After the visit to the stepped well, we arrived at the Ankur Resort. Early the next morning we were off with about 10 other tourists in a roofless bus on a truck chassis to find the wily tigers of the Ranthanbhore national tiger preserve. We did not see a tiger and I am not sure anyone else did that morning although there were a number of dramatic reports of sightings. We went out again in the afternoon but, once again, saw no tigers. It is too bad such an emphasis is placed on tigers as there was many other interesting things to be seen, most of which were inadequately explained. All together a disappointing 6 hours of jolting around on forest tracks. I would advise anyone else doing it to only go once and in the morning. There were, at least, a lot of deer and some antelope to see.
This morning, at our insistence, Khan, our driver, reluctantly took us to the newly opened Rajiv Ghandi Regional Natural History Museum near the park. It is a marvellous new facility (we were the first tourist to go there), opening March 1. Because of this we were guided by the director and there was much picture taking and signing by us of panels. It is truly a worthwhile place to visit and should be required before visiting the park. It should also be required that park guides receive training there before being licenced, as they don't seem to know much other than finding tigers. We spent 2 hours there before going to one of Khan's obligatory shopping stops.
On our way to Jaipur (where we are now), we stopped at a guava orchid and had a chance to see a little of rural life. The main crops here, in addition to guava, are wheat (bearded) and mustard, the later harvested for oil and the straw used for animal feed. Along the road we passed (you have to, it is one of the rules) many tractors (all Massey Ferguson 1035 di) hauling sand and funny little vehicles with huge loads of mustard straw, using single cylinder engines originally intended for water pumps. The sights never fail to amaze! We saw women (they do most of the work while men drive and gather in groups to talk) threshing mustard using a home made machine using 2 massive wooden mallets to beat the seed head. Mustard is frequently still harvest by hand (by women) and carried to the threshing machines on the head in big bundles. There are eye-openers around every corner!
Jim
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