Goa and Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve

When we first discussed travelling to India one thing was on the top of the bucket list for us both… seeing a tiger in the wild! These huge, majestic creatures are notoriously elusive so we decided to give ourselves the best chance at a sighting and travelled to the remote Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve.

On our first outing we didn’t have any luck in respect to the tigers. But we still immensely enjoyed driving around the jungle in the open top vehicle. Just listening to the birds, breathing in the fresh air and seeing all the green around us felt so refreshing and restorative after the last few weeks of being surrounded by chaos, exhaust fumes and noise pollution. The term “forest bathing” seems an adequate description of the feeling 😊 We did see some wild elephants, lemurs and a jackal as well.

And on day 2, we got lucky! A beautiful tigress graces us with her presence for a full 5 minutes as she languidly strolled through the high grass and crossed the road a mere 20m in front of our car, completely unfaced by our presence. It was a breathtaking moment and definitely made coming all the way out here worth it.

In order to see the beach in India we decided to travel to the west coast, to Goa. We had heard that parts of Goa can be very touristy and full of Russians. Because we wanted to avoid all that we opted to stay in a secluded jungle resort in south Goa, which turned out to be a great decision! A handful of wooden cabins, built into the jungle with terrasses overlooking the treetops and only about 100m walking along a small river to reach the local beach. We spent a whole week soaking up the tranquillity, reading, writing, drawing, enjoying a beer at the local beach bar and not doing much in general.

To wind up our time in India, our last stop was Mumbai. Mumbai is a huge metropole of a city and seems somewhat separate from the rest of India. Its glitzy with huge posters advertising the latest Bollywood movies, upmarket boutique shops, hipster bars and cafes where you can mingle with the young entrepreneurs and go-getters of this city. But, it is still India after all, so you can of course find gatherings of people playing cricket in the street and in the local parks, there is still air pollution and rickshaws whizzing around at break-neck speed and the city beach is stuffed full of people spending their evenings with friends and family and curiously coming up to the western tourist (ergo us) to say hello and ask for a selfie with us.

Overall the 5 weeks in India have been a very full-on experience. It really is one of those places that is difficult to describe and just has to be experienced. Especially in the cities there seems to be very little respite from the chaos and you constantly have to have your wits about you. But it is colourful and interesting nonetheless. For us, the experience was probably negatively coloured by our personal circumstances (i.e. gut health, work stress etc) and I am sure there would be many amazing places in India to discover. But for now, we were happy to move on to our next destination, Cape Town, where we are renting an apartment for a while and doing a bit of “home life” over the Christmas and New-Years Period.

Wishing you all a joyous holiday period and we will see you again in the new Year!