The Global Explorer: national park

The Sinharaja rainforest reserve is a hotspot for biodiversity, and it made it to the UNESCO list in 1988. It is not a big area. 21 kilometers long and 7 kilometers at its widest, but still a true gem as far as wildlife concerns. Inaccessibility was what saved it from loggers and poachers long enough to survive.

I took a series of local buses, starting down at Galle on the coast and eventually landed in Deniyaya, a small inland town close to the Sinharaja reserve. My accommodation of choice was the homestay of the Palita brothers just outside thẻ centre of town-yet far away in a tranquil location. Palita himself-a funny guy, has years of guiding experience and knows what he is doing. The wildlife watching actually started as soon as i arrived. His garden is actually teeming with life.....treefrogs, spiders. Small reptiles. And there were many scorpion burrows in the soil. They started to come out in the evening and i got to see them strolling around.

A green pitviper. Venomous but non lethal. A bite is not something to ask for though. This snake ís endemic to Sri Lanka. On this hike i actually saw at least two endemic species-highlighting the importance of this forest-endmism among several animal groups including the reptiles is as high as 50%. A staggering number. It is a peacefull snake, and if irritated it will vibrate its tail before mounting an attack.

My hike to the forest started with a tuktuk trip on twisting dirtroads going up and down trough the countryside. There were villages and lot of farmland-fruit, rice and coffee. Eventually i was met by a guide in the outskirt of the last village. We started walking. We entered a moist, shady green world of trees and plants, crisscrossed by small, shining streams. There were the sounds of countless insects playing and some birds. The air was filled with the smells of wet soil, and that of vegetation-living and dead. To begin with we saw no traces of animals, and i started loosing hope in my wished for creature fiesta. But then it loosened and my guide started to find a lot of interesting stuff. My guides eyes were sharp. Reptiles was what we saw the most of. Fine with me-that's why i had come. Reptiles are often hard to find so i was happy.

The kangaroo lizard. A true runner and jumper. It is lightening fast, and run on two legs when threatened. My second endemic reptile encountered that morning.

The kangaroo lizard is able to change colour. Right now it is a bit intimidated by us.

A treeclimbing frog. They live most of their life up in the trees, only coming to the ground to spawn. They are lightweight to be able to walk on thin branches, and have large discs on their toes to improve their grip.

Showing off,trying to scare us off. An hump nosed lizard, endemic to Sri Lanka.

The hump nose lizard, a charmer.

Green vinesnake. Mildly venomous venomous but gentle in its ways.

A funny face.

Humpnose pitviper. Lethal if not treated. Its venom is necrotic, meaning the tissue dies.

A doctor snail, filled with healing substances. Or at least so they say.

Fungus on a dead branch.

There are some massive vines in this forest-with a mass outweighing most trees from where I come from.

a snail with egmass.

Resting in a pool below a waterfall. Small fishes come in starting to nibble on my feet.

Then freshwater crayfish joined in, they were tickling seriously and no problem, only when a crab arrived i retreated. Its claws were a bit too powerfull!

Colourfull sap oozing from a treetrunk.

Many legs, imagine this one wanting sandals!

Bandhavgahr national park in the Vindhya hills in Madhya Pradesh, India is THE place to go for tigerspotting. There is a relatively dense population-ans a lot of food for them to enjoy. Spending a few days there taking the two Safaris available each day (one early in the morning, the second in the afternoon) almost guarantee you a tigersighting.

A langur enjoys offerings at a roadside shrine.

What can be more perfect as a drink. It is not exellent, but it is fully passable.

Getting there is easy enough. I took train to Umaria station, and got a seat-well, half a seat, on a bus passing trough Tala village where it is about safari.
Everything is organized at the parkhedquarter-permit, driver, guide. you don't get to choose your crew, wich is a pitty because the quality and dedication of those vary greatly. All the way from top exellent to less than usefull. Meaning they act in a way that reduces the chance of getting a tiger instead of increasing it.


The closest we came to a tiger the first two days.

We managed to understand the system at the counter the second time we went there. It is partly a disorganised mess, partly it works. First a dutch, a brit and I tried to share a jeep with some indians to share costs. Proved impossible because they pay less for the privilege-figuring out a correct payment was beyond reach for the bureaucrats. Next try was trying to pay everything in one go. Big mistake. The driver was supposed to get his share separately. Reclaiming that part of the money took time. so much time we lost the safaripossibility that afternoon. however, next morning we just managed it-the office rats are very strict on their closingtime, opening late in the morning isn't any problem for them. And who cares if the high paying tourists loose safaritime....? But we used gunboatpoliteness and got the process speeded up drastically.

Bandhavgahr is that kind of place where peacocks are so frequently seen you almost grow tired of them.

The first day we so no tiger. We were literally only seconds away from a glimpse, but a car in front of us, filled with noisy indian tourists, scared the shit out of the cat. It was well and truly gone.
But saying the morningtrip was a waste is far from the truth. The place is teeming with wildlife. One of the first thing i noted when we arrived into the reserve was a group of sambars at the forestedge across an open area. big, elegant animals with huge antlers. Some were grazing, others were proudly parading. The whole scene shrouded in thin morningmist. In the forest and on the open fields there were spotted deer almost everywhere. They are small compared to the barking deers, but if the Barking deers are the knights of the forest-the spotted ones are the ballerinas. Their grace when moving around goes unrivalled.

Spotted deers crossing the roads like jumping ballerinas.

Standing guard in tigercountry.

We were back in the village around 10 am, and with very little to do in the village, a beer or two was the obvious way of passing some time before approaching the nationalparkoffice for a new safari starting at 1500 hours. More spotted deer. A great moment was when a big group of them were crossing the road just in front of us. It was almost like they were flying trough the air. I could have given a fortune for having a proper videocamera in my hands.
Far less elegant were the wild boars plowing the forestfloor with their noses-with their tails everwhopping back and forth. The big ones being serious about it, and the small and cute one straying around with little plans and intentions. Also we had a shorter meeting with the gaur-wild cattle. Big animals looking quite ready to shuffle us off the road. They take no shit.

Portrait of a gaur.

Some gaur tension.

In terms of tiger sightings it was nil on this trip as well. But we saw another predator. A couple of jacals were out and about. first they hid when they saw us, and they moved partly hidden. But their curiosity made them come out several times.


Monitored and measured by a jacal.

Morningtrip. Freezing cold! We did a more distant route with a varied and beautiful landscape. Forests, open savannah. Streams. Hills and mountains. Birds were the novelty this time. Falcons crossing our sightline in lightening speed. Eagles. And a number of vultures soaring high above. Picking up altitude with the rising, gradually warmed up air.

That afternoon was when several of us thought about bailing out-no tigers and a high cost for safaris. One english guy left, looking like a broken down man. We joked about how we now will see scores of tigers. To begin with it didn't look too good in that respect. We saw all the usual stuff and enjoyed that. until driving trough a treegrove. Suddenly the guide shouted in a low but tensed voice. TIGER, TIGER, TIGER!!!!!!!!!!! How he actually managed to spot it when he did goes beyond my comprehension-the cat was several hundred meters away-the sightline was packed with vegetation all the way. But it was close to the road behind some turns and twists and the driver went like crazy. I almost fell of the car as i was about to stand up shooting the landscape.
We stopped less than 20 meters from a huge male resting in the shade. He was literally taken on his bed, and it took a little before he really reacted. But when he did, it was powerful. I will never forget how he stared into my eyes-right into my eyes, standing ready to jump. One could see how his whole body was ready for action. Then he leaped towards us, bringing the cat within ten meters from us, snaring and then leaving into the brush. I was high. It was one of the best moments of 15 months of travel so far.

The next tigersighting that day was also a good one, but after the first adrenaline rush encounter, it was almost an anticlimax. In the thick brush a bit from the road a female with two cobs walked. We were able to track them for a while, and they seemed rather uninterested in us most of the time.

So-one might say it is not good to disturb the tigers this way. In one way, that is my opinion. But there is another side to it. The jobs and income generated from these safaris is probably what keeps them alive. There would be no interest among the locals-or among lot of people in power-to preserve them without this intencive. And knowing how much a poached tiger sells on the black market-everything on a tiger is used in chineese medicine-the cats would be poached quickly. So i see safari as the smallest of two evils. But every tourist have a responsibility for making sure their safari is conducted in a manner that disturbs as little as possible. Be it tigers, or other animals.