Tigers galore!

The trouble with Tigers is that it’s only ever the next one that counts. No matter how many you’ve seen, or how cool you pretend to be about seeing one again, each time you enter the forest and hear the throaty alarm-bellow of a Sambar – telling you that a Tiger is near – the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and your heart thumps double-time, just as they did for your very first Tiger. And your second, and your third …

Tiger by Richard Harding

Lucky for me, I’ve found a salve for my Tiger-addiction – one of the tours I lead for Naturetrek is the popular ‘India -Tiger Direct!’ tour. It’s a holiday which does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin. It whisks you directly into the heart of India, without stopping in major cities or undertaking lengthy journeys by road or rail, and straight to two of India’s most impressively mammal-laden national parks – that’s three if you are wise enough to take the superb extension to Tadoba. So if you’re sitting at home wondering whether Waxwings and Lapland Buntings will be enough to get you through the gloom of next winter, if you’ve seen a Tiger before and you’re craving your next fix, or if you’ve yet to join the Tiger Club, look no further than Tiger Direct.

After an international flight to Nagpur in the very centre of India, the tour begins with an optional extension to the peaceful, little-known Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve. I say optional, but you’d be crazy to miss it. Tadoba offers as-good-as-it-gets central Indian mammal-watching. On the inaugural ‘India - Tiger Direct!’ tour in October 2008, our jeeps between them saw three Sloth Bears, an absurdly tame pack of Asian Wild Dogs, numerous Gaur, countless Chital, Sambar and Wild Boar, a shy Chowsingha, Grey and Ruddy Mongooses, several Common Palm Civets, a Leopard and, for a lucky few, a dozing Tiger. All this in just three days in a park that we had to ourselves and I haven’t even mentioned other wildlife. The forest rang with the crows of Grey Junglefowl; Brown Fish-owls scowled from waterside roosts; Crested Serpent-eagles were everywhere; Plum-headed Parakeets glowed from every treetop; even Common Cobra and Indian Rock Python put in appearances.

But if you can’t make the extension (maybe next time…), don’t despair – the main tour has

plenty to offer you. It begins in Pench National Park. Pench is especially well-known as a Leopard-watching site, but the Tigers here haven’t disappointed our clients either. On the second Naturetrek ‘India - Tiger Direct!’ tour we ran, one of our jeeps watched a point-blank Leopard on a rock and a strolling Tiger in the morning, only to see a dozing half-grown Tiger cub in the afternoon. It’s definitely a good place, Pench.

But the heart of the tour is Kanha National Park. Kanha is beautiful, Kanha offers excellent hospitality and Kanha is jam-packed with brilliant wildlife. Barasingha graze and joust in the wetlands, Common Langurs chew languidly in the trees, Gaur crash through the undergrowth. And there are cats. On our first ‘India - Tiger Direct!’ tour, one jeepload of clients saw now fewer than two Tigers and two exceptionally calm Leopards in a single day (yes, that’s two Tigers and two Leopards in a single day). And on the second tour, all 16 clients were awestruck by a magnificent male Tiger in the hills at Umar Pani. The same lucky group was held entranced by a pack of Wild Dogs bounding over the long grass in pursuit of prey and eventually bringing down a Chital. Within seconds, vultures, eagles and kites appeared from nowhere to share the spoils.

I could go on. And on. But by now you’ve probably got the message. If you want to see Tigers, with an incomparable supporting cast of central Indian mammals, birds, reptiles and butterflies, all the while staying in excellent lodges and without any of the hassle of Indian cities and trains, ‘India - Tiger Direct!’ is just the ticket. Join the many people who have already booked on this new Naturetrek tour and experience the unequalled thrill of watching Tigers in wild India.

For further information on our 'India - Tiger Direct!' tour, please click here.