We woke up early to go tiger spotting in the expansive national park. This place used to be the private hunting grounds of the Maharajas for tigers, but now it is their sanctuary. Unfortunately there are very few tigers left in the world, wild ones that is. So we left early in the morning to catch them at the end of their nightly hunting. The night before, our guides told us that this is only the beginning of tiger season and that they hadn’t seen one in a while, so there was a very slim chance we would see one. This was extremely upsetting because it was the reason we all chose this particular trip over the other trips (i.e. cheaper one straight to the Taj or ones that went to Veranase to see the Ganges). So this morning I was quite hopeful because I really wanted to see a tiger (they are my favorite animal). We drove a little ways to the entrance, where we stopped as we got clearance (the officials had to check our passports again). While we were sitting there, vendors came up to the truck to sell Ranthambore hats, vests, etc with the tiger on them. “Excuse me” and “good price” are definitely the English words that Indians seem to have down. Anyways, we went into the park eagerly looking for a tiger. The park also has other big cats (leopards, caricau (sp?)– I saw these in S. Africa, and jungle cats – domestic cats that are wild), crocodiles and lots of deer, monkeys and peacocks. They don’t regulate anything other than moving tigers to other parks if they start to cross each other’s territories, as they will kill each other. We drove around for a long time and were beginning to lose hope. Then, we happened to be coming up behind this truck full of British people and there one was, a tiger. The tiger was walking on the road, right next to their car! Right next to it! It didn’t even care that there was food inside. Then it turned, walked off to the edge of the jungle, sat down for a minute, then disappeared into the bush. It was pretty cool. We went out again later that day, but that was the only tiger we saw.
Our guide was telling us about tigers, how they are very solitary animals, to the point that they end up dying of starvation because their offspring moved on and don’t bring them food, as would happen in a lion pride. That’s really sad. He also told us about their oldest female, age 19, which is really old for tigers when they normally only last 15-16 years. She has had several large litters and has lost 3 of her 4 incisors. So now she paws her prey to death. That’s right, she slaps them with her large, heavy paws. That’s pretty awesome.
We also went to a women’s craft market. They had very intricately ornate crafts there: rugs, tapestries, outfits, you name it. I must say, it is quite amazing to see how talented so many people are in the world. How many of us can make something like a silk rug from hand? They don’t know English and may not be literate, but their parents teach them this. It’s pretty cool. There was also this excellent artist finishing a painting there. It was so realistic. It was fascinating to watch him put all the finishing touches on this image of a tiger. It was so good one of the lifelong learners bought it from him as soon as he had finished it.
In the evening, I went to see how they make the absolutely delicious naan. The cook has this oven shaped like a large, vertical, curved cylinder that is incredibly hot. He takes the naan dough, flattens it out, throws it back and forth like a pizza pie, then slaps it to the side of this oven. It just sticks there. He keeps doing that and then about 5 minutes later, he’ll take the first one off. Another guy will knock the burnt part off (which isn’t much to begin with), slap some melted butter on it and serve it hot. It’s nice and thick, with a crispy outside and slightly doughy inside. As much of Indian food is spicey, I lived off this while I was there. It was the best thing ever. The guy who distributed it knew I wanted it and would just bring it over. He brought so much, one of the older ladies had to tell I could only handle so much. I tried to tell him I couldn’t eat any more but he was so excited he wanted to give me more. It was really funny.
After dinner, there was a performance by some of the village musicians. It was cool because I had learned about the instruments in class. They had a mirdingham (type of double-ended drum, with the ends as two different sizes), a harmonium (portable piano much like an accordion, brought over by the British missionaries), and a flute. They also had a dancer. He was not professional, but he tried to get us to dance with him. It was pretty funny because he would bring people up to dance with him, but he would switch moves so often he was very hard to follow. It was still a lot of fun though. Then, the drummer got up and did some fire breathing. That was also very exciting. I would certainly not do that. This was our last night in the ‘small’ village, according to our guide, of Ranthambore, population 500,000. Haha, I guess that’s true for India.
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