Recently I had some foreigners who had come to India. It was their first trip to the country and like most foreign tourists they were keen on visiting Rajasthan and a Tiger Sanctuary. I just happened to have a few days to spare so I decided to take them on a little road trip to hit two birds with one stone. Ranthombore National Park happens to be in the maharaja state, so the plan was to head to Pushkar, then Ranthambore and finally end in Jaipur. We left on an early Thursday morning and hit NH8 with a goal to head directly to the village town of Pushkar. I had been there before and don’t find much interest in the city, but I wanted to oblige my guests. Luckily there was minimal traffic and we by-passed the pink city to reach Pushkar just after noon. My friends were ecstatic and loved the country side, the barren land and the local madness. We checked into a small hotel, of which I have forgotten the name, had a quick lunch and headed out to check the city. The main bazaar area was their favorite spot, mainly because of the shopping and the beautifully dressed Rajasthani women, decked in their traditional clothing. It was however unbearably hot for my friends and so after a quick tour we headed back just before the sun set to enjoy a beautiful dinner at a camp resort on a small dune area. The next day at the break of dawn we organized a small camel safari, which I would rather call a camel ride, mainly because the camels walked on the roads the whole time, for me it was boring but again I had to please my guests.

Now the fun part for me began as well, as we packed up and headed towards Rathambore. The drive from Pushkar to Ranthombore was amazing. I had never taken this route before which consisted of many back roads along some marvelous country side of Rajasthan. We crossed Ajmer and found nice back road through the villages of Sarwar, Kekri and Deoli before we caught NH12 to head back up towards the city of Tonk. From here we took NH 116 heading east towards Aligarh before finally arriving at Sawai Madhopur from where we needed to make our reservations and reserve a Jeep for ourselves to enter into the park. The back roads proved to be marvelous as we criss-crossed through the princely state and managed to reach Ranthambore in about 6 hours. We checked into the Tiger Den Resort, had a nice supper and prepared for our safari the next day. I was just as excited as my friends because I am always in love with nature.

The next morning we are up at 5am and ready for a safari. The entrance to the park makes you feel like you are a character in The Jungle Book cartoon, the high plateau and steep cliffs engulf the thick forest from where you enter through a fort gate. It was really amazing. The wildlife we saw mainly consisted of a variety of deer, although we did manage to spot wild boar and a fox. The tiger however was no where to be found and when we took the evening safari again, we were out of luck. However, we did enjoy every bit of the safari and the lovely jungle which we found ourselves in. The day went by quick and we were very tired and so we spent the night and headed out the next day for Jaipur. We caught NH 12 and reached Jaipur in the afternoon. We decided to have a nice lunch and head back for Delhi because we were exhausted from being in the car, after all we had covered almost 1000km in three days. So we headed back to Delhi, and it turned out we had a wonderful time, and I was happy to give my friends an experience they will never ever forget.