My wife Linda and I had heard a lot about the wonders of Kanha National Park and decided to pay it a visit over the most recent Good Friday/Holi/Easter/Moharum weekend. We departed Delhi Nizamuddin Railway Station late on Friday; arrived at Jabalpur on Saturday morning; reached Kanha by car on Saturday afternoon; spent two wonderful nights and one full day at Kanha Jungle Lodge, while taking in three nature drives; and returned to the train at Jabalpur on Monday afternoon, arriving back at Nizamuddin late on Tuesday morning.

Kanha National Park, located in Madhya Pradesh about 156 km southeast of Jabalpur, stretches over an area of 940 sq km. There is a large tiger population in the park (131 tigers, June 2006) and also a significant population of leopards (80), the sloth bear (111) and Indian wild dog (296). The rare Indian wolf can also be found in the far eastern part of the park. Kanha, incidentally, is sometimes referred to as ‘Kipling Country,’ as Rudyard Kipling based his ‘Jungle Book’ on the area which now encompasses the park.

Linda and I have been on several tiger excursions in our time and have developed an attitude that helps to alleviate disappointment. Tigers and other big cats, being elusive creatures, are often hard to find during short excursions into their habitat. In fact we’ve been to Ranthambore, Sundarbuns, Kazirunga, Corbett, Panna and a few others, but have only had one tiger sighting. With this in mind, we’ve adopted the following attitude: “We’re here for nature; if a tiger pops up, that’ll be the icing on an already delicious cake.” We’ve never been disappointed since we developed this attitude.

During the nature drives of the weekend, we passed through the lowland forests with their mixture of sal and other forest trees (including the Indian ghost tree,) interspersed with meadows; and the highland forests with their tropical moist deciduous slopes dotted with bamboo patches. We saw plenty of wildlife – rhesus monkey, langur monkey, spotted deer, leopard, golden jackal, barasingha (or swamp deer) Bengal fox, porcupine and wild boar – the most interesting of which was the spotted deer and the langur monkey. I mention this because they seem to work together in the face of danger. When a tiger is nearby, the lookout deer utters a distinct alarm bark; with that, the monkeys in the trees all look in the direction of the danger. The deer then know that the danger lies in the direction of the monkey-gaze. We experienced this phenomenon on several occasions, but alas, we didn’t see the source – probably a well-concealed tiger. We did see a leopard, but the sighting was rather poor. He (or she) was resting near ground lever in a far off tree and extremely hard to make out even with binoculars.

Besides mammals, there are an estimated 8,600 species of birds in Kanha, but I can not profess to have seen them all. Some that come to mind that we did see include plenty of kingfishers, herons, vultures, ducks, peacocks and Indian jungle fowl – an ancestor of the domestic hen.

As mentioned, we stayed at Kanha Jungle Lodge, located just outside the Mukki gate to the park. There are only about ten lodges at Mukki and over thirty at Kisli gate. While Mukki gate is farther along during the trip from Jabalpur, there are advantages in choosing accommodation near Mukki gate – the number of vehicles entering the park carrying nature lovers is fewer at Mukki, thus creating a lower rate of disturbance to the wildlife.

Accommodation fit for Royalty: Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden once stayed at Kanha Jungle Lodge; in fact, she planted a teak tree there on 17 October 1993.1 The Lodge is located midst of rich Sal forest and thus designed as a Jungle lodge, well camouflaged in the forest. It is tastefully developed with low impact on the land and the environment with its 18 well appointed rooms and 2 new cottages to give a physical and emotional jungle experience. The Lodge is planned to provide a friendly, informal relaxed environment with lots to observe, understand and learn, to make good friends and support conservation. Since it is located close to Kanha National Park and is the closest to the Mukki entrance gate, it has been sensitive to the environment. Guests can listen to jungle sounds during day or night which makes it an exciting and chilling experience for some, listening to alarm calls of the deer or an occasional roar of the Tiger. Its Sal forest and open meadow have become a favourite place for deer to conjugate fearlessly in the compound. The lodge was established on strong principles of environmental friendliness and every aspect of its development and operation is sensitively synthesized towards nature conservation. Further, no trees were cut to construct the Lodge.

We recommend Kanha National Park for a memorable weekend getaway in nature, and Kanha Jungle Lodge as the place to stay during a visit. We don’t mind giving a little free publicity when we’re totally satisfied. Therefore, we’ve given the local contact details of the Lodge below.

Tiger Resorts (P) Ltd.
206, Rakeshdeep, 11 Commercial Complex
Gulmohar Enclave,
New Delhi-110049. India
Tel: (91-11)-2685 3760/8656
Fax: (91-11)-26865212
Email: ask@tiger-resorts.com