Central India: Bandhavgarh, Kanha and Pench Tiger Reserves

1. Jour 1 : Arrive in Delhi

   Indira Gandhi International Airport to a hotel near the airport

   • Environ 30 min de route
   • Welcome dinner
   • Nuit : Delhi
   Détail du jour 1

   Fly into Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL) at any time today; a driver meets you in the arrivals hall. We stay near the airport, in Aerocity or close by, rather than in central Delhi, because tomorrow's flight to Jabalpur leaves in the morning and the drive in from the city can take an hour or more in traffic. If you land early, the Airport Express metro line runs from Aerocity into New Delhi in about twenty minutes, and your guide can suggest a few hours' route. In the early evening your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a briefing on the days ahead: how the game drives and permits work, what the parks ask of visitors (stay seated, keep voices low, no feeding, no stepping out of the jeep), and what to wear for cold dawns. Then we sit down together for a welcome dinner of north Indian dishes. Pack tonight for the flight: a small soft bag travels best.

   Compris

   • Pick-up at Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome dinner

   Temps libre : Free until the evening briefing

   Activité : Plan to land by about 4 pm to join the briefing; the exact time is confirmed with your final itinerary.

2. Jour 2 : Fly to Jabalpur, drive to Bandhavgarh

   Delhi to Jabalpur by air, then by road to Bandhavgarh

   • Environ 4 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Bandhavgarh
   Détail du jour 2

   After an early breakfast we take a domestic flight of under 2 hours from Delhi to Jabalpur, a city on the Narmada river in the middle of Madhya Pradesh. Our vehicle and driver meet the group at Jabalpur's airport, and from here they stay with us to the last day. The road runs north-east for about 190 km and four hours, through wheat and lentil fields, small market towns and the first patches of sal forest, past Umaria, the district town. We stop for a sit-down lunch on the way, or at the lodge if the flight lands late. By mid to late afternoon we reach our lodge on the edge of Bandhavgarh National Park, our base for three nights, and there is time to unpack and sit outside as the light goes. Before dinner the group meets for a short talk on the park: its zones, its animals, and how to read the alarm calls of deer and langur monkeys that often give a tiger away.

   Compris

   • Flight from Delhi to Jabalpur
   • Drive from Jabalpur to Bandhavgarh with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch on the way
   • Park briefing at the lodge

   Temps libre : Late afternoon free at the lodge

   Activité : Flight times change by season; your exact flight is confirmed with your final itinerary.

3. Jour 3 : Bandhavgarh: first two game drives

   Two drives in Bandhavgarh National Park

   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Bandhavgarh
   Détail du jour 3

   The alarm goes before dawn. We are at the gate as it opens, around sunrise, in open 4x4 jeeps with a driver, a forest department guide and no more than four guests each. Bandhavgarh, the old hunting preserve of the Maharajas of Rewa and a national park since 1968, is a mix of sal forest, bamboo and grassy meadows below a sandstone hill with a fort on top. The morning drive lasts until late morning, with a breakfast stop inside the park, and the guides follow pugmarks and the alarm calls of chital and langurs. Tigers live here, but no sighting is ever promised. What you will see is spotted deer, sambar, langurs, wild boar, peafowl and hornbills, and with luck a leopard, sloth bear or gaur. The middle of the day is free at the lodge for lunch and sleep. The afternoon drive goes out around three and returns at sunset, in a zone allotted by the forest department.

   Compris

   • Morning game drive in Bandhavgarh National Park, with permits and a forest department guide
   • Afternoon game drive in Bandhavgarh National Park
   • Lunch and dinner at the lodge

   Option plus facile : Sit out the afternoon drive and stay at the lodge.

   Temps libre : Middle of the day free at the lodge

   Activité : Each drive is about three to five hours seated on bumpy tracks. Mornings can be close to freezing from December to February: bring a warm jacket, hat and gloves.

   

4. Jour 4 : Bandhavgarh: two more drives

   Two drives in Bandhavgarh National Park

   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Bandhavgarh
   Détail du jour 4

   A second full day in Bandhavgarh, with another morning and afternoon drive. Each drive goes where the forest department sends the jeep, so a second day usually means new ground: a different meadow, a water hole that was busy yesterday, or the track beneath the fort hill, where an ancient statue of Vishnu lies carved in the rock beside a spring at the start of the Charan Ganga stream. By now you will know the rhythm. Sambar bark and chital calls mean a predator is moving; langur monkeys in the trees see further than any of us. Your guide rides with the group in turn and keeps a record of what each jeep has seen, so the stories are shared at dinner. Between drives the middle of the day is yours. If you would rather not do four drives, skip one and stay at the lodge: a slow afternoon with a book is part of the trip, not a loss.

   Compris

   • Morning game drive in Bandhavgarh National Park
   • Afternoon game drive in Bandhavgarh National Park
   • Lunch and dinner at the lodge

   Option plus facile : Sit out either drive and spend the time at the lodge.

   Option plus active : In the free midday, a guided walk in the village and farmland outside the park, where the lodge offers one (confirmed when we name the lodge).

   Temps libre : Middle of the day free at the lodge

   

5. Jour 5 : Across the Narmada to Kanha

   Bandhavgarh to Kanha by road, crossing the Narmada

   • Environ 6 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Kanha
   Détail du jour 5

   Today is the one long road day, and we say so up front. Bandhavgarh to Kanha is about 250 km and 5.5 to 6 hours of driving: there is no shorter road, no airport near either park and no town with a suitable hotel between them, so splitting it would cost a night in a park. We skip the morning drive and leave after breakfast, at about 8 am. The road heads south through the hills, small towns and tribal villages of eastern Madhya Pradesh and crosses the Narmada at Mandla. We stop mid-morning for tea and a stretch, and for a sit-down lunch on the way, so no stint at the wheel runs much over two hours. We reach our lodge near Kanha National Park by mid-afternoon, our base for three nights, and the rest of the day is free: rest, walk the grounds, or sit and listen to the forest before dinner.

   Compris

   • Drive from Bandhavgarh to Kanha with your guide
   • Sit-down lunch on the way
   • Dinner at the lodge

   Temps libre : Late afternoon and evening free at the lodge

   Activité : The longest day of the trip, about 5.5 to 6 hours of driving with two stops.

6. Jour 6 : Kanha: the meadows at dawn

   Two drives in Kanha National Park

   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Kanha
   Détail du jour 6

   Kanha became a national park in 1955 and was one of India's first Project Tiger reserves in 1973. It feels different from Bandhavgarh: tall sal forest and bamboo open onto wide grassy meadows, and on winter mornings mist lies over them as the jeeps come out of the trees. These meadows are the home of the hard-ground barasingha, a swamp deer with many-pointed antlers that Kanha brought back from the brink in the 1970s and that lives wild almost nowhere else. You will also look for gaur, the largest wild cattle in the world, herds of chital and sambar, jackals, and if the zone and the day allow, a tiger or a pack of dhole, the Indian wild dog. As before, nothing is promised. The morning drive runs from sunrise to late morning, then lunch and the middle of the day at the lodge, and the afternoon drive goes back out until sunset.

   Compris

   • Morning game drive in Kanha National Park, with permits and a forest department guide
   • Afternoon game drive in Kanha National Park
   • Lunch and dinner at the lodge

   Option plus facile : Sit out the afternoon drive and stay at the lodge.

   Temps libre : Middle of the day free at the lodge

   Activité : Kanha's dawns are the coldest of the trip from December to February: dress in layers.

   

7. Jour 7 : Kanha: a second day in the park

   Two drives in Kanha National Park

   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Kanha
   Détail du jour 7

   Kanha is large, and a second day lets the forest department's zone allotment take us somewhere new. The morning drive is the one to keep if you only want one today: the light is low and gold over the meadows, the deer are out grazing, and predators that hunted at night are still on the move. Birdlife is a large part of a Kanha morning too, from racket-tailed drongos and paradise flycatchers in the forest to vultures and serpent eagles over the open ground. If our afternoon zone is Kanha zone itself, the drive may end at Bamni Dadar, a plateau viewpoint above the forest, at sunset. Your guide pools what the jeeps have seen over the two days and talks through it over dinner. As in Bandhavgarh, either drive can be swapped for a slow few hours at the lodge, and the middle of the day is free for lunch, a swim if the lodge has a pool, or sleep.

   Compris

   • Morning game drive in Kanha National Park
   • Afternoon game drive in Kanha National Park
   • Lunch and dinner at the lodge

   Option plus facile : Sit out either drive and spend the time at the lodge.

   Option plus active : In the free midday, a guided walk in the buffer forest or a nearby village, where the lodge offers one (confirmed when we name the lodge).

   Temps libre : Middle of the day free at the lodge

8. Jour 8 : Kanha to Pench and a free afternoon

   Kanha to Pench by road via Seoni

   • Environ 4.5 h de route
   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Pench
   Détail du jour 8

   No drive this morning: breakfast at an easy hour, then we leave at about 9 am for Pench, about 200 km and 4 to 4.5 hours to the west by road through Seoni. This is farm and forest country, with small villages, weekly markets and bullock carts on the verges, and we stop halfway for tea. We reach our lodge near the Madhya Pradesh side of Pench National Park for lunch, our base for two nights, and the afternoon is free: the first free afternoon of the trip after a week of early starts, and the right moment for a swim, a nap or simply sitting with binoculars, since the lodge grounds are often busy with birds. Pench takes its name from the river that winds through it, and its teak and mixed forest covers the Seoni hills, the country Rudyard Kipling wrote about in The Jungle Book. Your guide gives a short briefing on the park before dinner.

   Compris

   • Drive from Kanha to Pench with your guide
   • Lunch and dinner at the lodge
   • Park briefing with your guide

   Temps libre : Afternoon and evening free at the lodge

9. Jour 9 : Pench: teak forest and the river

   Two drives in Pench National Park

   • Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
   • Nuit : Pench
   Détail du jour 9

   Two last drives, morning and afternoon. Pench feels different again: teak and mixed forest that turns bare and golden in the dry months, rocky streams, and the long reservoir of the Pench river that holds water when the rest of the forest dries out. The park is known for big herds of chital, for leopards, and for packs of dhole, and tigers live here as they do in Bandhavgarh and Kanha, though no sighting is ever promised. Look up as well as out: Pench has birds to watch, from green bee-eaters on low branches to fishing eagles over the water. The morning drive leaves at sunrise and returns in the late morning; the middle of the day is free at the lodge; the afternoon drive ends at sunset. Tonight is the last dinner together, a chance to swap pictures, settle the arguments over what that distant shape really was, and say thank you to the jeep crews.

   Compris

   • Morning game drive in Pench National Park, with permits and a forest department guide
   • Afternoon game drive in Pench National Park
   • Lunch at the lodge
   • Farewell dinner

   Option plus facile : Sit out the afternoon drive and stay at the lodge.

   Temps libre : Middle of the day free at the lodge

   

10. Jour 10 : Pench to Nagpur airport

    Pench to Nagpur's Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport

    • Environ 2 h de route
    • Petit-déjeuner
    Détail du jour 10

    A slow breakfast at the lodge, then the road to the airport: about 95 km and two hours south on the national highway to Nagpur, across the state line into Maharashtra, to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport (NAG). Nagpur has direct flights to Delhi, Mumbai and other Indian cities for your connection home, and your guide sees you to the terminal and checks your flight before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 2 pm. If yours leaves after about 3:30 pm and you would like one more look at the forest, we can add an extra morning drive in Pench before we leave, priced when you book; the jeep is back by late morning and we drive straight to the airport. If you are staying on in India, we can quote extra nights in Nagpur, or a flight back to Delhi and the Golden Triangle.

    Compris

    • Drive from Pench to Nagpur airport with your guide
    • Drop-off at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport (NAG)

    Activités en option

    • Extra morning game drive in Pench before the airport, for flights after about 3:30 pm (priced at booking)

    Activité : Book your flight out of Nagpur for after about 2 pm, or after about 3:30 pm with the extra morning drive.

Faune et météo : October and November are green and mild after the monsoon. December and January bring clear days and dawns close to freezing in open jeeps, especially in Kanha, so warm layers matter. From February to April the forest dries out, the days get hot and animals gather at water holes. May and June are very hot and run privately only. The core zones close from 1 July to 30 September, so the trip does not run then.

• Delhi1 nuit
• Bandhavgarh3 nuits
• Kanha3 nuits
• Pench2 nuits