Tiger tiger burning bright...

In Mumbai we got our car parts, got the car serviced and Tom got a nasty fever, before heading back into the countryside again, camping in the cool and quite spectacular Northern Western ghats on our way out to the stunning buddist caves at Ajanta, 20 or so caves with elaborate carvings cut into a beautiful horse shoe shaped gorge. We also took a lovely long walk above the caves taking in a stunning waterfall through cascading pools, getting an amazing view of the gorge the buddists had chosen to live out their days many years ago. After Ajanta we continued east to Nagpur on the main Kalcutta / Mumbai trunk road, that road summing up all that is worst about Indian roads - the multitudinous hourdes springing multitudinous trucks, multitudnous motorbikes, bikes, carts, cars - did we mention trucks? - and multitudinous (mostly dead) dogs - the road kill in this country is like a horror movie, from half a monkey sticking out of the road being mourned by its confused friends on the roadside, every imaginable part of a dogs anatomy every other mile, occassional dead cow, too many wreckages of smashed trucks, staining the road with blood from the night before, etc etc - still we weaved our way through eventually.....keeping road rage to a minimum and disobeying every road rule to the maximum, like any self respecting Indian driver should. We were in Nagpur, the exact centre of India, to visit Duncan and Alan, victims of the unjudicial Indian legal system, and inmates at Nagpur central jail - we got to see them for 15 minutes speaking through a grill with many others in the room, but they were pleased to see us and we hope the things we got them will help relieve the boredom, and that they are not there too much longer. We then headed to Pench tiger reserve in central Madya Pradesh just to the North of Nagpur, the area where Kipling is supposed to have set the Jungle book, and being covered in a kind of tropical forest that is not quite rain forest, but very pretty. We had a good game drive in the very cold morning air trying and failing to spot the elusive tigers, but seeing jackals, various types of deer, bush pigs etc. We did get to see the tigers eventually though, after paying a little extra to ride an elephant through the jungle to a spot where 5 tigers, including a larger male, were resting. Elephants must be the king of the jungle as they took us right to within a few feet of the very beautiful tigers, our elephant, the littlest but seemingly bravest of the three that were with us, even walking through the bush where the tigers were resting, driving them out into the open so we could get a better look!

Madya Pradesh much less busy than any of the other states we have visited, and as the road quality declined to earth and the trucks were replaced with very sweet bullock carts with little toggle decorations and bells, we found ourselves in the heart of rural India that we’d hoped to find, a truly magical area of forest, hills and cliffs, charming villages and very colourful and friendly locals. We spent a couple of days walking in the hills around the old British hill station of Pachmari before taking a very rough road west, which soon turned to farm track then to single path – at one point we were driving across fields – but taking us deeper into the countryside; through jungle partly but also through lots of picture perfect and pristine little villages (you can imagine the stares we got - god damn crazy westerners), the scenery often looking like a Constable painting, particularly in the soft autumnal light, and the area and its people seemingly untouched by the last few hundred years – the way of life of the subsistence farmers how most Indians still live. For four wonderful days of weaving around the area but keeping a rough westerly heading, camping in the woods amongst giant spiders webs and listening to the sounds of the ubiqitous beating drum, we popped out onto a road with a semblance of tarmac, and, at the tiny village of Chiriptola, right into a band and conga line of people celebrating something or other, which took a half hour to flow around us before we could move on. Our westerly progress through the woods speeded up on the better road, and we got to the holy town of Om Kareshwar on the holy Narmada river. Only a breif two day stay at the truly fascinating little town that is Om, as, planning to come back, we moved onto Maheshwar further down stream as Tom decided he'd like to find a telly to watch the start of the Ashes...Maheshwar another very tranquil, friendly and colourful little town with beatiful temples on the river, we moved on again after a few days, as far away from a TV as we could get..., ending up in Mandu, a small village on a plateau surrounded by hundreds of elaborate overgrown Afghan ruins in the fields, and stunning views of the surrounding ravines. Mandu, Maheswar and Om all being relatively close, we returned to Om after 5 or so days of pottering and cycling around the ruins in Mandu. With a perfect view from our room over the river to the island with its many temples that forms part of Om, we spent a week rambling around and gawping at the visual feast that charaterises the place, full of lots of temples, old and new, every type of holy man performing their various forms of Puja, well dressed goats, nicely face painted cows, hundreds and hundreds of monkeys (of two types), very freindly Sadhu's and other characters - our favourite was a tall elderly fella who seemed to spend his entire life walking in a triangle on a large step near our hotel, occassinally helping himself to a ball of Shiva bhang...he seemed a happy soul, as were we! With a lovely spot for swimming in the clean river, and great veggie food - the first real travellers fare we have had since Diu - Om had it all, but just to be sure that we capped off all the Indian experiences, Cadie got dysentry...

A speedy recovery saw us back in Mumbai a few days later, where we have left the car in a lock up until we return from NZ in Jan. With a few days spare we got the night bus down to Palolem in Goa where we are now, enjoying beach luxury before the long trip to NZ. On our return the plan is, at the moment, to ship the car straight to Dubai, before heading across the Arabian Peninsula, then across the red sea to North East Africa, then north home. So thats us done in India really. By only really concentrating on two or three of the central states, with a few exceptions we seem to have (without really meaning to), almost completely avoided the tourist scene, and had a really really wonderful time. So intensely colourful, so intensely noisy, and so fundementally different from anywhere else, coming to India, the outermost point of our trip (after Xmas we are on the return leg) has been as rich an experience as we could have hoped for.

Photos are of tigers at Pench, piper in Chiriptola, Madya Pradesh bush route, monkey with Puja flowers & well dressed Goat, Om K.