Our visit to Kanha was postponed many times in last two years. Main reason for that was our own commitments to our own business that came up at 11th hour.
This time we clubbed our visit with our friend Jane England. Accommodations are very costly now. Every lodge in the vicinity is trying to make it a luxury lodge and, at most of the time, visitors who are interested in wildlife or who are wild lifers they don't need any luxury. They prefers a basic clean accommodation with tons of information provided by lodge. Now people will ask what is basic accommodation. Basic accommodation is a clean room with comfortable bed, clean Linen and bathroom.
If one can't control the Mosquito problem then a mosquito net should be provided. Although many people can't sleep under Mosi net. I am a very typical tough Hotelier. Providing a mosquito net in the room means Hotel Management completely failed to solve the mosquito problem in the room and they found the easiest solution to put the net on bed.
In 1991 I was assigned to submit a report on Wildlife Tourism Industry around Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Park for Govt of India Tourism Board and Planning Commission. Our suggestion was that these Wilflife areas should be rated as Rural Tourism and no outsider should be allowed to run a lodge not even in partnership. Locals should be trained by Hotel Management Institute to run a Home Stay and none of the person should be allowed to have more than 5 rooms. And of course Govt should provide them a soft loan.
We stayed in Khatiya Hutments with Forest Department. It was nice to see Barmaiyya as a Deputy Ranger. I know him since he started his career in Forest Department.
We stayed our first night in Khatiya Hutments (I remember them by this name only). My experience there since from the beginning, even when they were mud huts and we use to run them, was always very good. Fantastic place for watching Birds and butterflies in day time and listening calls in the night. On our first night in new block no 5 Kay woke me up in the night and said I think there is some animal out side. I said let me check.
So when I came close to door to listen to the noise direction I found its from our room only. Then I saw few things missing from the table. Camera strap was hanging in two pieces. Biscuit packet and my lens cap was missing. Now I know the source of that noise. It was from our room only. Just near the door and window a sofa was put and rats made a nice hole in the bottom. When I moved the sofa I found my half chewed lens cap and plenty of plastic wrappers bags where they were making noise and we thought it was some animal on dry leaves. There were more than three huge size rats who escaped through the door gap.
None of us could sleep that night any more. Jane was not happy and so the us seeing these unwanted visitors in our room so we all decided to move that morning itself.
After game drive we moved to Courtyard House. Nice new place. Needs personal touch to turn it into a Courthouse House. Lots of things needs to change there.
Kanha was as usual. No spectacular picture for me out of those 4 days. What I found in my old stock is that literally I dont need to photograph any animal there until unless I find better than what I already got. And that will be a very difficult task. Difficult to beat.
We had a nice lunch in Mandla with Rakesh and on journey back home Shailesh Dubey hosted the Lunch.
This time we clubbed our visit with our friend Jane England. Accommodations are very costly now. Every lodge in the vicinity is trying to make it a luxury lodge and, at most of the time, visitors who are interested in wildlife or who are wild lifers they don't need any luxury. They prefers a basic clean accommodation with tons of information provided by lodge. Now people will ask what is basic accommodation. Basic accommodation is a clean room with comfortable bed, clean Linen and bathroom.
If one can't control the Mosquito problem then a mosquito net should be provided. Although many people can't sleep under Mosi net. I am a very typical tough Hotelier. Providing a mosquito net in the room means Hotel Management completely failed to solve the mosquito problem in the room and they found the easiest solution to put the net on bed.
In 1991 I was assigned to submit a report on Wildlife Tourism Industry around Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Park for Govt of India Tourism Board and Planning Commission. Our suggestion was that these Wilflife areas should be rated as Rural Tourism and no outsider should be allowed to run a lodge not even in partnership. Locals should be trained by Hotel Management Institute to run a Home Stay and none of the person should be allowed to have more than 5 rooms. And of course Govt should provide them a soft loan.
We stayed in Khatiya Hutments with Forest Department. It was nice to see Barmaiyya as a Deputy Ranger. I know him since he started his career in Forest Department.
We stayed our first night in Khatiya Hutments (I remember them by this name only). My experience there since from the beginning, even when they were mud huts and we use to run them, was always very good. Fantastic place for watching Birds and butterflies in day time and listening calls in the night. On our first night in new block no 5 Kay woke me up in the night and said I think there is some animal out side. I said let me check.
So when I came close to door to listen to the noise direction I found its from our room only. Then I saw few things missing from the table. Camera strap was hanging in two pieces. Biscuit packet and my lens cap was missing. Now I know the source of that noise. It was from our room only. Just near the door and window a sofa was put and rats made a nice hole in the bottom. When I moved the sofa I found my half chewed lens cap and plenty of plastic wrappers bags where they were making noise and we thought it was some animal on dry leaves. There were more than three huge size rats who escaped through the door gap.
None of us could sleep that night any more. Jane was not happy and so the us seeing these unwanted visitors in our room so we all decided to move that morning itself.
After game drive we moved to Courtyard House. Nice new place. Needs personal touch to turn it into a Courthouse House. Lots of things needs to change there.
Kanha was as usual. No spectacular picture for me out of those 4 days. What I found in my old stock is that literally I dont need to photograph any animal there until unless I find better than what I already got. And that will be a very difficult task. Difficult to beat.
We had a nice lunch in Mandla with Rakesh and on journey back home Shailesh Dubey hosted the Lunch.
1 comment:
I really like your post. Kanha National Park is the among of the best holiday destination of India, whenever i think of holidays it's come to my mind. I had visited these places so long back but i remember Resorts in Kanha are really great.
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