Rain sent by the gods

This day started out innocently enough with a nice cup of char, sorry chai, but rapidly became one of those you put down to experience. We were somehow late setting off for Ranthambore NP again and headed to the other side of the park which made it even later by the time we got to decent tiger habitat.

The drive to the park was fairly eventful in itself. Again we were asked if we minded going 'little bit fast' as we needed to be 'on time' - wasn't us who'd been late now was it! We then had to stop for petrol (tick tock, tick tock) before we continued on our breakneck journey. Finally we reach our destination only for the heavens to darken and the biggest monsoon-strength rainstorm burst above our heads.

It all turned somewhat surreal at that point and a good deal of British 'laughter in the face of adversity' was witnessed by our guide. It was verging on the edge of hysteria a few times I'll grant you, particularly when we caught a lady taking a sneaky photo of the funny drowned foreigners. It was so wet I nearly lost my contact lenses as the water washed down my manically giggling face.

Needless to say, we didn't see any tigers. We did see a live pink donkey and a cow trying to get on a bus but that's not the million dollar prize now is it. Maybe a couple of hundred grand but definitely no more than that!

Once dry clothes had been administered, we fell on our breakfast like wild beasts (but obviously not like tigers who are pure myth and don't eat anything). The hotel does one mean cooked-while-you-wait omelette which seriously hit the spot that day accompanied by some great veg curry.

I found that, although dry, I was feeling a tad cold so another kip before lunch was in order just in case it was a rain-chill thing (that was my excuse anyway). Mark took himself off birding round the hotel but should have rested too as he felt distinctly under the weather when he got back. He's not been drinking enough water so think it's simply that. I guess I should report to the two solitary people who worry about these things (i.e. our respective mothers), that both our stomachs are fine thank you very much.

Last but one safari in the afternoon and this one looked no more hopeful than the previous three. Another shared canter, with a baby that insisted on shrieking every time the guide asked for quiet. Alarm calls from the deer were at least heard this time but no matter how habituated to vehicles they supposedly are, I can't believe a tiger would come within a mile of something making that amount of noise. One good thing at least, we saw a Sloth bear on the return ride - saw one in Sri Lanka but beggars can't be choosers.

With one last chance to see this mythical stripy beast, CB is trying to pull some strings and get us a gypsy instead of the canter we're booked on tomorrow morning. He'll ring us if he manages to wangle it but we're not holding out much hope.

My preparations for dinner this evening were accompanied by faint tinkling and drumming. I thought perhaps Mark had taken up a new hobby but no, the hotel had put on some Indian dancing. Luckily the majority of hotel guests that night happened to be Indian themselves and were having a whale of a time. We took a table at the back and managed to avoid the enticements to join in despite the fire breathing displays.

After we'd eaten, we wandered down to the main entrance to see if we could see any stars away from all the lights but got stopped by our dignified host. Where exactly did we think we were going? I thought for a minute he was going to drag us back to the dance floor but instead he showed us up to a roof terrace with reclining benches perfect for watching the stars. He even said he'd come back in 30 mins to check we hadn't fallen asleep. Really going to miss this place!