Kanha National Park

I have been to Kanha National Park on 30th of April 2010 which is the second biggest National Park in Asia spread around 1985Sq KM (2000 Sq Km to sum up) mainly famous for Tigers.
This place is commonly named as Kanha Kesari and is about 280Kms from Nagpur a part of Madhya Pradesh a central part of India. I have been there for 2 days along with a friend and we preferred to drive straight to Kanha from Nagpur, which took us around four and half hour to reach. The sunny day of summer is considered to be good one to locate animals in forest. I booked the dormitory of MP tourism which provides good services and this was the only resort situated inside the forest wherein other resorts are out of the main area. We reached around 12 pm which is a normal check in time for the dormitory. After getting fresh had good lunch provided by the resort itself and found an shared safari along with a Gujrati family in a Gypsy ( one of my favorite machines) as its not feasible to hire a private drive for two people.
There are two safari timings in Kanha, one is morning 5.30 am (May and June 5 am) and evening 4 pm. The tourism company provides a guide for each safari car so that one can take any preferred rout to explore the wildlife on condition to return not late than 7 pm so that the lights and human presence should not disturb animals. On the first ride have seen hundreds of Deer’s, Bison’s, ten’s of Peacocks which is the national bird of India, Peahens, Black bucks, monkeys and many more birds. These are the commonly viewed animals, as they comprise the maximum population and hardly harmful creatures. There are around 25,000 Deer in this forest, which are rapidly growing in numbers. But I was’t convinced with the view of any of these, as my eyes were curious to see the rare animal in world that was Tiger for this time. We were racing tiger for three hours but were not lucky enough to see one and convinced out heart by looking at Pug marks of the tiger. I finished my day with dinner followed by early sleep as we were scheduled for another safari at 5am.
I got up around 4 am nest day and got ready for the second and last chance to get the glimpse of tiger as I was about to get back to my hometown by evening. We reached the gate to entry and were delayed by 10 minutes to claim the first position to enter the park, which was a bit disappointing. As I believe the theory that everything happens, it happens for good, which was proved this time again. This time we got a guide, who was barely 5 feet in height and looked more like a professor than a guide. As we entered the core area our guide asked immediate attention toward for an animal which he was claiming as Bear. As we followed the different track form all other vehicles we found a full frown male bear, which was running away on the pathway of vehicles. It is said that one can locate and see the tigers easily in this forest where as bear was a rare sight like this one. The reason was we followed him around 20 minutes and were able to see different movements it was making to look for food. The start of the day was fabulous and I immediately started counting our chances to look for tiger this time.
We headed toward the different territories held by tigers to catch it in early morning as this animal makes kill commonly in early morning or late evening. Suddenly we re able to hear the call of Deer, which he makes on the sight of tiger or leopard to aware other group members. There is unique communication held between these animals and wonderful to understand it. After waiting for another 15 minutes we headed ahead to take more chances. Finally decide d to take a break and then search ahead. Guide took information about the possible sight of tiger and took us to the same. I was able to see few vehicles lined up on one side of the road along with few elephants. As soon I stood inside the car I could see a tiger standing between two elephants and was exited to my peak to get the close view. But another disappointment came as it needed coupons to take elephant ride without which neither we can sit on this giant nor can have a close look for this black belt animal.
Finally, the Indian way came to our rescue and our guide managed to bribe few hundreds to the elephant man, which allowed me to take first time elephant ride in my life. It took us inside the meadows where the tiger was sitting and was surrounded by few elephants. It was a young male a bit whitish in color with clear black stripes and very attractive and clearly visible. (video attached). I felt like achieving trophy and a sense of satisfaction came to my mind and heart. I wonder why people kill this astonishing bold creature just for pleasure. Here I understood the true meaning of save tigers champagne which is running thought out nation nowadays. Believe me this animal looks great live than in photographs or fossils. So I could at least plea for people for saving tigers and spread the word for the conservation of this beautiful animal.