I’m back to Hyderabad after a 6 day trip to Corbett and Pangot. Pangot is about 15 kms from Nainital and is basically a nice place to view birds. However, we did not do much of bird watching as this was basically for relaxation after spending 4 days in Corbett.
Inspiration to go to corbett came from Nabeel’s travelogue, which introduced me to the beauty of the Kumaon jungles. Although they were lucky enough to spot 3 tigers in 24 hours, we couldn’t spot a single one even after spending 2 nights in Bijrani zone and 2 nights in Dhikala zone.
No regrets because sighting a tiger is just a bonus, the jungles, the safari in a open-top gypsy and the early morning foggy look of the forest, all these make the trip worth the time and money spent. But definitely, there is a little disappointment when the tiger doesn’t show up after several close call, clues and what not.
I hope my story will be interesting to share and my friends in this forum will enjoy my experience. I will try to write less and let the pics do more of the talking.
I will start sharing the pics once I resize them and hope everyone likes them.
A small description about the two zones we visited in corbett. The first zone we visited and stayed for 2 nights is called Bijrani. This zone has dense forest, the real forest looks comes in Bijrani and this zone is quite famous for tiger sightings. People were surprised when they came to know that even though we stayed for 2 nights here, we could not spot a tiger.
I personally liked Bijrani a lot as I loved the dense forests, the intensely foggy mornings, the thick and lush jungle, the abundance of deers in this region, which probably is the reason why there are more tigers around here and I always felt I was very close to a tiger when on a safari in this region and rightly so as there were numerous clues that we came across of the tiger presence when in Bijrani.
The stay at Bijrani is about 9 kms from the main road. It would be tough for the elderly to cope up with the stay here, especially in the winters because electricity is only for 3 hours from 6pm to 9pm, no heaters, no geysers, limited choice of food, no cell phone signals. But yes, if you want to experience the wilderness, nothing beats Bijrani. Oh yeah, I forgot to add that there is a very high chance of spotting the tiger very near to the place of stay just outside the fencing around the campus and my wife claimed she heard the roar at around 10pm in the night, while I was fast asleep. :ZZZ:
The second region that we stayed for 2 nights is the more renowned Dhikala. This is 31 kms inside the forest, from the main road. More renowned for different landscapes and also for tiger sightings. Personally, I felt Dhikala was more like staying at some scenic place and the jungle feel was not as much as Bijrani, but yes Dhikala has its own beauty and charm. The forests here are more of tall Sal trees, not the thick lush jungle kind and also there is a huge area of grass land, where it is best to opt for an elephant safari. Even in this region we missed the tiger twice after being quite close to it.
I will post the pics taken from a normal sony digicam and from my Canon 450d, of which the pics are much better. However, I may not touch the quality doled out by the likes of Samurai and Fazal sir, but please do bear with me. 🙂