Most Inspirational Moment
There were many. I loved getting close to the real India. We were taken on an unscheduled walk by an off duty Park guide. He even took us to his own home where we were made most welcome by all the family. We crossed over a river where ladies in saris were doing their laundry, passed a 'pet' elephant kept in someone's 'back garden' viewed and discussed the rice , lentils and many other foods being grown and saw village life at really close quarters. We saw tigers on 4 occasions, a relatively low number of sitings for our group. We watched a male tiger stroll down the dusty road towards us, our jeep backing off every few minutes to keep a respectful distance. He sniffed at trees, stood on his hind legs to scratch one and then caught the scent of some wild boar we had just seen and prowled off into the undergrowth in persuit. Just then a mahoot on his elephant approached from behind. Two park officials had joined us in our jeep. The mahoot brought the elephant up right close, perofrmed a sort of three point turn by tapping the elephant's neck with his bare feet so that he was so close to me in the back he could almost have sat in my lap (elephant not mahoot) I had to resist the temptation to pat it! then the spare guides climbed up from the jeep onto the elephants back and off they all went tracking the tiger we had been watching. The there was the wedding party we got invited to one evening. It was just such a marvellous close welcoming experience not withstanding limits of language.
Thoughts on Group Leader
Krishna was marvelous, more of a friend then an employee. He was always ariound to sort out difficulties and smooth our passage; managing us onto and off the trains with all our baggage was his special skill. He worked so hard. We were a group of 13 with quite a wide age spread. He was so good at tactful group management so that no one person or couple was allowed to dominate. In fact the togetherness of the group was one of the nice things about the holiday. He kept surprising us with little add-ons such as a cookery session one night in the hotel preparing our own supper!
Advice for Potential Travellers
Take a torch; my head torch was in valuable. My next most prized asset was my special'toilet' bag which went round my shoulders to leave hands free but provided accessible requirements such as toilet paper, gemicidal wipes, hand sanitizer, a cake of soap, tissues. Whenever I went to 'mark my territory' all I needed to do was grab that bag and I knew I would be well provided for. There were a few bad loos, some very good loos, one attended by a lovely lady in her sari and of course some 'au naturelle' Ladies, get used to the idea of squat loos, easy if you are wearing a skirt and often with less of a queue and cleaner than the europen variety. Next time I will take some Gaviscon tablets with me; I needed to borrow some when large late suppers and early bed produced indigestion and heartburn towards the end of the trip.