For the birds

Everyone was up and ready for a early breakfast this morning. The restaurant manager was very attentive today. After I put my toast in the conveyor he made me sit down and then brought the toast to me. Then he produced a bucket of pastries and muffins for the car trip today. There was about an hour free once we had eaten and packed so we decided to take advantage of as many hotel amenities as possible. The grounds are full of peacocks and pigeons, and great flocks of them fly away as you approach. We managed to fit in table tennis, a game of pool and a hilarious game of croquet. One of the groundsmen showed us how to play and stayed with us for the game, helping, encouraging and laughing at our triumphs and failures. The game took a little too long so we had to abandon it with Flynn in the lead. Our first stop was Dera Amer, a sustainable farming enterprise with tourism offerings. They have rescued some elephants from the town and we were able to feed them, wash them, paint a small design on the trunk and then ride through the forest for about 20 minutes. They like to be scrubbed very hard and after the boys first tentative goes the mahout kept encouraging them to scrub “harder, harder”. It was incredibly peaceful on our elephant ride -a stark contrast to the noise of the city. We ambled along accompanied by only the creak of the Howdah harness, the clicks of the mahout to the elephant and the tree leaves rustling in the breeze. We saw peacocks, monkeys and a couple of antelopes as well as the ubiquitous cows and goats. They served us a lunch where all the vegetables has been grown on their farm, followed by gulab jamin, a semolina pudding and a cup of the best black tea I have ever had. Campbell had an odd experience where the birds kept swooping him and dropping sticks on him. I thought they might like the look of his hair, with the blond bits a big contrast to the dark hair they usually see. We climbed back on our bus, a bit snoozy for the drive to Ranthambore. It was a long bumpy drive and the sun was hot through the windows of our little bus. We are getting a bit better at understanding our driver and we correctly interpreted his direction to look at the cow pats drying on the roof of the houses, the giant shiva and monkey god statues, and the rice growing in the fields. Hi-vis orange and saffron yellow are the colours of choice for saris in this area and we could have taken many many picturesque photos showing the contrast of the sari clad ladies with the dusty road. We arrived at Ranthambore after about four hours and were given the now familiar welcome of a Bindi on our forehead and a cool fruity drink. We are staying in tents. Glam, timber floored, bathroom fitted tents, but still tents. I liked it for about 10 minutes. It is quite cool here at night, about 6 degrees, and this is an eco friendly resort so hot water usage has specific times. Not that it matters because the hot water is more of a lukewarm style of hot. My roomie Campbell told me casually that ‘it’s not very hot’ and after I stepped in I realised that was the understatement of the day. Wet, cold and shivering in my tent bathroom, I remembered my hatred of camping and tents and regretted the resort choice. There is no wi fi, dinner is at 8pm (my bedtime in India) and I’m feeling a little sorry for myself. I’m sure tomorrow the tiger safari will reengage me, and they did put hot water bottles in the beds. The boys seem happy - Flynn and Josh have designed certain bird calls you have to make when you visit them so they know who is there. When you approach their tent, they bark out “identify yourself”, and you have to do a bird call. Apparently my kookaburra sounds like a monkey, but they are willing to let me in anyway since “I paid for the trip”.