A TRIP TO REMEMBER

I have never gone to any adventure trip until we decided to go on one to the jim Corbett park Before leaving for Jim Corbett National Park I was quite skeptical of wild life. An area which I had never explored previously in my life.
Hmmmm………..A fine trip to jim Corbett……………have heard a lot …. Very excited………amused, over excited ……. Wondering... how will it be, what will we see, oh god I will really see wild animal , must be like they showed in kaal movie (so many questions..phewww)
Anyways everything was chalked out presumably on schedule, that, by far we should reach in 8 hrs for a Six hour journey from the capital of the country at max, but I should realize things generally do not turn out as we all presume them to be and in this case we took a shocking 12 hrs to reach our destination.
Anyways it does happen but in the end we did reach, got unpacked and slept early to get up early next morning at the crack of the dawn.
So at 5:30 in the morning we leave for jim Corbett from ramnagar through roads meandering through the forest .
the journey through the dark lanes made me more excited for the supposedly unforgettable tour,
and so we reach our presumed entry ………………..but no ……..how could it be and in this case we have reached to the place 20 kms ahead of where we were supposed to enter ,
ok ok .. we did not know , we are new to the place . excuses crops up and we rush back asking everyone coming in our way whether we are going in the right direction now, finally making it to the main entry of BIJRANI one of the nine entrances to this vast more than 85 km spread jim Corbett park .
after getting the clearances, and the guide we begin our journey through the meandering pathways and the bending curves of the forest and flowing perennial river , over the boulders into the forest along the wild vegetation , not knowing what we will see, but the glimmering sunlight falling on the misty forest ensures that we will see something beautiful , unknown , a term “natural beauty” in its full bloom .

the journey begins with the volley of questions to our guide …………………………
bhaiya , what is there in jim Corbett that makes it special ,
bhaiya , what are our chances to see the tigers,
bhaiyaa, bhaiya , bhaiya ….. the question keep cropping up and our respective bhaiya jee is smart enough to give great bouncers one after other , beta ji .. tourist ask us what are the stories of jim Corbett and I say sabjee…. U are going to experience a journey, and u never know when u return maybe u will have ur own story to tell………..wow
all along the guide is showing us, telling us to look this way and the other (pheww so much to catch up ) the pugmarks of tiger , elephant , look there are the footprints of the tiger he walked here last evening , do click .
asking us question there is a log and if an elephant come what will u do , get scared no no no need becoz they are intelligent to divert there direction on seeing a log . ok sir point taken ,,,, but guide ji its been 1 hour into the forest and we have not seen a single bird leave alone a animal ,
“are they scared of the cars”.
Guide: “no madam they are more accustomed to vehicles than the local villagers residing on the periphery of the forest , have patience , we will get to know if there are sightings”“

Patience , patience ……………..wading of with each passing moment
Over the whole journey the most exciting thing we were able to experience were the journey atop the watch tower (a rather shaky one )
The monkey skull placed atop a stone especially by our esteemed guide and fortunately a get together of Indian langur and the spotted deer family .
It so happened that whenever we reached a place where there were several other jeeps , we would come to know : “ are re u folks are late we just spotted a tigress with her two cubs”oh no we missed them and our guide would say its ok we shall see it be PATIENT .
Ok patience .. a hard test of patience,
the meandering bends are now just another road , our driver jokes “it seems to be a boulder forest than a wildlife reserve”
nearly 3.5 hrs into the forest and I have just seen deers and lagur and that too I can count them on my fingers nothing more.and our guide replies in a very humble manner madam yahan to hiran bhi tiger ko dekhe bina jeewan nikal dete hain aap to sirf 4 ghante k liye aaye hain , or bhalu to yahan 4 saalon se nahin dikha .
Elephant at least a wild tusker and his hoard any where , please at least that much , and eureka we do see a elephant but sadly a tamed one used by some of the visitors to experience the journey through the sanctuary

Thatz it there is nothing else to see and our time limit is over, why is that, oh god.
my dad is so frustrated that he decide to go to delhi zoo on his way to work on Monday , but I calm myself down by clicking at the painted picture of tiger and elephant on one of the walls of the rest house , plus bringing back mementos from the gift shopfor the colleagues as a sole proof of I have visited the JIM CORBETT PARK
On the way back to delhi next day I happened to see camels, wild macaque, elephant, some farm animals, walking on the roads , in the farms , tamed, making me think that man has intervened so much into the natural existence of animals that there natural existence seems to be devoid of them .
Will I go back there again .. and the answer is yes , I hope to see them next time the only key is to keep the PATIENCE .