Ride along with us on an adventurous & thrilling trip to someone else's territory, where they know the land but you don't...
Let's take a step closer to nature and wildlife
Trip Date: 15/02/2020
Gears before planning : DSLR (If you want to try your hands on wildlife photography), cap/hat, sun glasses, water bottle and something to snack on (as there is nothing to eat inside)
Expense Details:
Safari Ride : INR 4764 (detailed given in the photograph below)
Additional Expense : INR 500 - We gave to the driver and guide as were very enthusiastic and good at their work. They also tried hard to make our encounter with a tiger ;)
We hired a gipsy ride which has a capacity of 6 persons. So, if you are less than that, you can either wait for your ride to get to its full occupancy or pay the entire amount to get it all for yourself.
Some Points To Remember Before Planning For Sariska Tiger Reserve
We visited Sariska Reserve while our trip to Astroport, Sariska.
It was our first trip there and we were not aware about a few things..
Generally you can visit the reserve either on an open jeep (capacity 6 persons) or a canter safari (capacity 16 to 20 persons). We booked the jeep safari online. Private vehicles are not allowed except for Tuesdays and Saturdays, when people can go and visit the Pandupol Temple (Hanuman Temple) through a designated straight road and return back before the closing time of the gates (6:00 PM)
One thing to be noted is that…if you try to book the safari online, do it from the government website and not through any hotel or resort. All the resorts will quote you more than INR 7000 but through the official website you can book it at actual lower rates. We did the same and finally booked it for INR (for 4 of us). Also, if you book jeep safari for less than 6 people, the staff on the gate will wait for the remaining till the departure time and adjust any additional tourists with you. But, if there is no one available for the ride, you have to pay the full payment of ride for 6 people (mandatory).
The safari ride takes place twice a day- morning and evening. Exact timing of the ride varies as per season.
There are two gates of Sariska Tiger Reserve- Main Gate (Sariska Gate) and a Southern Gate called Tehla Gate. For those who are coming from Delhi, main gate is the nearest and best option.
Lets get to Our Ride Experience now,
As we were staying at Astroport, Tehla Gate was like 2.5 Km away. Since we booked our safari online and we were unaware of the gate-game, our booking was from main gate. Over a short discussion of our plan with Astroport people, we came to know about the problem (main gate was an hour drive away and the road condition was also not good) as we had evening sessions at Astroport from 7:00 PM. But, those guys helped us to change our booking gate and finally we took our ride from Tehla Gate. As you move forward from Astroport on a straight road, Tehla is on the left but the Tehla Gate for Tiger Reserve is on right.
There are not many people catching safari from this gate and also we wanted the whole safari for just four of us. So, we paid extra amount for the accommodation of two more people and started our safari journey at 3:00 PM.
There will be a driver and a guide along with every ride. Our guide was Mr. Sukhram.
When we started our ride, he gave us a lot of information about Sariska Reserve and types of birds and animals found here. A few seconds after our safari wheel came into action, we saw an owl hiding into a broken bent branch of a tree (picture below). Later he told us that the entire reserve is divided into various tracks, designated by numbers and we took a track which had some chances of an encounter with a tiger.
The reserve will give you proper feel of a Rajasthani Jungle with thorny trees and less greenery. We saw too many Peacocks, Langur Monkeys, Spotted Deer, Sambar Deer, and Eagle.
There was also a water stream inside the reserve and we were hoping to a tiger, if by any chance he had come near it. We rode along that stream by the very edge. Thankfully the drivers were pro, otherwise there were so many pot holes into the muddy path and they were fearlessly riding the jeeps into them.
After seeing so many animals, we went to a forest check post inside the reserve, where all the vehicles on nearby tracks are supposed to collect before proceeding forward, because beyond that the jungle became quite dense and also drivers wait for the directions in which there are more chances to spot a tiger.
From there, ours was the first vehicle to move forward and dig deep into the jungle. The tracks became narrow and the forest became dense. We were for sure excited to spot a tiger but so many scary thoughts surrounded that excitement.
Every time there were rustling of dry leaves, it felt like something was coming towards us. We kept our eyes on every direction while moving forwards. There was no space to take a u-turn and we went right till the end of the defined tracks. On our way, we heard monkeys and peacocks making simultaneous noise, so our guide and driver thought they might have seen a tiger. So, we stopped at one point. There were tall trees behind us and a dense low lying land in front and beyond that low lying land, there was rocky mountain covered with trees and shrubs & a tiger could be anywhere. We quietly waited there for about half an hour. Animals kept making noises but we couldn’t spot a tiger. Our guide also played some noises he recorded on his mobile, but we were not lucky enough to see a tiger..
Other vehicles also came behind us by this time and we headed back towards the gate, watching other animals on our way back.
It was our first safari ride to any forest kinda place and was full of excitement and adventure. We plan to visit other reserves and national parks to try and stay close to this thrilling part of the nature.
NOTE - Please drop us a query in Contact section for any other information required and get a glimpse of the trip on our YouTube Channel.
Love
RovitaS
Comments