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Chasing the Tiger
Discover the beautiful jungle of the Bandhavgarh National Park while staying at Mahua Kothi
By: Mary Gostelow
After seeing your first tiger, what better way to celebrate than picnic breakfast the Indian way? Bradley Cocks, SVP Asia-Pacific for Kiwi Collection, and I were with three friends spending a couple of days at the 12-villa Mahua Kothi, the first of India's luxury lodges managed by Taj Wilderness Lodges.
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Formerly private hunting space for the Maharajah of Rewa, the park is in Bandhavgarh National Park, www.bandhavgarhnationalpark.com, among the Vindhya hills in Madhya Pradesh (MP) State. The easiest way of describing its exact location is that if you balanced a map of India on the tip of a pencil, Mahua Kothi would be the central point.
Mahua (ma-hoo-a) is named for the Mahua butter tree, Madhuca Indica, and Kothi is homestead. The local people gather the mahua's apple-green sweet-smelling almond-sized flowering fruits - rich in vitamins - eat them, or make them into cocktails. Mahua could also be the paradise you feel when you finally arrive; unless you come by your own plane, at the moment the best ways are overnight train from Mumbai, or, from Delhi, the one Air Deccan ATR daily flight to Jabalpur plus a four and a half-hour drive. But when you get there, you are greeted by a waving line of management, including GM Gill (Harpreet Singh Gill, a long-time tea planter), the chef in pristine whites, and cool linen towels and a non-sweet glass of sweet lime with fresh mint.
It was tempting to go straight to my villa, identical to the others in shape - one-floor, mud-and-straw walls and typical MP terracotta tiles - and format, with big walled terrace with orange outside furniture. But we opted to go straight out into the Park for the afternoon's safari, which runs from 3.30 to 6.30. What a blessing that Taj's parent, Tata, has specially constructed open-top TDI 4X4s with three staggered heights of floor so that, unlike all other vehicles we saw, we could see everything with no-one's head in the way. This is abundantly lush terrain, sometimes flat, with acres of grass rising anything up to six feet, and sometimes extremely hilly. Everywhere is the deciduous sal tree, with big year-round green leaves and an early-evening jasmine-type perfume. There is also a mass of bamboo. It is always abundantly watered, thanks to streams emanating from an 800-year old lying statue of reincarnation of Lord Vishnu who is worshipped as the Preserver of the Universe) high up one of the Park's hills. As the sun went down we all realised the luxury of space, the fact that we were driving so long, with so few humans occasionally in sight: apparently this seclusion is more evident during the week as local families love to go on safari at weekends. Peacocks displayed, we saw hundreds of other fascinating birds, wild boar and various deer. My own favorites were the colonies of langur monkeys, with long-long tails for balance as they perch on a tree or swing in Olympic-medal fashion from one tree to another and another.
Our guide, CR Sarath, a former stockbroker, was a magnificent sharer of knowledge, and humor. Trained in South Africa by CC Africa, one of Taj's partners in Wilderness Lodges, he knew exactly where to find what. The other guides gave a cheery wave as we passed: Taj Safaris' philosophy includes integrating into the community and as well as employing many, here, from the neighboring Tala village, Sarath has trained the Park's own wardens.
We headed back to the lodge, to be offered tea and dumplings. Food incidentally, is one of these lodges' many strong selling points. Not only is the food really good but even in anticipation Indian food is a powerful attraction. Dinner that night was to start with cocktails on the rooftop of the main building, your choice of whatever (gin and tonic, in true Indian style - after all, it was supposed to keep the malaria away - looking up at Venus. We then proceeded, by stepping stones in the grassland, to an outdoor dining area with its own tandoor and a family-style table. The soup was followed by an endless number of dishes, help yourself. All drinks are included and the Indian white wine, Sula's Sauvignon Blanc, was surprisingly passable.
After that I was escorted back to my villa (no-one is allowed to roam alone after dark, even though we are 20 minutes from the Park). Finally I had time to see my beautiful home, designed by CC Africa's head designer Chris Browne. Nearly 360 square feet inside, it has a wood floor and high white whitewash walls, above which fine net is inserted, for fresh air, below the woven-leave inner ceiling. I have an overhead fan, and lovely old-fashioned bakelite light switches (the lodge has its own generator, as well as ample water from its own borehole).
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Think all terracotta-colored fabrics, including blinds, three stylised wood puppets on one wall. I have a leather-covered compendium, an old-fashioned dial-up phone, a set of Chaupad, a local game, with instructions. There is a local-fabric robe, and a safe. The bathroom has twin sinks, a freestanding tub that had earlier been drawn, and studded with fresh blossoms, and a rainforest shower with instant hot water. There are Taj Spa toiletries, and marvellous body scrub that makes your park-weary limbs smooth as silk. The bed, a froth of padded whites, is blissfully comfy.
A few hours later, it seemed, a knock on the door announced wakeup, in the form of juice, a plunger of coffee and homemade biscuits. We left at 5.45 (am!) for our morning safari, warming ourselves under provided blankets (I used my Virgin sleep-socks as hand-mittens, the sleep-suit as a scarf). After only 20 minutes Bradley said 'I hear something': he turned his head and there was the tiger, about ten feet away. The magnificent beast, known as one of the Chakradhara ('central place') cubs, has been accustomed since his birth 25 months ago to vehicles of humans trying to get as close to him as possible. He was completely unfazed as he slowly and calmly plodded by, then parallel to the road, then across it. Our day was completely made, already, by 6.20 am. We learned what clean eaters tigers are: unlike other kings of the jungle, they carefully remove innards from their prey, then eat the flesh in an orderly manner. We learned a myriad of invaluable jungle tips from Sarath, and stopped with him for breakfast which chef Pravesh, who had previously been at Ananda In The Himalayas, had personally prepared (papaya, pineapple, kathi rolls stuffed with cottage cheese, fruit cake, chocolate muffins, pineapple marmalade and more pressed coffee).
No-one should miss a tour of the organic vegetable garden that keeps the six chefs supplied with the necessaries for feeding up to 24 guests and a total of 40 staff (I was told that now they have to have a full-time guard to ward off the monkeys who otherwise strip banana and papaya trees bare). Sometimes dinner, apparently, is served here; on our second night, an outside courtyard was turned into cocktail lounge and dining area. No-one should miss visiting the boutique or the figure-eight outdoor pool, with relaxing loungers around. Not everyone, admittedly, will follow our lead and take a strenuous guided bike tour around the local outside-park area - the Hercules Windpacers only have one gear and going over a lot of sandy area uses calories and three times the usual cycling rate.
After that, I had a really good muscle-relaxing back massage on the treatment bed that had been set up in my room. I loved, incidentally, having my own 'gym bag, containing a skipping rope, two pairs of weights and a book, tantalisingly titled 'Basic Asanas', showing someone sitting with arms unbelievably crossed behind, legs similarly contorted in front. A big plus, for us two busy internationalists at least, is not only the easy fixed-line phone connectivity (my GSM picked up no signal) but also having a laptop in the business-center-library that, with its own up to the minute server, gives email and internet access.
All arrivals and departures do seem to require early starts, but honestly, to be at home with the nature of India's fulcrum, who cares? My alarm went at 4, full continental breakfast arrived at 4.30, and the room attendant at 4.50, to escort me, with my bag on his head, to the waiting car to return to the airport. Gill and his team were, of course, on hand to wave us off. The first 45 minutes, still in darkness, were through the Park. Gleaming pairs of eyes showed we were also being farewelled by a myriad of wild animals, and one stag stood defiantly in the middle of the road before stepping aside to let us pass.
www.tajsafaris.com (Note: Mahua Kothi is closed July through September, and Bandavgarh National Park is closed July through October.)
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