Our final destination in the state of Madhya Pradesh is Bandhavgarh National Park & Tiger Reserve, a long but fascinating 6 hour drive from Kanha, passing through numerous villages and small towns on market day. 

Bandhavgarh seems to be the “go to” national park for tourists wanting to be all but sure of seeing tigers but who are only visiting one park as part of an India highlights tour. The park home to some 100 or more tigers, claims to have the highest concentration of tigers of anywhere in the world. First impression is that the area does have a different feel to the three other parks we’ve visited. There are fewer local villages, villagers and wondering cows and the nearby roads are better. And there’s a new’ish water park close to Bandhavgarh’s entry gates.

The landscape in and around Bandhavgarh is very different from any of our three earlier parks - much hillier, very densely forested and a lot of marshland.

 It had rained heavily the three days before we arrived, so there was much water about. The park trails are also a lot rougher and heavily rutted than in the other parks, made worse by the recent rain.

During our stay, we do two early-late morning and two mid-late afternoon safaris. But until the final afternoon, not only do we not see any tigers, but we also don’t see much wildlife at all other than spotted deer often with their accompanying troop of langur monkeys and sambur deer.

We do see tiger footprints and hear tigers growling somewhere deep in the forest - apparently part of their territory marking behaviour and sambur deer alarm calls warning of a nearby tiger, but not a single sighting.

But that all changed during our final afternoon safari. Our guide/naturalist, clearly very disappointed that he hadn’t been able to spot much for us was determined to make amends. And much to his relief and our excitement, he hit the tiger “jackpot” when he spotted a large female tiger taking an afternoon nap in a dried up sandy stream bed. Better yet, there is nobody else around…..we have her all to ourselves!!

We watch her for a while tosssing and turning in her sleep and flicking pesky flies and mosquitoes away with her tail.

But then both the tigress and we hear sambur deer alarm calls followed first by a few growls and then a roar. A male tiger is nearby….. Her ears prick up…..

….and she’s away into the forest…..

Some ten minutes or so later and she’s back and seemingly satisfied, lays down and promptly falls asleep again!

But it’s still half an hour or so before the park closes for the day and our seriously chuffed guide is now on a roll! So we go off in search of the male. We spot him briefly in the distance through the forest undergrowth. And then he emerges, wonders nonchantly across our path and back into the forest…..

A really satisfying afternoon both for the two tigers….and us!