Wildlife Tours to North India CENTRAL INDIA
Photo: Tiger (Nick Garbutt).
| Tour Ref. | Days | Dates | Party Size |
Cost |
Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ID1/10 | 13 | Thursday 4th to Tuesday 16th February 2010 | 11 plus leader | Est. £2895 (*£275) | To be advised |
*Single room supplement.
Est. cost: let us know if you are interested and we will inform you as soon as we have final details on price.
Tour Destinations :
- Delhi
- Agra
- Bandhavgarh
- Kanha National Park
Tour Summary
Central India
This tour has been designed as the ideal
introduction to India for travellers visiting the country for the first time or wishing to return to see arguably some of its most impressive sights. It combines visits to game parks which offer excellent opportunities to see the most sought after mammal, the Tiger, with an opportunity to experience the historical and cultural delights of Delhi and Agra.
We begin in Delhi where a tour of this bustling city is sure to impress and excite the senses. Travelling on to Agra, we see probably India’s most well-known building, the hauntingly beautiful Taj Mahal, along with the very impressive Red Fort. After our cultural introduction to the country an overnight train journey transfers us south to two exceptional game parks, Bandhavgarh and Kanha, the latter of which provided the inspiration for Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. These parks, lying in the heart of India, are two of the best places to look for Tiger. They incorporate a mixture of sal and bamboo forests and grassy meadows and are also home to large numbers of grazing animals and a significant diversity of birds. Chital, Wild Boar, the enormous Guar, Barasingha (Swamp Deer), Indian Muntjac, Jungle Cat, Golden Jackal and Hanuman Langur are all present as is the very elusive Leopard. Bird life is prolific in the parks and we can anticipate a wide variety of species including cormorants, egrets,herons, storks, eagles, vultures, lapwings, parakeets, cuckoos, owls, kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, woodpeckers, wagtails, prinias, mynas, starlings, orioles and drongos.
The tour guarantees to give you some unforgettable experiences of the best that India has to offer.
Itinerary
Day 1 : We depart in the evening on our overnight flight to Delhi
Day 2 : On arrival in Delhi, we will transfer to our hotel before taking a tour of Old Delhi which will include the Red Fort, Raj Ghat and Jama Masjid.
Day 3 : An early morning train journey will take us to Agra where on arrival we will visit Fatehpur Sikri, with the remainder of the day to relax.
Day 4 : We will make a dawn visit to the incomparable Taj Mahal before going on to the Red Fort. In the late afternoon, we will join the Kalinga Uktal Express for an overnight journey to Umaria. Although the journey is a long one, it is preferable to fly/drive arrangements, which involve unacceptably long and difficult road journeys. By contrast, the air conditioned coaches on the train, where everyone will have a fold down seat/bed, and all necessary bedding, is a much more relaxing experience.
Days 5, 6 and 7 : On arrival in Umaria in the early morning of Day 5, we will transfer to Bandhavgarth for a three night stay. We can rest, take lunch and enjoy our first game drive in the afternoon. This compact Park covering 470 sq km (180 sq miles), holds a wide variety of both birds and mammals. There is still a healthy Tiger population and you have a fair chance of seeing this elusive big cat. There will be further game drives on Days 6 and 7, in the early morning and late afternoon, by open jeep and on riding elephant which will be escorted by trained naturalists.
Much of the Park is covered in sal forest, with mixed forest in the higher areas. There are also extensive areas of bamboo and grassland. The 250 plus bird species in the Park include Golden-fronted Leafbird, Brown Fish Owl and Malabar Pied Hornbill. The thirty mammal species include Sloth Bear, Leopard, Rhesus Macaque, Chital, Sambar, Wild Boar and Jungle Cat.
Days 8, 9, 10 and 11 : Kanha National Park
After an early morning game drive in Bandhavgarh we will drive the 325 km (200 miles) to Kanha National Park, taking packed lunches and drinks, and arriving late afternoon. Kanha provided Kipling with the inspiration for his evocative Jungle Books – and it is easy to see why – the Park is a sublime mixture of sal and bamboo forests, with large areas of grassland and some marshes that support a wealth of wildlife.
During our four-night stay there will be morning and afternoon game drives, plus elephant rides, when appropriate, in this beautiful area — all escorted by experienced local naturalist guides. Kanha is another Project Tiger reserve and deserves its reputation as arguably India’s finest national park, and one of the best administered in Asia. The diversity of mammals is impressive. It is a good place to look for predators like Tiger, Leopard, Sloth Bear, Dhole (Indian Wild Dog) and Jungle Cat, as well as more unusual herbivores like the shy Gaur (Indian Boar), Four-horned Antelope (Chausingha), Barking Deer (Muntjac) and Barasingha (Swamp Deer). The bird list is equally impressive, with over 260 species – often seen are Greater Racket-tailed Drongo, Scarlet Minivet and Red Junglefowl.
Day 12 : After breakfast we will begin our journey home with a drive to Nagpur where we will connect with our flight to Delhi and onwards to the UK
Day 13 : We will arrive back in the UK early in the morning following our overnight flight.