Date: Dec 3rd to 5th, 2023.
This trip has been full of unfortunate things from the start to the end. Read the full story to know.
Earlier my plan was to do a final trip of the year of 8 days to Nagpur, then Pench National Park and finally Kanha National Park however, my dear friend Gopal (we worked together in Pramati) insisted to do only 2 day trip as he doesn't want to do a solo trip, this made us to do Tadoba national forrest safari instead.
Unfortunate Situation 1: We booked an independent cottage a week before, unfortunately couple of days before when I called the resort they could not confirm it as they double booked the room. The resort gave us a non independent cottage that I would say the room was not that great compared to the independent one.
Unfortunate Situation 2: Gopal started from Hyderabad at 4:30AM riding his Triumph and I started at 5AM my Harley Davidson. We are supposed to meet at Karimnagar and head towards Tadoba. I reached around 6:30AM and waiting for Gopal. Upon not seeing him by 7:15 AM I decided to give him a call but of no use After some calls someone else picked up the number and mentioned that Gopal has fell down on the way and he could not lift his left land as he has shoulder fracture. I was making some calls to get some help however, after sometime Gopal called and said he decided to go back home to Hyderabad with someone help. This made me to decide to move on with the trip as Gopal is ok and had minor fracture. Apparently he was not in good shape which I dont want to mention the full details here. On the hind sight I should have gone back to take care of him.
Roads from Manchirial to the border of Maharastra are amazing, I am surprised speed limit is 100 here. Once I hit Maharastra, as usual the roads are terrible. As with my first trip to Maharastra, I had terrible experience with roads and people, this time also turned out to be the some what similar experience in terms of the roads.
Once I reached the Agarzari gate of the forest, there were good number of people excited to see safari. With in 20 minutes I could start the safari and in 5 minutes we saw a massive Tiger crossing the road in front of our jeep. It was first time experience so I was super excited to see the tiger. We had pleasure to see it for 20 minutes and then it went into the bushes. We spotted dears, elks, peacocks, a wild boar, monkeys, crockdiles and wild chickens. The forest is full of bamboos trees so difficult to spot animals inside. There are wide varieties of birds as well, overall the safari was good.
Its amazing that these animals are so beautiful where they dont take showers but just groming. And we humans inspite of bathing, cleaning and makeup still do not look good.
Various birds:
Unfortunate Situation 3: After the safari, decided to head back to the resort. Unfortunately the bike would not start as the battery is completely drained off. To my surprise there are no jump cables to start the bike also. It got dark pretty quickly and I am running out of ideas. I contacted the resort folks and they assured that they will some how sort it out in the tomorrow morning. Finally I decided to tag along with someone else to go back to the resort.
The next day I asked the resort folks about any way to start the bike, they thought of attaching the jeep battery to the terminals of Harley which I insisted not to do as it doesn't work that way. So again I was worried as what to do.
Anyway I went to safari to do another round and this time I saw leopard. It was great experience as it was walking on the forest road for 500 meters and we could enjoy it. I asked my neighbouring couple who was travelling from London to share some of the photos taken as he has really good camera. Luckily he shared and majority of the photos are from the photos taken by him.
My safari jeep fellow mates:
Leopard:
After the safari, I asked couple of tourists for jumper cables to fix the bike but there was no help so I decided to take the battery and go to the nearby city Chandrapur to charge the battery and stay overnight there. The next day morning I came back plugged the battery and relived to see the bike working. Everyone of the forest workers were so happy, we took couple of photos and I headed back home.. One thing I should mention is that the service members of the resort helped me by understanding my situation and in helping me commuting back and forth in fixing the bike.
Unfortunate situations 4: On the way back the final unfortunate things started to unravel. After travelling around 150kms, suddenly my bike getting turned off in the middle of the road and I dont know why. I see all the electric signals are ok, confused I went on. After it stopped multiple times I called up my mechanic and he mentioned that there could be bad petrol. Imagine bike getting turned off on the fastest lane and one has to go the shoulder side to stop while travelling in traffic places. Indian drivers are particularly known for bad driving. This happened almost like 15 to 20 times particularly whenever I switch to lower gear.
Anyway I reached home and checked with my friend. He is in the hospital and his condition now is ok. Planing to visit Gopal in couple of days.
