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Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, India for the most Discerning and Reserved Tigers........

Early rises are never my forte and I always seem to have to drag myself out of bed by sheer will power and stumble for the shower, feeling my way because I have temporarily lost the power of sight. Why so early when you are on holiday? Well if you are a committed tourist and in my case a professional one, there are great things to be done pre-dawn; depart for the sunrise at the Taj Mahal, queue outside the Louvre Museum, line up for the Sistine Chapel or don mosquito repellent, wrap up and jump into a safari truck or canter to head into Ranthambore Tiger Reserve.

I was not convinced about the validity of a three day stop at the Tiger Reserve but that was what the tour itinerary had said so make it so! You could feel the anticipation ripple through the group as we set off thinking of magnificent tigers and cute tiger cubs playing in the long grass, rumour has it there are between 32 and 35 tigers in residence. We were soon joined by other groups making up the local government allocation of vehicles allowed into the reserve at any one time. When you enter the park , you draw lots for which route you will be allowed to take , the pressure on the poor drawer is palpable as EVERYONE wants to see a tiger. It was at one point a Maharajah`s hunting grounds- he obviously never drove around the reserve and stayed exclusively on horseback, if he had I would have recommended my local chiropractor to him. I have never been thrown around a vehicle so much, there is no suspension and the track is adventurous even by mountain bike standards.

Four times I entered the park and I saw countless deer, samba deer, boar and monkey but never did I even catch a whiff of a tiger. There were tracks and our forest guide would often say "tiger here last night" or "tiger sleeping" but never seen, at least not by me, other groups saw them on different routes and at different times but not I!

By the time the fourth drive came round, our group size had dwindled to a slender number still clinging to the fragile hope of sighting a tiger, I think if we had looked closer, probably on top of a hill, we would have seen Terry the Tiger arm-in-arm with Mother Nature sipping pina coladas and enjoying a bloody good and also regular afternoon and morning`s entertainment.

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