From Shimla we were off to Rathombore Tiger reserve. A box canyon, which years ago was sealed and stocked with game to act as the personal hunting ground for the Maharaja of the time. Now it is a tiger reserve.

This was one of the all time heroic journeys which in retrospect looks like it was planned with clockwork precision. (Just quietly it all happened accidentally). We arrived bleary eyed at the station near Rathambore, Suwai Matapore, at 6am. We got a tuk-tuk to the tourist centre and discovered free spots on the morning tour. So we hoped onto our converted mini bus and headed into the bush.

As soon as we were in the park our tracker picked up the trail of a mother tiger and cub as well as those of a sloth bear. I use the word tracker loosely; the tracks were so perfectly imprinted into the sandy road Kahlia believed them to be fake.

Initially we were very positive about a sighting. There were tracks everywhere and monkeys where giving there tiger danger call all around us. We never got to see the mother tiger and cub or the sloth bear. After a lot of driving around and a spotting a lot of deer and the endangered Indian Antelope we still hadn’t found our tiger.

A little further up the road Kahlia yelled “Tiger!” (I told you our tracker was useless), sure enough a young male was stalking a herd of dear metres away. Our sudden arrival or Kahlia’s shriek startled the dear and the tiger was off. After a few seconds of half hearted chasing the tiger stopped and flung a disgusted look towards Kahlia. No breakfast that morning for our young feline.

After that we stopped at a dam and saw a pair of crocodiles and some beautiful bird life before heading back to the gate. We saw our hungry tiger again on the way back as well as another tiger sleeping under a tree.

When we where back we decided that we had fulfilled our tiger urges for this trip and would attempt to get to Jaipur on an afternoon train. We successfully got on a local train and made it to Jaipur before sunset. In just 36 hours we had seen tigers, 3 cities and sat in trains for 20 hours. Not something I would repeat; but satisfying in its efficiency.