The setup at Kanha was much the same as at Bandhavgarh, with pre-dawn starts for the morning safaris, and endless faffing around with passports and permits. And once again a variety of drivers and “guides” with varying skills and helpfulness. Unlike in Bandhavgarh, however, things seemed more tightly regulated. Gypsies were fitted with GPSs and if the drivers exceeded 25 kph they were penalised, so we had a more comfortable ride and there was a little less dust stirred up by passing vehicles.

The environment at Kanha is more diverse than in the areas we visited at Bandhavgarh with open grassy valleys, open woodland, and denser woodland with undergrowth, especially on the rocky ridges that dissect the park. The area used to be inhabited. It was made a national park in 1955, though the villages remained. But in 1973 the core area was declared a Tiger Reserve and over the next decade the villages were relocated. The grassy valleys are a relic of the past farming. In the extensive buffer areas around the tiger reserve core, there are some villages and sometimes tigers kill the villager’s cattle or other stock. To minimise human-wildlife conflict the there is a government scheme to compensate the vilagers for any losses due to tiger predation, which seems to be working well. The villagers also gain economic value from tiger related tourism so killing of tigers has been greatly reduced.

In Kanha we saw a good diversity of wildlife including swamp deer, a species that was endangered but with breeding programs has become more secure. They seem to enjoy wading into ponds and dams and plunging their head deep to munch on water plants on the bottom.

We also saw quite a lot of vultures. Vultures’ in India suffered dramatic population declines because of widespread use of an of the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac in cattle. Vultures eating the carcasses were dosed up on the drug, which killed them. Populations of one species, the white rumped vulture, fell from about 80 million in the early 1980s to a few thousand today. When Jill visited India in the 1980s every village had a “vulture tree”, and the village vultures performed a valuable function cleaning up dead carcasses. Loss of vultures led to water contamination and health issues from decaying carcasses. We were very pleased to see vultures in good numbers in Kanha. Diclofenac was banned in India in 2006, so hopefully there will be a progressive return of vulture populations.

 Whilst we were out on safari we did bump into a couple of elephants. These are used by the forest workers, sometimes to flush out tigers from thick bush so that we visitors might see the hidden tiger. These are amazing beasts. Despite their size, they can simply disappear into the forest just metres from the road where we were. Alas, no tigers were flushed. In 5 safaris at Kanha we saw a total of zero tigers. But there were definitely tigers there. We saw fresh tiger footprints to prove it.

From Kanha we took a long drive to Jabalpur where we caught an afternoon flight back to Delhi. The road the driver took to the airport was little more than a farm track, but it did cut a few km off the trip. Alas, the flight was delayed by a couple of hours, and the airport had few facilities. I had the joy of unpacking our baggage – apparently the x-rays had revealed a battery pack. I finally located my Samsung S7 phone, which died between Melbourne and Delhi (luckily I had a backup – my old nexus phone). Phone transferred to my cabin bag, clothes stuffed back into the hold baggage, we twiddled our thumbs and used the fitful free wifi in the “lounge”. Finally we got away, reaching Delhi late. We had a hotel booked in the “Aero City” area near the airport, so it was a short ride in a rickety taxi. The taxi driver had no idea where to find our hotel, and relied on asking locals as we drove through the area, driving past the hotel before we doubled back.

The hotel turned out as advertised to be clean and cheap. With a midday checkout, we enjoyed a relaxing morning catching up on photos and email before we packed and headed off through the streets of Delhi 800 m to the other hotel where we met the rest of the Snow-leopard tour group in preparation for our trip to Ladakh.  We settled into our room and then headed out for a quick look around the neighbourhood, grabbing a couple of samosas each for lunch. Just out of the boiling oil, stuffed with potato and peas they were very tasty and cost a whole 20 rupees each (AU$0.40).

The back streets were a hive of activity with small shops and manufactories, hordes of people, cattle, but few cars – the streets were a bit narrow for vehicular traffic. At one point we watched in amazement as a labourer piled up 21 bricks on a piece of rope, which he placed over his forehead with the bricks on his back. On the basis of a standard brick weighing about 3.5 kg, he was hauling over 70 kg when he proceeded up the stairs into the building site.

Later I saw a woman loading bricks – a different approach – she had a pad on her head with a platform of wood. On this she piled bricks until she was loaded with 13 bricks, then she wandered up stairs, balancing her 40 kg or so on her head. Amazing. Occupational health and safety … it’s a different world here.

By dinner time we considered the possibilities. The hotel restaurant prices were sky high, particularly by Indian standards. And the food hygiene may not have been the best. Steven tried the hotel for lunch and was given a dirty plate etc. In the end we all went out and the 6 of us were fed from the samosa stall – Jill and I shouted dinner for the group, with the total cost, including drinks, was under AU$10.

Early to bed, with an early rise – 4AM – for our early flight to Leh. All went smoothly and I scored a window seat so I took a few snaps. Shots of Delhi were useless – by the time we were ~400 m in the air I could barely see the ground, such was the quality of Delhi air. Fortunately as we approached the Himalayas we got some glimpses of mountain ranges after mountain ranges before our descent into Leh’s joint military/civilian airport; photography forbidden, so I put away the camera before the final approaches.

That’s all for this post. You can view more photos at https://photos.app.goo.gl/3GX6OxWO8JcMGgol2 and https://photos.app.goo.gl/mXn9WcrXvu3RGTtA2