| Road to Ranthambore | Ranthambore Tiger Park |
| Ranthambore Fort | Road to Karauli - The Elephant Ride ! |
After leaving the busy streets of Jaipur we continued on our journey across country to the region of Ranthambore. Along the way we drove through several small villages, each one different, but all terribly poor. Most of the agricultural produce of Rajasthan is ferried from the fields up and down these highways, which are often choked with heavy traffic. The pictures in this section shows typical village scenes. No matter how many you see, you look always find something else new at each one. Touring the countryside in Rajasthan is certainly not dull!
Road To Ranthambore
Ranthambore Tiger Park is contained within a large, guarded enclosure which is in turn within a large (2km) wide buffer zone. This did not stop one of the feline inhabitant escaping on the day we arrived though!
Going into the Tiger Park was exciting because of the transport as much as anything else. Imagine, for example that the man in the first picture here was a tiger. This level of protection really got the adrenaline going straight away. I have since seen plenty of pictures of touists in African game parks however, where there is even less protection from the animals. I just never noticed before. The theory is that as long as you are inside the vehicle, a tiger will only see a large metal animal, too big to hunt. Step outside the vehicle though and the tiger might see lunch instead.
Alas, we didn't see any tigers on our tours around the park. We did spot fresh tracks though, which was exciting in itself when you know you're on the dinner side of the cage in the zoo.
Watch out for the Croc's!
Ranthambore Fort, was designed to lie at the centre of the modern day game reserve. Originally, it would have housed the Maharaja and his staff, who would occasionally spend an evening out hunting the tigers in the park. This ancient des res, now unoccupied, originally came with 7 front doors, all armour plated and spiked to prevent attack by elephants. The castle is equipped with it's own lake in case of siege and a temple complex for everyday use.
With additional parking for several thousand soldiers, horse and canon this cosy spot amply satisfies even the most discerning tyrant. Of course, all interiors are original, although the current inhabitants ( troops of long tailed monkeys ), are not as welcoming as we hoped.
This is an imaginative Shiva grotto, recognisable by the trident.
These small 'houses' around the temple signify the home a person wants in heaven.
Some of the monkeys camouflage there tails in the roots of the Banyan trees. Don't turn your back too long though, there's a good chance my simian friend has cute looks, sharp teeth and rabies.
We were pretty used to the roads by now but this route took us all by surprise. We only needed to travel about 120km but even so this took around 5 hours. The road surface was once tarmac but is now sadly ruined, but not utterly - which would have been much better. What made things really hard were the weathered lumps of tarmac that still survived, sticking up out of the crumbling remains, like hundreds of speed bumps, endlessly opposing our progress. Having been on an elephant ride now, I can say with al honesty that the elephant is much more comofortable.
Along the way the road was filled with other traffic of course - camel freighters mostly, but we did see one brand new white Mercedes negotiating a deep muddy pool as we neared our destination too!. There was plenty to see at each village as we passed too, Like the houses painted with the white paste you get when you cook rice for too long. There were all sorts of designs on the adobe walls, chickens, monkeys, bulls, peacocks etc.
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