What not to do @ Jim Corbett

New Years is the best time to begin the year on a high note and this time we chose the Jim Corbett as our getaway destination for an amazing kickstart to 2021. We booked for our 2 day stay at The Corbett River Creek at Marchula.

SAFARI EXPERIENCE:

We started our day early at 5 30 am for the safari. We hoped to see wild life at its purest form. We had to drive from Marchula to ramnagar to reach the pick up spot for our Tour. We were all well decked up with our hats and binoculars and all set for the safari! What luck! A deer just crossed the road in front of our car! It was a cute little deer and it hopped away before we could reach out for our phones !

We kept searching for the deer, elephants, tiger and other animals as expected in the track! Hopeful to see some animal!

After spending 4k for a 3 hour long safari at the Sitavani trail, and not spotting a single wild animal, we realized that this was the biggest mistake we made! The safari experience booked by us was just a nature tour and the real safari is when you book the guest house at Dhikala and stay inside the forest for a proper full day tour through the forest range. Wish we had known this earlier!

While passing through the jungle trail, a family stopped their vehicle and exclaimed that they could see the tiger! They described the location of the tiger as "un teen sookhe patton k neeche ". We all looked expectantly at the location pointed by them and couldn't even spot the "teen sookhe patte", forget the tiger!

All the safari vehicles stopped in hope to see the tiger! The guy and his kid were so convinced that they saw a tiger that they even showed us their phone and asked us to see for ourselves. The pic was just the vegetation as we could see with our naked eyes. The tour guide was also laughing at the innocence of the kid and just to encourage him said "yes, yes there was a tiger" and winked at us!

We moved ahead disheartened. The guide told us to plan for a proper safari at Dhikala next time with 45 days advance booking.

We came back to our resort and spent the evening by the riverside and enjoyed the freshness of the cold water.

The resort staff arranged for a bonfire for us and we spent the evening with karaoke experiments and listening to live performances. It is during our retreat for the hotel room that our bag hit a stone and a bottle of bacardi cracked and leaked! Such a sad incident that was! We all blamed akshay for his carelessness and and he was so guilt ridden himself that he couldnt think of anything else but to somehow arrange for another bottle!

We moved for dinner and akshay went missing for about an hour! He came back elated and announced that he had arranged a bottle! The wine shops had all closed long back so we were all amazed at his achievement. It seems akshay used his PR skills and befriended 2 guys who were also enjoying bonfire and chicken at the resort and requested them for a quarter as an emergency as the only bottle we had broke!

The guys were so benevolent that they offered him a whole bottle of VAT 69 and despite repeated requests by akshay that he only needed a quarter and not the full bottle, they said they won't take the bottle back! Wow! Such people also exist, which is really amazing!

We learnt a life lesson that day to help anyone in need with the same generosity as shown by the unknown "big brother bageera".

The night was well spent enjoying the drinks and talking about ghost stories. The maggi we made with the electric kettle at 2 am was the main highlight of the night!

Next morning we again went by the river and it started pouring making the whole atmosphere so romantic! We also explored the crocodile view point in hope to spot a crocodile but alas! Even here we got unlucky !

Our return journey had started and we were still looking into the wild jungle, not hopeful for any magic but suddenly we heard the sound of elephants! Cars in front had stopped and all were pointing towards a herd of 5 elephants walking past the woods! Wow it was such an amazing sight! The baby elephant was playing with mud and spraying it all over ! This made us so happy and we were now so satisfied with the trip!

Just then a mammoth tusky elephant crossed the road 10 m away from our car! We shouted with joy and locked our eyes on him! He moved swiftly and joined the gang of other elephants that we had spotted earlier! We stayed fixed, gazing at the elephants and enjoyed the moment to its fullest!

The trip was a memorable one but the sadness of not being able to spot a tiger loomed with us for a long time. All we could say while returning was that "JIM CORBETT UDHED DIA! "