A short (for India) 2 hour train ride from Jaipur took us to Sawai Madhopur – and an Indian lady expressed surprise and questioned why we were getting off there. A scruffy, dusty place like this wouldn’t ordinarily receive any tourist attention, but this particular dusty & scruffy place is special – it is home to Rathambhore National Park, supposedly one of the best places in the world to see Bengal Tigers in the wild.

We knew that we would visit Ranthambhore at some point on our trip, but it wasn’t until 3-4 weeks prior to arrival that we finalised dates and Debbie tried to book safaris. Oops – it turns out they are released 3 months in advance and sell out immediately. After trying a few places without success, she found a recommendation for a guy called Ramsingh Ranthambore (probably not his real surname!) based at the Anantvan Resort. He confirmed that spaces were indeed sold out for our dates but that he should be able to get ‘on the day’ availability. We sent across copies of our passports, reserved 3 nights at his hotel and asked him to book us 2 safaris – one morning, one afternoon, or whatever he could get. So we were arriving at a safari destination, that has nothing else going for it, not knowing whether we’d be going into the National Park or not. Oh well, there was a pool at the resort, we could always have a couple of days of R&R (and sulking like hell) if not.

Anantvan was around 20Km from the station, and 10Km from the National Park, so a little isolated (or peaceful and away from the chaos depending on your perspective) – but very well rated and reasonably good value for this understandably expensive area, at £80/night including breakfast and dinner. The hotel itself was OK – decent facilities and a big room, but quite tired and in need of refurbishment – but the service was exceptional, probably the best we’ve experienced in India, and the main driver of that service was Ramsingh himself.

Each morning at 10am a very limited number of seats are released for that afternoon and the following morning – just 20 seats per zone. True to his word, Ramsingh managed to secure us places for Zone 2 (one of the very best) for the following morning and he would try the next day to get us another safari. Phew!

Rathambhore has 10 zones, not physically segregated but specific routes to which vehicles are assigned. Zones 1-5 are the originals, of which zones 2,3 and 4 (in that order) are considered to be the best for tiger sightings. Zones 6-10 are newer ‘buffer’ zones and it’s FAR less common to spot a tiger there. If you can’t get onto a vehicle in zones 1-5 and want to see a tiger, it’s probably not worth bothering in all honesty. And even in the ‘best’ zones nothing is guaranteed as there are only around 60 tigers in Ranthambhore, and spread over 515 square miles.

There are 2 types of safari vehicles – Gypsy (6 seat jeep) and Canter – with the jeeps being the most popular and selling out instantly. For a single seat in a shared vehicle there isn’t much difference in price – at Ransingh’s prices a jeep seat was Rs 4500 (just over £40) and a canter seat Rs 3500 (just over £30), both exceptional value for a 3+ hour safari. Jeeps are available for exclusive hire too for over £400. Many people insist that the jeep is the only way to go, but the reality is that the canters cover exactly the same terrain and are higher off the ground so arguably give a better view. Perhaps a jeep is more likely to pander to the wishes of the smaller number of passengers though e.g. stay at certain spots vs covering more terrain. For us there was no choice anyway – only canters were available on the daily seat release, there was zero chance of a jeep.

Secure in the knowledge we had a safari seat for a 05.45 pick up the following morning we went for dinner, discovering that we were the only guests in the 24 room hotel in the middle of nowhere. No matter, an intimate meal for 2 with the attentive staff providing a banquet of 7 delicious dishes just for us, and cold cans of Kingfisher available (albeit at a price!).

In the morning our fleece jackets made an appearance for only the 2nd time in India for the pre-dawn start. The safari meeting point was organised chaos, but our taxi driver knew which canter was ours, our passports were checked, we took the back seats and were off into the park. One of the tour group we’d met at polo in Jaipur had said that she’d found the safaris too bumpy so hadn’t bothered going on her 2nd scheduled one – unbelievable that people pass up the opportunity to see the magnificent tigers, but also deprive others of doing so and just let a seat go to waste. She wasn’t wrong though, it was VERY bumpy!

There’s more to Ranthambhore than tigers!

As we were driving back along the track, Debbie was looking to the side and suddenly a tiger appeared right next to us, crossing right in front of the canter within a metre or so. Much excitement followed, with everyone (except the kid) standing up to get a look or take a picture/video of the amazing creature – absolutely huge, stunningly beautiful and very graceful. After observing for a while we moved on, and there in the trees was another coming towards us, passing in front of the canter and walking down the track ahead of us. We later learned that this was the most famous creature in Ranthambhore – the tigress Arrowhead. She had a lump on her hind quarter, and was quite thin – and Ramsingh later told us that she was around 15 years old (pretty much the limit of life expectancy of a Bengal Tiger in the wild), was now too old/weak to hunt so her latest cubs were helping to provide her with food, that she was not long for this world and would probably die within the next few weeks. Her cubs are almost 2 years old and would normally have left their mother by now, but they are sticking around to look after her as best they can. Terribly sad to see, but that’s nature and Ranthambhore is not a zoo. Apparently when she dies, the park rangers will give her a proper send off and cremation though. And a bit later we saw another tiger (we think a cub) chewing happily on a bone, and behind the tree was its mother. Again, pretty close up so some decent pics were possible using just our phones. We think we saw 5 or 6 tigers in total – almost unheard of – as it turned out that Riddhi (daughter of Arrowhead) and her 3 cubs had come to visit Zone 2 from their usual Zone 3 territory. Perhaps they’d come to say their goodbyes to mother/grandmother Arrowhead?

Once we returned to phone signal range, Debbie’s phone was pinging away with Ramsingh excitedly WhatsApp-ing to report that it’d been a VERY VERY good morning in Zone 2! When we arrived back at the hotel for breakfast he was beyond excited to hear about it and view our photos and videos, and before long had posted Steve’s video of poor old Queen Arrowhead onto his own Facebook account for his 7,500 followers to view.

More guests had arrived at the hotel so after a relaxing afternoon by the pool we had an excellent buffet dinner, again with 7 or so dishes, but confusingly the desert placed 2nd from the end. Luckily we didn’t put the milk and vermicelli pudding on our plates alongside curry!

A bit of a lie in the following morning, breakfast is 0900 – 1100 to fit around safari returnees, and then the tense wait for 1000 to see whether Ramsingh would be successful again with tickets for that afternoon’s safari. We had debated not bothering as we’d be unlikely to be as successful as on our 1st safari, and it was going to cost around £70 including transfers – but we decided that (1) it’s like diving, if you don’t do that dive you’ll never know what you might have seen, (2) £70 is a bargain compared to African safaris and (3) we’ve come all this way, don’t be stupid. We got tickets for a canter in Zone 4 – Debbie had really wanted Zone 2 again or 3 but beggars can’t be choosers, and Ramsingh had told us how hard he’d had to push to get a decent zone as only 6-10 had apparently been available. So after a relaxing morning by the pool, off we went.

Zone 4 terrain was totally different to Zone 2 – far more spectacular, with thousands of seemingly dead trees (no rain for 6 months, they will spring back into life when monsoon arrives in June/July), dried up river beds, a high plateau with lakes and far more sambar deer than we’d seen the previous day. They were lying in the woods, wading in the water, grazing by the lakeshore and Steve commented that they were far too relaxed for a tiger to be around. We did see a crocodile by the lakeside, and a young deer wandering perilously close to it, stopping to take a look and thankfully continuing on its way unharmed. We stopped a few times alongside static jeeps with serious-looking photographers who were putting all their eggs in the basket of a single location, but to no avail. There were no tigers spotted in Zone 4 that afternoon as apparently they were all still on their goodbye visit to Queen Arrowhead in Zone 2. The Italian ladies at our hotel had seen one distant tiger in Zone 3 that morning, but 4 in Zone 2 that afternoon. On balance we did better than we could’ve imagined and it was a fabulous experience, mostly made possible by Ramsingh obtaining the tickets. Our top tip – if you are going to Ranthambhore, make sure your safari is already booked/included and if it’s not get it booked 3 months out (or find a great contact like Ramsingh)

So that’s the end of our time in Rajasthan and we are crossing the border into the state of Uttar Pradesh next, heading for the city of Agra. Taj Mahal, here we come….