We travelled for a few hours to our next stop, the Ken River Lodge. After dropping off our bags, we went on a game drive through the Panna National Park - a dry deciduous forest with tigers, leopards, jackals, sloth bears, nilgais, chitals (spotted deer), chinkaras (Indian gazelles), langur monkeys and samburs. It apparently was the inspiration for Kipling's Jungle Book! We saw antelope, spotted deer, a peacock and various other birds - but no tigers! It was nice though, and we enjoyed seeing gum, teak, bamboo, and other trees we've read about but never seen.

When we got back to the lodge, it had become extremely cool (surprising after the smoking hot day), so we all got changed and went for a buffet supper at the lodge. We started with drinks in the treetop lounge beside the river. Barry even tried 'mahua', a clear spirit with a heady pungent flavour distilled from the flower of the mahua tree. It's brewed in makeshift village stalls all over central India during March and April when the tree blooms. Afterwards, we moved down to the dining area. The kids had already had cheese sandwiches, so they didn't eat with us, choosing instead to stay in the treetop and play cards. The buffet was nice and we visited for a bit, but now it was Binu who had an upset stomach so we called it a night, excited about our elephant safari in the morning.

Oh, one more thing… our cabins were a long walk from the main lodge. Barry and Connor were staying in a separate cabin. When Margaret and Tessa walked into their cabin with Eric and Sandy, they found a snake waiting for them! Luckily, it was small and not aggressive, and Eric was able to slide it out of the door with his cane.

November 5, 2007

5:30 am wake up call! Yikes! We were out of practice! Kenya seemed light years away, but we got up, got dressed, and headed to the lodge to begin our elephant-tiger safari. We had to pay extra for this, but we didn't care.

It was just our family and Kate, so we went in one truck. We drove to the park to get tickets, which took a long time, and we lamented the lost sleep. We might write to Intrepid and suggest that that portion be arranged the day before so that 20 minutes of sunrise not be wasted waiting for tickets.

Once we had the tickets (600 per person) we drove to the actual entrance where we had to pay 100 rupees for another guide. We paid the 100 and entered. We thought the elephants would be close to the entrance, but instead we drove through the park for nearly 45 minutes and saw most of the game from the truck. One highlight was seeing the beautiful chinkaras (Indian gazelles) that we hadn't seen the day before. We went along the same route, except for stopping at two spectacular viewpoints that we'd missed the day before, as well.

At long last, we arrived at the elephants. We paid again, this time 600 per person. We climbed a ladder up to the elephant's back, with the Lewis family sitting on one elephant while Kate and the guide sat on the other. From there, the elephants meandered through woods, grazing as they travelled. We were delighted and enjoyed the experience despite the continued absence of any tigers.

When we returned to the starting point, we spent time with the elephants - feeding them grass and oranges, petting them, and taking their pictures while they posed for us, literally. The baby (8 years old) was especially fun.

As we drove back through the park, we saw more deer and a big mongoose so that was cool. We also enjoyed some monkey business and an eagle to finish off the drive. When we got back to the lodge, we had a nice breakfast and then we packed up to head for Chitrakoot.