We took a night train from Varanasi to Jabalpur.  Shortly after leaving the Ghats, we realized that you can take Wendy out of Varanasi, but it’s a little more difficult to take Varanasi out of Wendy. She got sick multiple times on the train ride to Jabalpur.

So, instead of the 8 hour bus ride we were supposed to take into the National Park, we got soft and got a car and driver to take us to our hotel, the Mogli Resort.  We called them from the train and they had a driver waiting to take us ($40).  It was a very, very welcome relief!

Mogli Resort wasn’t really a resort, but it was a very comfortable hotel.  Unfortunately the room wasn’t heated. Thankfully, the hotel lent us a hot air heater because it was very, very cold at nights.  The big room didn’t help – the tiny heater really couldn’t keep up.

We went to see the tigers 3 times.   We left the hotel at 5AM every morning for a very, very cold open-air drive into the park.  Basically, the way it works is that they drive you around in circles in a jeep for a couple of hours, supposedly looking for tigers.  In the meantime, mahoots are out on elephants actually tracking the tigers… 

They park you at the Educational Center/Rest Stop in the park.  Theoretically it’s so you can go to the bathroom (don’t.  That’s all we’ll say.  Just don’t).  You can also have tea either from your  packed lunch or bought there and they sell snacks too (including Parle Gs which are very, very bland biscuits and about all Wendy was eating at that point!)  Really, it’s where you wait for your driver to be radioed that it’s your turn.  So, unfortunately, a lot of our visit was spent here, waiting for it to be our turn to go and see the ‘tiger show’.

Anyhow, while you’ve been driving around in the jeep and waiting at the Educational Center the mahoots have located the tigers.  Once they find them, they stick the tourists on elephant and walk them out to see the tigers where they have decided to have a mid-morning rest.  (The elephants looked well cared for, in contrast to elephants we saw at other tourist sites in India and we felt comfortable with the way they were being treated.)  

So it’s a bit of a Disney experience.  But who cares – we saw tigers, in the wild, on elephant back.  They are so elegant and graceful when they are walking around!  It was a magical experience and worth all the problems we’d had trying to get to Kanha.

After our turn on the elephants we had some more time in the jeep.  We drove around and saw a bunch of other animals, and some pretty scenery, too.  During our three jeep trips into the park we managed to see gaur, jackals, white spotted deer, peacocks (they were everywhere!) loads of Languor monkeys, Sambar deer and wild pigs.