25th - 28th March

This is still not our actual tiger !!! You will have to wait until we have down loaded ours!! Which tells you YES we saw 2 tigers. We had 3 safari trips, more about that later!! we were lucky enough to get close to 2 on our afternoon safari in the jeep. Open top it has to be said. The tigeress is spotted lazing under the tree in the shade. First there are the 5 official jeeps then there are many more, once they heard there was a sighting... The tigeress gets bored with all the attention and wanders off into the bush. We start to move away and she reappears from the bush right behind us!!! onto the road. Well the indian guys we are with bolt into our front seat, sweating and shouting they are genuinely scared!!! She follows along the road stops to look into the bush I can see every muscle in her body tingling, tensing!! Is she going to make a kill.. NO!! she has spotted her half grown male cub further into the bush, She growls at him he calls back, she then wanders off to join him. We sit tired from all the excitement blissfully happy..!!!

Now!!! The booking of jeeps is another story Mark and the Indian guy start to queue for seats 2hrs before the window opens, when it does local touts start shouting, pushing and actually aggressive for allocated seats..We are left until last not looking like we are going to get a space, I go and inform our hotel manager who shouts at the ticket officer if he did not find us a jeep he will report him to his boss for corruption. Guess what!! he said "I'm Sorry i didnt see you" stood in the front for over 2hrs mmhh!!! That India....

Anyway we finish our trip to Ranthambhore with a trip out to visit an Indian family we met on the train on our way down.. Madhu owns the local cinema and lives opposite in a very special 250yr old house with a court yard in the centre and many rooms off of it.. We meet his brother who unfortunately was involved in a traffic accident.. he looked badly bruised and suffered some head injuries. We very much enjoyed meeting him & his family.. We also got introduced to SHANKY the house rabbit.

After a lovely lunch we are off to visit Madhu's farm.. Harvesting Wheat at this time. His villagers were very surprised to see us.. The children either cried or wanted to touch. He explained we were the first white skin people to visit his farm.. Even more privalaged. we have been invited to return in November to enjoy his son's (Amiket) Wedding over 2,500 people will be there. An amazing opportunity and a wonderful privalage. We will certainly be back!!Thank you!!!

Might get time for another safari!!!

Next stop Pushkar