On my 15-day trip to India, I spent time in the cities of Agra, Delhi, and Varanasi, as well as six days in Pench and Kanha National Parks. Normally I would create one post for my entire trip, but since I took such a large volume of photos, and where I visited and what I saw are so incredibly rich and diverse, I felt it appropriate to separate my entire trip into 3 posts, this one (Pench and Kanha), Varanasi, and Agra and Delhi.
To view my post on Varanasi, you can click here. You can also view my Varanasi trip in album format, both with the standard album of 163 photos, or with the extended album of all 283 photos I took in Varanasi.
To view my post on Agra and Delhi, you can click here. You can also view my Varanasi trip in album format, both with the standard album of 163 photos, or with the extended album of all 283 photos I took in Varanasi.
Pench National Park is a renowned wildlife reserve located primarily in the state of Madhya Pradesh, in Central India. It is named for the Pench River that flows through it, and is filled with dry deciduous forests and grasslands. It is best known for its population of Bengal tigers and leopards, but you will also find a wide variety of other mammals, and an extensive population of bird species. The landscape and wildlife in this park are believed to have been the inspiration for The Jungle Book.
Kanha National Park, also in Madhya Pradesh, sits about 75 miles (120km) east of Pench, although the driving distance between the two is closer to 120 miles (193km). Kanha is one of India’s largest and most celebrated wildlife reserves, known for its sweeping grasslands and dense sal forests. Bengal tigers and leopards can be found here as well, in addition to sloth bears, and many other mammals and birdlife. Kanha is especially famous for their successful conservation efforts of the barasingha (swamp deer), which was brought back from near extinction within the park. It is also said to be a part inspiration for the The Jungle Book.
In addition to this post, the photos from my trip to Pench and Kanha are also available in an album format, of just the photos themselves.
To see the standard length album of my Pench and Kanha trip, containing the main 78 photos, click here.
To see the extended length album, featuring my full 190 photos, click here.
The extended length album contains a ton of extra shots and animals, in addition to the photos found in the standard album, for those looking to see the full breadth of the animals I encountered.
Every photo featured on this post and in the albums can be viewed in full screen, and zoomed in to full resolution. So please, zoom in and enjoy all there is to see with these wonderful animals.
After landing in Nagpur, I took a 2 hour taxi ride to the hotel/camp I would be staying at for the next 4 nights, to spend the following 3 full days inside of Pench National Park.
To go inside of the majority of national parks in India, you must use guided safaris, go during select time periods, and you must obtain a permit for each time slot you want to enter during. There are two permitted safari periods for each day, one in the morning from sunrise to 10:00AM, and one in the afternoon around 2:30PM to sunset. In addition to these two time frames each day, there are multiple entry gates that you can obtain permits for on each day, some being more popular than others (due to the likelihood of wildlife at specific gates). You can also get a single seat permit where you are placed on a vehicle with other random people, or you can get a full vehicle permit where you (and your party) have access to the entire vehicle.
Due to the reported higher odds of seeing tigers and leopards here, I reserved multiple permits for Turia gate, which is the most popular one due to that. Of the six safaris I took in Pench, five of them were at Turia, with the remaining at Rukhad.
The most common animals I saw were by far the langur monkeys and spotted deer. Their abundance made it clear how such a large population of large predators can be supported on this land, as there was clearly no shortage of prey. Other common animals I saw include the gaur (Indian bison), jackals, sambar deer, and a wide variety of bird life, including the Indian national bird, the peafowl.
Here are some of the highlights of the more common animals I encountered, inside Pench National Park.
Langur Monkeys
Sambar Deer
Gaur
Indian Jackal & Dhole
Birds
But, the main attractions that everyone hopes to see are of course tigers and leopards. While their presence is felt and heard throughout the park, often in the form of monkeys and deer sounding their alarm calls of their proximity, actually having the privilege of viewing them can be quite challenging. Going into the Turia gate, word was you had roughly a 25% chance of seeing a tiger on any given safari and only a 5-10% chance of seeing a leopard. This is due to leopards being more elusive, staying in denser cover, and being overall harder to spot (pun intended) than tigers, due to their camouflage.
Which is why I was fortunate to have this encounter with this leopard carrying a recent catch, a baby spotted-deer. When we pulled up to the scene, this leopard was laying behind a rock, with the newly acquired spotted-deer, as seen in the first photo. Knowing the leopard would eventually get up and relocate, it became clear that waiting here could lead to a great photographic opportunity. After around an hour and a half, the leopard stood up, picked up its meal, turned around and carried off further into the jungle, making that moment well worth the wait.
Leopard
On the last of my three days inside of Pench, with no tiger sightings up until this point, we were out in an area deeper in the Turia zone, where the grasslands and dry teak forests intersect, and came across two tiger cubs relaxing in the shade. Each a few hundred feet away from each other, but close enough to the road where we could spend some quality time observing and photographing each of them.
Tiger Cubs
After arriving in Delhi, I spent the night at an Airbnb hosted by the most welcoming and warm Indian family imaginable. It was the perfect introduction to the country, and a precursor for the level of friendliness and hospitality I would receive throughout my trip. My stop in Delhi would be brief (this time around), as I would be heading to Agra early the following morning, via the Gatimaan Express train. This is the most direct (and probably easiest) way to access Agra from Delhi, although don’t be like me and accidentally get off the train one stop too early, resulting in a bit of a logistical scramble. I didn’t realize the train had experienced a delay mid-route, and I knew that my train was supposed to arrive at 9:05 am. So when we arrived at the (wrong) train station at exactly 9:05 am, I assumed it must be the right one. Unfortunately it was not, and I ended up having to take an Uber between the two stations, resulting in about a 45 minute delay, as there would be no additional trains coming on this specific route for a few hours, leaving me with few options.
By the time I arrived to my hotel, checked in and got some lunch, I met up with the local guide I was using in the early afternoon, and set off to the Tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah, which is more commonly referred to as the “Baby Taj,” due to its resemblance to and also being a precursor for many of the design elements featured in the Taj Mahal, such as the extensive marble use, detailed stone inlay and symmetrical gardens. It is often seen as a “draft” or early inspiration for the Taj itself, thus the name “Baby Taj.”
That’s all for Pench and Kanha. Again, here are the links to the album versions:
To see the standard length album version of Pench and Kanha, click here.
To see the extended length album version of Pench and Kanha, click here.
To see my post on Varanasi, click here.
To see the standard length album version of Varanasi, click here.
To see the extended length album version of Varanasi, click here.
To see my post on Agra and Delhi, click here.
To see the standard length album version of Agra and Delhi, click here.
To see the extended length album version of Agra and Delhi, click here.