adopted dog. I felt especially badly for the dogs. In North America they are loved and treasured. They love people and are more often than not very exited to see their owners and many love to get a pat and some affection from any stranger who likes dogs. In India, the dogs are lifeless. They don’t even lift their heads when people walk by. It is even difficult to determine whether they are alive or dead sometimes. No one shows them affection and I didn’t see one dog that appeared to be loved or cared for. It was killing me not to permanently adopt "pumpin" from India and do what ever it takes to bring her home with me.

In summary, I loved India; the culture, the people, the history and I hated their filth, disorganization and abandoned, weak, “skin and bone” animals.

The thing that I had to/have to constantly remind myself of is that I have no business imposing my values on the way that other people live their lives. I don’t know what it is like to live on a couple dollars a day alongside 1.2 billion people, many of whom are struggling just to survive. We only have 33 million people in a country that is three times the size of India. From my observation, Canadians on social assistance without any employment who may or may not work even an hour a week have a better standard of living than most hard working Indians who have full time employment.

The big question is will I return to India? And my answer? Yes, in a heartbeat! I will definitely be back; possibly more than once. Clearly my love for India is much stronger than my hate.

Indian Accommodation Reviews...

Our safari started in Delhi. The population of Delhi is 18 million. Once we landed in Delhi, we stayed at the Lalit Hotel.
The  Lalit hotel is very clean, the staff are friendly, the grounds are safe and the food is very good. We went to Agra for a couple days to see the Taj Mahal, so they were kind enough to lock our big wildlife lenses in their large safety deposit boxes until we got back. The boxes are based on a two key system like a regular safety deposit box. It was nice to be able to relax while in Agra knowing that my camera equipment was safe.  A tip for requesting a room? Ask for a room away from the train tracks so your rest is quieter. It was a nice stay, but I wouldn’t stay there again. When I am 20,000 miles away from home, I like to keep in touch with my business, home and I like to blog daily. If I am staying in an expensive hotel, I think it is very poor form for a hotel to charge for internet service too. There are lots of hotels that have enough class and customer service to realize that nickel and diming is low class and don’t charge for internet service. Next time while in India I will stay at one of them.

While visiting the Taj Mahal, we stayed at a hotel called The Trident in Agra. Agra has a population of 4,380,793. The Trident hotel is the perfect hotel to stay at while visiting the Taj Mahal. It is clean, safe, and a ten minute drive from the Taj Mahal. The staff are great, the rooms are quiet and comfortable, the grounds are gorgeous, the pool is beautiful, they have free internet and a free business centre and the food is absolutely amazing! The next time I am in Agra, I will look up the link to this hotel from my blog and book it again without hesitation. I would strongly recommend that anyone interested in seeing the Taj Mahal stay at this hotel.

After arriving back at Delhi, we stayed one more night at the Lalit hotel, then flew from Delhi to Jabalpur and had lunch at a really swanky hotel in Jabalpur.( I can’t remember what it is called, right now. It will come to me.) The population of this city is 1,267,564. The lunch was fantastic! Okay, now do you remember when I spoke earlier about the suggestion that we needed to bring spare rolls of toilet paper? Here it comes. Not to worry, it is PG… so, after lunch I looked for the bathroom before our four hour drive up the windy mountain roads to Bandhavgarh. The bathroom in this swanky beautiful hotel is the most gorgeous floor to ceiling marble bathroom that I have ever been in. It is architecturally creative and beautiful. I get into the bathroom stall and notice that there is water all over the place. There is less water in the shower room of a water park! It’s a good thing that I looked around before dropping the trousers as I quickly noticed the culprit of the mess. I believe it is part of the muslim culture not to use toilet paper. In many bathrooms there is a hole in the floor and a water tap to assist you in cleaning yourself. In this bathroom there was a high pressure sprayer like something you would use to spray the dirt off your car. I had visions of spraying something that I didn’t want on to something that I would have to wear in the car for the next four hours. There were just so many issues around the discomfort of that idea and my lack of experience with that method that I decided that my best option was to go to the car, sneak some toilet paper, hover and go western style!

Four hours later we arrived at NatureHeritage. This resort to me is like a three star resort or so with five star service. It is very comfortable, the people are very friendly and speak quite good English. They jump to help you and carry your gear at any opportunity. They never needed to be asked to help us with our luggage or photography equipment. Every day on safari we have bags of lenses and photography gear to lug a short distance to and from the jeeps. The staff were always at our door ready to help us and always on time. They were fantastic! The food at Nature Heritage is abundant, tasty and every lunch and supper were different on every day. I couldn’t believe the amount of different foods that they served us. They had wireless internet for us and even though it didn’t always work, even when it was down, it would only stay down for a couple hours, then would be back up again. We had a fantastic stay at Nature Heritage. I will definitely stay there the next time that I go to Bandhavgarh and would recommend without hesitation that anyone going to Bandhavgarh stay there as well.

From Bandhavgarh, we drove four hours back down the windy roads of the mountain, had another great lunch at Jabalpur at that same restaurant in the beautiful hotel (I still can't remember the name of it) then continued on four more hours to Pench where we reached our next hotel reservation at the Tiger Corridor. The Tiger Corridor hotel has the appearance of a five star resort. It looks fantastic, the rooms are spacious and beautiful, it has a fancy dining room and bar the entry to the resort is grand and beautiful. But what is it really? Well, they put 6 photographers with heavy gear that has to be lugged twice a day in the very end chalets. We walked at least 125 yards to the jeep and from the jeeps to our rooms after the game drives . We then walked to and from for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The chalets while spacious are so far away that they are very inconvenient and lacked that intimate feel  that a resort would offer if the chalets were located in a closer proximity to the necessities. Also the staff do not go out of their way to help you with your bags. When we have to carry 50 pounds of camera gear 125 yards four times a day with no help it does become quite challenging. It wasn’t so bad for me, but my roommate is a lady who is 5’1. Her gear almost weighs half of her body weight and they would watch her struggle with it without offering help, so between the two of us, I had all of my gear and some of hers and it was a challenge for both of us. We were just barely able to carry all of our gear that distance and would always have to stop for a break to re-group before getting to our room. If a resort is going to have this kind of set up and are going to book photographers, they really should use their heads and either book them closer rooms or have golf carts to assist the photographers get to and from their rooms with their gear.

The food was quite good. The wait staff did a great job as did the cooks. The food was quite tasty, but they didn't offer much variety. It was generally similar meal to meal with a couple exceptions in each meal. They didn't put near as much effort into variety of meals as did Nature Heritage.

The one saving grace of the tiger corridor is their naturalist Devies. He was amazing. He went above and beyond for us and was fantastic! A couple of the managers and one of the waiters also had very strong customer service skills, but as a team they were pretty weak. Their jeeps are very comfortable for tourists with point and shoot cameras, but are completely inappropriate for serious photographers with professional equipment. I was very happy that we contracted out the jeeps and guides outside the resort as they were much more functional for photographers. Lastly the resort didn’t offer any wi fi or internet service of any kind. To me this resort is a 5 star resort appearance wise, but a 1.5 to 2 star resort service and functionality wise. I will not be back.

I hope this information helps anyone who may be interested in traveling to similar areas that I visited in India. Of course these are just my opinions. I made sure not just to rate these places, but to provide reasons why I was either impressed or not happy with the places that we stayed so you can decide for yourself if these resorts may be places that you may consider on your adventure as the reasons that I may like or dislike a place may or may not bother the next person.

Happy Trails
-Greg

Pench National Park

Pench Day Four

Langour monkey mom and baby

Today Elizabeth and I photographed spotted deer and monkeys mostly.  We didn’t see much, but it was a nice day and it was fun all the same.

Pench Day Five

Today I was in a jeep with Chris. We photograph really well together. We got some great portrait shots of monkeys, some nice shots of spotted deer and a changeable eagle hawk. On the way home I heard an alarm call that sounded like it was close to the road. We tried to figure out where it was coming from, but the light was quite bad at this point as it was already about 6:15p.m. so we started to head back to the main gate. About fifteen seconds later, the guide spotted an Indian leopard. It was perched on a rock and seemed to pose for us for a while. Chris had the right lens ready and got some great shots of him. I took a few as well but to really do it justice I would have needed a different camera/lens combination, so rather than set up and shake the jeep in low light, I just took a couple lousy pictures with the wrong lens as a keep sake. This way at least one of us would have the opportunity for a good shot and Chris nailed it. Even at horrible light she still pulled it off. It was still pretty exciting. Most people don’t get a chance to even see one Indian leopard in their lifetime and I saw two and have a great shot of one of them, so I am pretty happy.

Indian leopard

Pench Day Six

This morning at about 8a.m. Mark and I saw a tigress and her two cubs. She is the mother that actually has five cubs, so the other three must have been resting somewhere else. This mother has a collar and was a baby when they filmed her family in “spy in the jungle”. It was an exciting sighting that lasted a few minutes as they came out of the bush and walked down the road. Unfortunately for us, they were walking away from us down the road. One cub briefly turned around and Mark got a couple nice shots of him. I missed the opportunity. I had the other two tigers in my lens and I didn't notice that the other cub had briefly turned around. I have been kicking myself all day.

 This afternoon we didn’t see much. We drove around and photographed the odd deer, an occasional peacock or two and a golden jackal in great light. We saw a blue bull male and came across a herd of Indian Gores. They are kind of like a cross between a cow and a bison.

Travel Day Pench to Nagpur to Delhi

Above is a troop of red faced monkeys. We were stopped on the side

on the side of the road waiting for the last vehicle so I thought I would

roll down the window and video them. The dominant male took exception

to this and mock charged the car screaming and showing his fangs. Kind of intimidating really!

We left the hotel in Pench at 9a.m. It was a two and a half hour drive to Nagpur, then a 90 minute flight to Delhi. Before getting on the plane I bought a pop, finished it, then couldn't find a garbage can, so I just held on to it, figuring I would give it to the flight attendant so she could dispose of it. We were on the shuttle bus heading to the plane and a guy noticed me holding on to what was obviously an empty pop can. He looked at me like I had three heads and suggested I throw it out the window. That is what they do in India. You are pretty hard pressed to find a garbage can. Garbage is just strewn everywhere. Every city and every village looks like a landfill. The country may be gorgeous, but anywhere there are significant amounts of people, the land looks like a landfil. It is truly disgusting. 

We finally got into Delhi where we had a great dinner with the representative from the company who organized our trip. We had a great dinner in a really nice restaurant as we listened as he educated us on Indian foods, spices, culture and different safari options that India has to offer. We had a great meal and a really nice visit. From there we were dropped off at the airport at 10:30p.m. By the time we changed our money back, checked our bags and got through security I barely had enough time to have a quick snack at the lounge before saying goodbye to Chris (everyone else had already gotten split up).

This is turning into a long day. I am currently in the Vienna airport. From Delhi I had a 7.5 hour flight to Vienna, a four and a half hour layover, then will have an 8.5 hour flight to Toronto, a five hour layover, then a three and a half hour flight to Edmonton. That is essentially two full days of traveling before I can have a decent shower and sleep in a normal bed. I get in to Edmonton at 9p.m., home at 10p.m., then I take Gaye and Kiera to the airport at 4a.m. the next morning, then it is back to work again. I cancelled my morning clients, but will be at work at 10a.m. till 9p.m. Definitely a string of a long few days! Oh well all is good. The weekend is coming and I will catch up on Sunday.


My Indian wildlife images are here...

Next trip; polar bear moms and cubs in Churchill in March.

Pench Day Two

Today I was paired up in a jeep with Mark. The morning drive was a bit of a write off. I’m not sure that I even got my camera out. Sometimes we are so focused on photographing tigers that we forget about all of the other really cool animals that the park has to offer, so in the afternoon I decided to take pictures of any photogenic animal if it was in good light.

Changeable Eagle Hawk

 We photographed bee eaters, an Indian roller, a changable eagle hawk and a red faced monkey. Still no tiger, but I enjoyed that game drive. Tomorrow I am with Elisabeth. She doesn’t like photographing birds or monkeys, so I am going to suggest that we focus on spotted deer. They are very pretty and I don’t have many pictures of them anyway.

Pench Day Three

Today I was paired up with Elisabeth. We had fun. We didn’t have many stellar photo opportunities, but it was fun all the same. We photographed languor monkeys, spotted deer, Alexandrian parrots mating and a serpent eagle. A fun day considering we didn’t see any tigers. It can get a little frustrating when nature doesn’t cooperate with our plans, but as wildlife photographers we learn early on that some days you’re the pigeon and some days you’re the statue.


My Indian wildlife images...

Travel to Pench National Park and Day One

We had a long drive from Bandhavgarh to Pench. The countryside is beautiful, but if you've seen one village, you've seen them all and even in the tiny villages you will see people relieving themselves right on the street. They aren't even modest enough to turn around. I would have thought they could at least go behind a building, but nope. They don't seem to need any more privacy than any of the other animals do. Seems bizare to me, but what do I know. Below is a typical countyside traffic jam.

By the time that we got to the resort, it was still four hours away from dinner time and we were all hungry. Dinner time was late at this resort and we were starving! It was finally dinner time and we were all quite anxious to get some food. Between the hunger and a little bit of disorganization at the lodge, amoungst the six of us, three photographers were trying to lead the group. Unfortunately only one of them should have been speaking as she was our leader. I felt badly for the Indians at the resort. They have a difficult time communicating with us with their broken English at the best of times and they were getting conflicting instructions from three different photographers. This; combined with hunger and a long day set off world war III! Two photographers were all of a sudden not so happy with one another to say the least. I was a tad embarrased and could only imagine what the people of the resort thought of us.

Pench Day One:

Considering that we almost had world war three between two of the photographers that turned into the entire group, the air was cleared and everyone was very friendly and civil this morning which was nice.

This resort is quite nice, but a little disorganized. The service isn’t as good as in Bandhavgarh and they have no internet connection here. Arg! I will have to catch up on the blogs when I find some internet again.

Game Drive Day One:

On this morning’s game drive we saw lots of the same game as in Bandhavgarh. We did see a blue bull though. (which is a large antelope that Bandhavgarh doesn’t have) and lots of peacocks. Pench National Park is 800 square kilometres with each game drive route being 50 square km’s where as Bandhavgarh is only 500. They estimate that there are 33 tigers in this park as opposed to 25 in Bandhavgarh.

So far Richard and Janet are the only ones who have spotted a tiger, but I am optimistic about this park as the grass isn’t as high and the forests are not nearly as thick. In most places you can see up to about 75 meters into the bush as opposed to 0-10 meters and in some places up to 30 meters in Bandhavgarh. Because the bush is much less dense here, it should be much more conducive to photography. This morning we photographed a golden jackal and some monkeys for a few minutes, but that’s it. Hopefully we will have more luck on our coming drives.

Indian Roller

On this afternoon’s game drive I would like to report that we saw at least one of the three tiger families. One tigress in this national park has two cubs, one has three and the third has five cubs. We did see some tracks, but that’s it. We had a fun game drive and did bring out the cameras a few times. We photographed two different coloured spotted owls, a purple headed eagle and a sambor mother and baby. Hopefully before we leave I will have a better chance to take a few pictures of the spotted deer in good light as they are very pretty and there are hundreds of them all over the forest.

My Indian Images...

Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve Day 6...

Bandhavgarh Day Six

This morning as we were on our game drive we heard the monkeys sounding their alarm calls, so our guides started looking for a tiger. 

Baby Langour Monkey

The next thing I heard was “leopard! Leopard!” A leopard was pretty far away in the forest. He ran to the left and we lost him in a valley, then he sprinted the other way actually coming toward us. I was trying to get the right camera ready and meter it and our driver told us he’d be coming out of the bush behind us on the road. Sure enough, seconds later he jumped across the road and disappeared in to the bush on the other side. I was really lucky to get one good shot of him as he jumped across the road. I didn’t really know it at the time, but leopards are very rare in India. In fact the leopard that we saw this morning was the first leopard that our guide had seen all year. That would make it a once in a lifetime sighting for tourists like us on safari. About half an hour later we heard alarm calls again and came around a corner to see a beautiful tiger walking into the bush. For the first time this trip, the light was perfect and she wasn’t far away from us. Unfortunately she was walking away from us and didn’t look back, so we didn’t get any decent pictures of her.

Rare Indian Leopard sprinting across the road

The afternoon game drive was okay. We saw tracks and heard alarm calls, but didn’t see anything exciting. The tigers amaze me. When we are in Africa the lions in the parks are the kings of the jungle and they know it. They don’t try to hide and really don’t care about any humans. These tigers are in the same position and yet, they are rarely seen outside the cover of the bush. They don’t run away from humans, but they certainly don’t hang around either. Between the sightings that all of the jeeps in our group had, the sightings averaged about 20 seconds to 90 seconds at the very longest. If I had to guess, I think the reason for the skittishness of the tigers is because the tigers in National Parks in India are still poached quite frequently.

This evening one of the guides invited us to his home. He lives in a house about the size of our living room and kitchen combined. In that house live six people. One room has three beds together and a tv and the other room has a kitchen and two cots against the wall. The water and bathroom is outside. They were a very gracious family and welcomed the four of us and were very proud to host us. The family has a 30 year old daughter who is married and doesn’t live with them anymore, then two boys and a girl in their 20’s. Their mother didn’t speak any English, but you could tell she was delighted to have us in her home. They sat us down in the kitchen as our guides’ daughter started preparing a meal for us from scratch on a cutting board on the floor, then cooked it on an element powered by a propane bottle. Our guide apologized for not having very much food, but insisted on feeding us a special treat called “bada”. It was a special occasion, so they opened up a bottle of coke for us and we chatted as the daughter cooked the treat that is served on special occasions. Bada is a potato and parsley? And bread and some other spices that is kneaded up into small sections, then is rolled in finely crushed peanuts, then is deep fried. It is served with an optional dip of tomato and green chilli peppers.

We had a really enjoyable evening with the family, but then had to get back to the lodge. Before we left, they insisted on giving each of us small presents (stickers and pictures of tigers with Bandhavgarh National Park on them).

I have really enjoyed the Indian hospitality here so far. They are such a kind people. They are inviting and proud, soft spoken and polite everywhere we have gone. Our visit with the family in their home really showed us how kind they are. They didn’t have much food in the kitchen and wouldn’t eat any of the food that was prepared as they wanted to make sure there was enough for us. It was very important to them that they serve their new North American friends.

Tomorrow morning we get up early and drive eight hours to Pench National Park where we will have five more days of tiger safaris. We are crossing our fingers and hoping that our tiger sightings will improve.
My Indian Images...

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...