From temples to the great outdoors
Today we rode from Khajuraho to the national park where we will be staying for the next four nights. It was not as grueling drive as the previous one but the roads would vary from ok to horrible so that sometimes we could go no more than 5 MPH. It took us 6 hours to get here and I have to say, that the Treetops where we are staying is VERY remote. I thought I had seen remote before but this rivals any place we have stayed for being out in the middle of nowhere. It is an unbelievable experience. Some is good, some not so good but it is all very interesting! Right now, there are only 3 guests here at the Treetops, us and a wonderful lady from England named Jean who shares our safaris with us. She has been here 4 times and says it is her favorite place.
We barely had time when we arrived to put our things in our room before we had to leave on our safari. We are in treehouse #1 known as Mahua tree, for the type of tree it is built in. The treehouse is spacious and all “green” , has a lovely deck and is all handmade and just different from anywhere we have ever stayed. It is showing a bit of wear but despite the rustic feel, it is a wonderful experience.
I am writing this on Wednesday morning now and have to share a funny event. In the middle of the night, Jim got up to use the loo and fell, he grabbed the toilet and slid it off it’s base and water went everywhere. We tried to decide whether this was an “emergency’ worthy of calling the one number you can dial on the phone in the room…..then decided it was not. It was quite a mess and at like 2 AM it had us both laughing so hard. Luckily, no damage was done to Jim or the bathroom in the long run as they had it all cleaned and fixed back when we returned from our morning safari.
It was cold last night and this morning but when the sun comes up, it quickly warms up. By the time the safari is over at 10:30 , it is back to short sleeved weather. But for the morning safari we layered with everything we had and it felt good when the wind was zipping at us in the open vehicle.
We had no nightly visitors but our English friend Jean has lovely rats of some sort in her room and they got in her suitcase and ate some vitamins she had in there. Glad we don’t have her treehouse! I heard nothing last night except for the warning call of the deer about 2 AM when we were having our adventure. I have to say, we wanted an adventure and this trip is surely turning out to be one!
There was also a funny on me last night. The shower is out in the open in the bathroom, just on boards and I could not figure how to get the shower to stay on. I could push the obvious button and it would come on but as soon as I let the button go, it stopped. So I had a great time twisting and turning to get the soap off while I was holding that button down! Jim told me later that you had to turn the button after you pushed it. Who knew?
The safaris are great fun. They are very different from African safaris. We have our naturalist Karan and a naturalist from the Park in our vehicle. In Africa, it is easy to spot the animals. Even in Botswana and all which had a lot of vegetation, it was relatively easy to spot animals because of their size. And elephant, a giraffe, a zebra-those are pretty easy to spot. Here the guides really have to know their stuff and use their ears as well as their eyes to really hone in on where the animals might be. Last night we saw very few animals-a few spotted deer, sambar, wild chickens (this is where chickens originated…) peacocks, wild hogs, blue bucks, and some nice birds. No signs of cats anywhere of any kind. Jean acted like we had seen a lot as it was more than what she saw yesterday morning. Hmmm. This is not boding well for us. They are not doing the elephant ride to see the tigers upclose like we had read about. That would not be the same as finding one yourself up close, but at least we’d see one and that was a pretty good guarantee we could get to see one anyway. I have really been shocked at how little wildlife there is and how hard it is to find it. I photographed a big spider. I was desperate!
Today we rode from Khajuraho to the national park where we will be staying for the next four nights. It was not as grueling drive as the previous one but the roads would vary from ok to horrible so that sometimes we could go no more than 5 MPH. It took us 6 hours to get here and I have to say, that the Treetops where we are staying is VERY remote. I thought I had seen remote before but this rivals any place we have stayed for being out in the middle of nowhere. It is an unbelievable experience. Some is good, some not so good but it is all very interesting! Right now, there are only 3 guests here at the Treetops, us and a wonderful lady from England named Jean who shares our safaris with us. She has been here 4 times and says it is her favorite place.
We barely had time when we arrived to put our things in our room before we had to leave on our safari. We are in treehouse #1 known as Mahua tree, for the type of tree it is built in. The treehouse is spacious and all “green” , has a lovely deck and is all handmade and just different from anywhere we have ever stayed. It is showing a bit of wear but despite the rustic feel, it is a wonderful experience.
I am writing this on Wednesday morning now and have to share a funny event. In the middle of the night, Jim got up to use the loo and fell, he grabbed the toilet and slid it off it’s base and water went everywhere. We tried to decide whether this was an “emergency’ worthy of calling the one number you can dial on the phone in the room…..then decided it was not. It was quite a mess and at like 2 AM it had us both laughing so hard. Luckily, no damage was done to Jim or the bathroom in the long run as they had it all cleaned and fixed back when we returned from our morning safari.
It was cold last night and this morning but when the sun comes up, it quickly warms up. By the time the safari is over at 10:30 , it is back to short sleeved weather. But for the morning safari we layered with everything we had and it felt good when the wind was zipping at us in the open vehicle.
We had no nightly visitors but our English friend Jean has lovely rats of some sort in her room and they got in her suitcase and ate some vitamins she had in there. Glad we don’t have her treehouse! I heard nothing last night except for the warning call of the deer about 2 AM when we were having our adventure. I have to say, we wanted an adventure and this trip is surely turning out to be one!
There was also a funny on me last night. The shower is out in the open in the bathroom, just on boards and I could not figure how to get the shower to stay on. I could push the obvious button and it would come on but as soon as I let the button go, it stopped. So I had a great time twisting and turning to get the soap off while I was holding that button down! Jim told me later that you had to turn the button after you pushed it. Who knew?
The safaris are great fun. They are very different from African safaris. We have our naturalist Karan and a naturalist from the Park in our vehicle. In Africa, it is easy to spot the animals. Even in Botswana and all which had a lot of vegetation, it was relatively easy to spot animals because of their size. And elephant, a giraffe, a zebra-those are pretty easy to spot. Here the guides really have to know their stuff and use their ears as well as their eyes to really hone in on where the animals might be. Last night we saw very few animals-a few spotted deer, sambar, wild chickens (this is where chickens originated…) peacocks, wild hogs, blue bucks, and some nice birds. No signs of cats anywhere of any kind. Jean acted like we had seen a lot as it was more than what she saw yesterday morning. Hmmm. This is not boding well for us. They are not doing the elephant ride to see the tigers upclose like we had read about. That would not be the same as finding one yourself up close, but at least we’d see one and that was a pretty good guarantee we could get to see one anyway. I have really been shocked at how little wildlife there is and how hard it is to find it. I photographed a big spider. I was desperate!
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