Safari in Panna National Park

We are back from Panna and our computer time is running out, so before it does, I wanted to blog about it.  First of all, to our surprise, we were picked up at the hotel in a jeep safari vehicle instead of riding to Panna with our driver.  Our jungle safari driver opened the back of the jeep and we sat on bench seats facing each other in the back of the vehicle.  He had the cover on it for the 35 minute ride over there and back but took the cover off when we were in the park.  It was a wild ride as the roads are so bad!  I worried about Jim's back but he managed just fine.  At the park, we picked up a safari guide as well and together the two of them spotted the wildlife.  To be honest, we didn't see an enormous amount of wildlife, though we did see a lot of birds. We saw spotted deer and blue bull antelopes, wild hogs, peacocks, crocidiles, the monkeys that are so cute, and sambur (deer).  All these are common from what we can tell and will be like impalas were in Africa the first time. But it was still fun to see them for the first time.  And I saw a lot of european roller birds which are gorgeous, and also, the plum headed parakeets that I had wanted to see. It was a wild ride and lots of fun and the park was beautiful with a lot of teak trees and wonderful smells.  It was a great start to our wildlife adventure! We got out just at full darkness and rode back on the bumpy road at night and it was a pretty scary adventure with the potholes and the people walking and the crazy roads. Let's just say I felt better in a car with a seat belt than in the back of a jeep riding sideways and trying to hold on! 
Tomorrow we had to the big national park where there are the most tigers.  Surely hope we will see one. At any rate, we will be looking and having fun for sure.