Though I have been selling India holiday packages for over 11 years with ease, but I was a bit unconvinced when I saw the fax from Madhya Pradesh Tourism inviting me for a nature trail in Madhya Pradesh Jungles covering Pench Tiger Reserve and Kanha National Park last week. My perception about wildlife tours reminds me of African Jungles. Having received good feedback from many happy tourists who thoroughly enjoyed the wilderness, I smugly felt Indian forest department has way to go. My trip started off with a lot of skepticism, I even mentioned my concern to Mr. Chandrasekhar from Madhya Pradesh tourism department, who was escorting us during this trip that he needs to convince me very hard in order to make me promote Indian Jungle Trails. 

Our trail started when we got off the overnight Volvo coach at Nagpur. Our driver, Devraj waiting for us at the bus terminus drove us to Pench which was (95 kms) 2 hrs away. Pench is in Seoni District in Southern part of Madhya Pradesh and the reserve forest runs in continuation with Pench National Park in Maharashtra. We stopped at a petrol station enroute to have coffee. It is amazing to see that the store at the petrol station is equipped with everything from breath mints to light snacks to munch our way till we reached Pench. The road was thankfully in good condition. The drive was a bit boring for the first 20 kms, later got very interesting. We were greeted by a huge herd of cows crossing our path a couple of times. The first sight of rural India welcomes you like a breath of fresh air. Indeed the air is much lighter and gets so fresh that you could feel the difference from the stale polluted city air. The scenery started with barren land on either side spotted with some big trees and small shrubs which later turned into tall teak wood trees and was getting better for us city dwellers. I quickly noted it was the end of summer which explains the drier vegetation. I wondered how lush it would be post monsoon. Chandra told us that the parks will be closed for game viewing during monsoons and will reopen from 1st October onwards till 30th June. During monsoons the forest department takes the animal census and prepares their log records of the flora and fauna. more...