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Varsha Seshan

Mihimukh, Kaziranga

January 1, 2016 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

How different Kaziranga is from the other reserves I’ve visited! For one, you can get off the jeep in several places. In each zone, there’s a watch tower which you can climb to look at the world around you. And the zones don’t have complicated, circuitous routes. There’s no decision to make about what path to take, where to […]

Filed Under: Jungle, Travel Tagged With: forest, jeep, Kaziranga, national park, safari, sanctuary, wildlife

Back from Kaziranga

December 31, 2015 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Elephant grass. Anything could be hiding there. (A rhino, perhaps?) Huge birds that made me think of pterodactyls. (Wasn’t it enough that the word ‘rhinoceros’ tempted me to say ‘rhino-saurus’? Hog deer. (My auto response, by the way, said I was away looking at/for rhinoceroses.) Swamp deer. (I wonder … Why don’t we use the […]

Filed Under: Jungle, Travel Tagged With: jeep, national park, safari, sanctuary, wildlife

Starry, Starry Night

January 16, 2015 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

“There’s nothing in new Nagzira.” “Why don’t you go to Koka?” “It’s about 35 km from here.” “Anyway, Nagzira is closed on Thursdays.” “You could go to Koka on Thursday.” “Maybe you’ll see a sloth bear.” “Or bison.” We didn’t agree that there was nothing in new Nagzira. There were fewer animals; we did not […]

Filed Under: Jungle, Travel Tagged With: forest, gypsy, India, jeep, Koka, Nagzira, national park, safari, sanctuary, wildlife

Nagzira

January 15, 2015 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Ten days away from the city. No internet. Phone connectivity for about an hour a day. Eleven safaris into the beautiful jungle. Three leopards. A leopard making a kill: whose side are you on? The leopard’s or the fawn’s? Wild dogs in the distance. A herd of bison.   Flycatchers, thrushes, drongos, night-jars, parakeets, hoopoes. A […]

Filed Under: Jungle, Travel Tagged With: forest, jeep, leopard, Nagzira, national park, safari, sanctuary, wildlife

Gangtok!

September 1, 2014 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Rain, clouds, mist. The spectacular, fascinating Teesta river. Hot momos on the way. Welcome to Gangtok. While we were in New Jalpaiguri, I was more than a little nervous. The driver we had was aggressive and noisy, and seemed to think the road belonged to him. Would we get to Gangtok safely? The moment we […]

Filed Under: Travel Tagged With: gangtok, jeep, sikkim

Back from the Wild – Again

November 9, 2013 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Green forests. Dense. Tall grass. Just a few metres away, a tiger could be hiding and we wouldn’t even know. Anticipation is thrilling. Spider webs glinting in the sunshine. A huge black spider poised on her web eats a grasshopper. The black ibis with its red hood and impressive beak pecks away in the grass. […]

Filed Under: Jungle, Travel Tagged With: forest, jeep, national park, safari, sanctuary, tiger, wildlife

Detective!

January 6, 2013 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

From the time I was about seven, I wanted a mystery to solve every vacation. It was not fair that only Enid Blyton people (for me, they were people, not characters)  got to solve such convenient mysteries, with the additional advantage of barely getting older each time around. When our guide Vishwas started telling us […]

Filed Under: Jungle, Travel Tagged With: forest, jeep, national park, safari, sanctuary, tiger, wildlife

Surviving in the Jungle

January 4, 2013 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

Eight safaris with the same guide ensured that we became friends of sorts, and once he realised that three people out of five in the jeep understood Marathi, he opened up fifteen long years of experience to us. One fascinating safari was devoted to attacks by different animals, and how to save yourself. “If a […]

Filed Under: Jungle, Travel Tagged With: bear, forest, jeep, national park, safari, sanctuary, Tadoba, tiger, wild boar, wildlife

Nagarahole

November 28, 2012 by Varsha Seshan Leave a Comment

It was not the first time we were going to a wildlife sanctuary. We had been to Kanha and we loved it. The idea of going into the jungle once more was thrilling. Safaris in jeeps, the quiet anticipation of a tiger’s approach and the sudden sight of a wild boar or a peacock hiding […]

Filed Under: Jungle, Travel Tagged With: jeep, Kabini, Nagarahole, national park, safari, sanctuary, wildlife