We knew, that Jaipur is a good starting point to visit a national park and see some wild life. To arrange this, we\u2019ve contacted a travel agent, who was very helpful and convinced us to shorten our stay in Jaipur and skip a day in Agra and visit a national park instead \u2013 promising a chance to see wild tigers \u2013 you can\u2019t say no to this!<\/p>\n
On the next morning we packed our backpacks into a car and our driver Ravi took us to our next adventure J So far we\u2019ve been traveling by train or plane between the cities and didn\u2019t see much of the inter-city roads\u2026 This time, we experienced all of it, washed-out broken pavement, all kinds of animals on the road, trucks driving on the wrong side of the highway, trucks overtaking each other nearly hitting the traffic in the opposite direction etc. but what was really impressive is the calmness of our driver Ravi, who seemed to be immune to the craze of the traffic and took us safely and relaxed to our destination.<\/p>\n
We booked two safari rides to the park to increase our chances to see wildlife (especially tigers) and so our first tour started directly on our arrival. We\u2019ve been picked up by a big truck, which looked like a convertible bus without a roof. As we were under the first ones, we got to sit in the first row, next to the driver. At the entrance to the national park, we\u2019ve been welcomed by several groups of monkeys, who really weren\u2019t surprised seeing us. Once inside the park, we saw a whole lot of wild life: different kinds of deer, antelopes, peacocks and crocodiles but no tigers. All those animals were so much used to tourists and the busses, that they didn\u2019t even make an attempt to run away or hide from us \u2013 tourists belong to their environment as much as anything else. At some point, our bus stopped at the road and the guides showed us a mark in the sand, which they said belonged to a tiger. That could have been an end of this trip, which we wouldn\u2019t have regretted. But after the next corner, there was a traffic jam (!!!) in the middle of nowhere. It turned out, that there is a tiger somewhere in the bush and all cars\/busses were collected at this one spot and everyone was trying to get a glimpse of that poor thing. As long as our bus was in the back of the line, the drivers screamed at the drivers in the front to make them move and make space for those in the back. When we were finally at the spot, the other drivers screamed at our driver, who couldn\u2019t care less (as the others when they were in the spot) until everyone saw the tiger. Speaking of which- this utterly reminded us of the tale about the emperor\u2019s new clothes. Everyone was looking into the bush and was pretending to see something somewhere while Alice and I seemed to be the only ones seeing just what was there \u2013 bush, may be also some plants\u2026 you know… green leaves… We really couldn\u2019t recognize any tiger there and even after looking closely at all pictures we\u2019ve taken, I\u2019m not sure if it is a tiger or a bunch of dark leaves, but at least we\u2019ve seen many other animals and a nice landscape so we counted the day as success. On the next morning we woke up early as we had our second tour to the park. This time we took a different entrance in order to see another part of the park and just after a couple minutes again the same picture \u2013 jammed road, dust, hordes of people screaming around, cameras clicking \u2013 there must be a tiger in the bush. Our driver did the same as the one the day before- by screaming and driving through the green (not that it is a national park and you would expect them to respect the nature\u2026) he got us to \u201cthe spot\u201d where a tiger supposedly was eating a cow. And again, we couldn\u2019t see anything. But this time a friendly driver from the car standing next to ours has let us crawl over on their Jeep an there it was, an actual free tiger having his breakfast and not caring about all those uncivilized people around him. At some point he seemed to have enough of the show (and the cow) and just walked away and in that moment we saw him walking through a glade in the bush- Goosebumps! As our tour guides fulfilled their objective of showing us a tiger, the rest of the tour was as disappointing as the beginning. We rushed through the park for about 30 minutes, saw a couple of deer and antelopes, destroyed some more plants and got out in a cloud of dust. We both were left with mixed feelings about this visit \u2013 on the one hand we saw one of the few tigers in their natural habitat and might not have this chance in a couple of years any more. On the other hand, we are well aware, that by our visit we also supported the behavior of those drivers and the way too high number of cars driving around in this park.<\/p>\n
On the next day, we were heading to Agra, the home of one of the wonders of the world and India\u2019s most famous landmark: the Taj Mahal. Whenever we were telling someone, that we\u2019re planning to spend over two days in Agra, they were giving us strange looks and asking, what we are planning to do there. Finally the tour operator, who helped us to organize the visit in Ranthambore brought it to the point: \u201cAgra is a sh*thole\u201d. But at that time we only thought: how bad could it be? On the way there we stopped at Chand Baori<\/a>, one of the biggest and most impressive step wells in India dating back to 800-900 AD century. This well is about 30 m deep and has 13 storeys, which is quite impressive (especially considering the age) and looks pretty cool on pictures \ud83d\ude42 This step well is also featured in many movies\u2026 the recent most prominent one is \u201cBatman \u2013 The dark knight rises”.<\/p>\n