About Ranthambhore :
Ranthambore National Park is one of the biggest and most renowned national park in Northern India. The park is located in the Sawai Madhopur district of southeastern Rajasthan, which is about 130 km from Jaipur.
Being considered as one of the famous and former hunting grounds of the Maharajas of Jaipur, today the Ranthambore National Park terrain is major wildlife tourist attraction spot that has pulled the attention of many wildlife photographers and lovers in this destination.
My Experience :
I do wildlife safari once a year, but this is the second tour in this year (2016). I booked Ranthambhore trip through a company named Toehold who arranges photogrphy tours. I took flight from Pune to Jaipur (flight duration: 1h50m) on 13th December 2016.
Stayed overnight at Hotel Fly View near Jaipur Airport. Reason to choose this hotel is another tour partner Barhadath Devaraj from hydrabad has already booked a room in this hotel. Next morning I met Barhadat on breakfast table, had a casual introduction and discussion about cab as we are meeting first time.
As instructed by the organisers cab driver came on time at 7:45 in the morning. When we hop in the vehicle, we meet our third tour partner who was a lady named Kalpana Mandradiar who is 61 years old and like to do jungle safaries, I later come to know that she is the sister of bahubali fame Sathyaraj's (Kattappa) sister.
We left on time from Jaipur to Sawai Madhopur and after a hour and few mins drive we got a narrow escape from accident. A truck coming from opposite direction dashed our vehicle close to back door. Thanks to our cab driver who managed to pull the vehicle at last moment. The vehicle got damaged at back side but we all were safe, nobody got injured. The vehicle was also in a condition to drop us at our destination. Otherwise we could have missed our first safari.
After all this drama we reached Sawai Madhopur around 12:30pm. Other two tour member's (Kuntal Paul & Chander Ramsay) and tour skipper (Sachin Rai) was waiting for us. We got very little time to put our bags in the room and for breakfast as safari vehicles used to come at 1:30pm. We finished our breakfast quickly and hopped in Gypsy for much awaited first safari.
We stayed at Hotel Ranthambhore regency, the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve is 10kms away from the hotel. The park gate opens at 7 am (morning) and 2 pm (evening) so you must leave half an hour earlier for safaries.
(Hotel Ranthambhore Regency)
(Tour mate Kuntal Paul, Barhadata, me & Kalpana Mam )
 (With Driver and Guide)
- Safaries : In this tour we did total eight safaries, we were lucky in 2nd & 8th safari as we sighted T-73 Tigeress both time in zone 5. In first sighting (less than 2 min) she was passing into the woods but we managed to get couple of head on shots. But in second safari which was last of our tour she treated us for more than 15mins. To get a clear head on shots we request our jeep driver to take little closer but then she noticed us and charged agressively at our vehicle. We all were scared to death but suddenly she stopped and withdraw the charge 10 feet away from us. That was really a thrilling experience. What we saw during this eight safaries, I am posting the images below enjoy it!
At the end it was a most memorable and eventful tour, I like to thank Toehold Skipper Mr. Sachin Rai and all my tour mates for sharing their experience in spare time of the tour. I learned a lot from all you guys. Thanks to hotel Ranthambhore Regency staff for their hospitality and for the excellent food. All the best and have a great life ahead in the hope we will meet again in future tours.
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