Weekend in Sariska National Park

This winter, we made a plan to visit the Sariska tiger reserve, which is located very close to Delhi. I hadn't been aware that there was a tiger sanctuary so close, so it was a surprisingly good option which came up while I was searching. Of course, that is a different point that in 2004, the park authorities realised that there were no more tigers left in the reserve anymore because of poaching! But later on, tigers were reintroduced in the park and now there are about 14 tigers in total there. Given the low numbers, they are quite difficult to spot. But at least there is still hope...

The website states that the park is home to other carnivores also including leopard, wild dog, jungle cat, civets, hyena, jackal and caracal. And the herbivores include the sambhar, chital, nilgai, chausingha, wild boar, langur and monkeys. So the trip looked overall quite promising.

Jungles of Sariska

We spent two days in the reserve, and went on two gypsy safaris, one in the morning and one in the evening. We did not see any tigers but spotted some of the other wildlife which was interesting. And being in the wild jungle so close to Delhi was exciting enough by itself. So it turned out to be a nice break all in all, even without the mandatory tiger spotting.


We left early on 1st January and it turned out to be the first day of the Delhi fog! Thankfully it cleared out soon while we were on our way, so the drive was not as painful or as unsafe as we initially thought. Of course the traffic as usual on Indian roads, was terrible. People drove on whichever side of the road they wanted to, at whatever speed they wanted to and so on.

Sarson ke khet

The drive was about 170 kms till Sariska and we drove through the rural hinterland of Rajasthan. There were villages on the way which are decades away from what we had left behind in Gurgaon. With kuchcha huts, cows, buffaloes, goats and camels as their livelihood and yellow sarson ke khet wherever you look. An interesting thing I noticed on the drive was that the villagers were using the highway divider for drying cow dung cakes! I wish I had a photo of that, it was quite an interesting view.

There were people going on about their daily agricultural tasks, wearing colourful clothes. It was a peek into the rural and real India that we are so disconnected from now. The one where roads are barely there and if they exist, are badly maintained. Where there are no computers or internet. Which still lives the way foreigners imagine India to be, slow and behind the times. And sometimes next to that India, I saw as a comparison, small towns like Bhiwandi with thousands of flats built next to each other, extending for kilometers. This is the side of India I don't understand - where both extremities peacefully co-exist next to each other, without affecting each other.

There were loads of mandirs on the way - clearly Rajasthan is quite a religious state. We also stopped at a few villages on the way, which were selling marble statues sculpted locally. They were quite impressive and intricately carved. They were very very pretty and totally worth owning. And we ended up buying a few of those exquisite pieces too.

Then we started crossing the Aravalis, the centuries old mountain ranges which were all very very dry given it was December. They were foggy at places, with their peaks peeping through the fog. There were also many monkeys on the road around here. The last 35 kms stretch of road till the reserve was very very bad and had a lot of speed breakers. Now I wasn't surprised why I hadn't heard much about Sariska as a tourist haunt. Why would tourists come here if it was so tough to reach here?

Langurs at the booking office

We were planning to first check-in into our resort and then come back and get the tickets to the safari from the ticket office as it was supposed to be a walk-in. Of course when we reached the ticket office which was on the way, we saw the chaos there. Hundreds of people were waiting in line with no clear organised process for getting the tickets. And there were more people than spots open! So we decided to stay there and figure out how to get a safari the same evening. There was one ticket office, and a small cafe and canteen there for people waiting hours in the line. And lot of langurs and monkeys sitting all around providing entertainment to the waiting tourists.

Apparently there was a way to book the tickets online, but the website opened only a couple of days before. I had tried booking online too but the website was quite inefficient. So we had no option but to stand in the queue. Even there, no one knew what was going on. Some people had taken tokens and were standing in line, some had online bookings and were waiting, some were breaking the line and some were just fighting for a place in the line.

Chaos at the booking office

It looked like given our position in the line, we may not be able to go in. So my dad spoke to the forest officer, who first sent the forest guys to sort out the lines and remove the touts and black marketers from there. His guys came in, and directly identified and took out guys from the queues who they knew were the black marketers! It was so funny that they knew who those guys were without any investigation 😜. After that, things got better and the line started moving naturally. We still did not get the tickets but the forest officer added us to one of the gypsies already going in. And then we were on our way on a jungle safari.

The official time for the evening safari is 2-6 pm and you spend about 2-3 hours inside the park. We were in a gypsy, with about 6-7 people. The driver drives you all around over the next few hours through the kuchcha roads, and you hope to spot the animals. And when you spot something, you stay there for a bit. Also, even though it was winter, it was quite warm for the first half of the safari and felt very comfortable. Though slowly it got cooler by the evening.

There are six villages still located inside the park. They are all very small, with 20-30 kuchcha huts as there are regulations around what they can and cannot build. Because of that, we saw local people living their usual life inside the park, going home walking or on bikes. And some of the villagers were taking their cows and buffaloes for grazing, as if it was a normal thing to do. It must be a bit scary to live like that with the tigers prowling around. Apparently the villagers see tigers and leopards all the time and live with them as if they are part of their usual everyday life.

There is also a famous Hanuman temple - the Pandupol temple - which is highly revered by the locals, located inside the Park. Lot of people come inside on Tuesdays, only to visit the temple. And this creates a steady traffic of lots of cars inside the park, though only on specific days. It can't be great for the pollution levels, but such is what happens in India.

Sariska forests

The Sariska forests are all very dry, filled with typical desert trees found in the Aravalis of Rajasthan. It had rained less that year and hence the trees were drier than usual. The trees were all light brownish. And the mud was a bit reddish, providing a very dreamy look to the jungle. There were some small hills within the park but it was mostly quite flat. Given there were very few trees, the jungles weren't dense and you could see till far. Maybe it is different in the rains when the trees are more green. But for now, it didn't feel like what you would expect from a typical jungle.

Sambhar

Overall, the safari was fun. We drove around for long, and took in the feel of the jungle. We spotted a few langurs, a mongoose, lot of sambhar deer, a couple of nilgai, the usual spotted deer, a few crocodiles sunning themselves near one of the water-bodies, a few wild boars, lots of peacocks and some other birds. It was quite fun spotting these animals in the wild, but of course the tiger eluded us.

We did however spot old pug marks of the tigers along the routes. In the park, 2 forest rangers track 7 of the tigers (of the total 14 in the park) throughout the day. We ran into two of the rangers, who had an antenna with them and could sense a tiger nearby. But the tiger eluded us even though we waited for it for long. It was sitting hidden behind the trees and wasn't visible. Then it got up and walked a bit but still did not come out in the open. We kept waiting till very late in the evening till it was time for us to leave. By this time we were also all covered in the red desert soil due to the dry weather and fast driving in the gypsy, and felt like going home to clean up.

So we got out in the gypsy and then transferred into our closed and warmer car to drive to the resort - the Sterling Sariska. The resort was about 5 kms from the ticket office on the same road, located right outside the buffer zone of the park. Once outside, you take a turn inside on a small road which is honestly not even a road. You drive past a few village farmhouses and come to the resort which feels like paradise in the middle of the jungle!

Rooms at Sterling Sariska resort

I loved the resort - it was simple, convenient and totally fit for purpose. It had a huge area and was very very green, in contrast to all the dryness around. There were many types of accommodations - some tents, some huts and some multi-floor rooms, all widely spread out in the open space. Plus there were loads of activities to keep people busy. There was an activity center with games for people to play inside - carom board, chess etc. - and badminton and horses for horse riding in the outside during the day.

Every evening at 7 pm, they organise tombola in the activity center, with a bonfire in the open at 8 pm with snacks being cooked freshly on the barbecue. And dinner was served in the dining area right next to the bonfire but inside. The food was buffet style and one of the tastiest I have eaten in a long time. With the typical Rajasthani food and hot naan with butter. The service there was great and it felt like quite a lively atmosphere on the cold winter evening, with all the guests hanging outside given there wasn't much more else to do in the rooms. I also noticed that most of the visitors were from Rajasthan itself as I don't think a lot of people visit Sariska from too far. We had a nice evening and given how tiring the safari was, after the sumptuous dinner, we called it an early night at 9 pm itself while the bonfire and music outside was still going on.

Empty ticket office in the morning

The next morning, we again went for a gypsy safari at 630 am (the morning safaris in winter are quite early, from 630-1030 am) and the ticket office was empty, with barely 5-6 people there at that time in the morning. Clearly Indians don't like waking up early 😜. We easily got a gypsy safari this time and were soon inside the park.

The whole experience was very different now, given it was so early in the morning, very cold and foggy, and the jungle had a whole different feel about it too! There was a serene yellow light everywhere during the sunrise, which lent it a very refreshing feeling. Of course there was the same sand everywhere though it was more settled given the dew and cold of the night. We were all packed in warm clothes and for the first hour, our hands were freezing. But soon with the sun, it became warmer and more tolerable. And we could get our heads out of the jackets better, to be able to look around.

We had a more fun guide on this safari as he was a lot more knowledgeable about the flora and fauna in the reserve. He apparently knew many languages, and liked to show off his English as well as his knowledge of scientific names for all animals and plants. He was an entertainer and shared a lot more trivia with us than the previous one.

The jungle also looked prettier this time of the day. We saw some greener parts of the jungle, like the bamboo parts which would have been green if they had got the typical 200 cms of rain this year and not the 10 cm actually received. We also noticed the Acacia trees, Kairi which has the fruit used in Rajasthani cooking, red-leaved bushes and huge banyan trees with bees.

Nilgai

We also spotted many more animals in this safari as both the nocturnal and day animals are awake in the morning. We spotted some hares, the usual nilgai, sambhar deer and some spotted deer, even a few with velvet on their horns. Apparently sambhars fight a lot with each other and we also saw two sambhars getting ready for a fight. But one walked away as it was not in the mood.

Birds at a checkpoint

We spotted many different birds, including loads of sparrows, parrots and small orange birds, mostly near one of the checkpoints. We also spotted some pea fowl there which had a beautiful blue colour contrasting against the brown of the jungle. It was however eating from the trash nearby when it usually eats snakes and reptiles. That was not a nice scene to view 😔.

Sambhar deer

We learnt a lot more about the tiger behaviour too through the guide. Apparently the tiger sits and waits in the tiger grass for its prey. And after the hunt, its blood pressure goes up so much that it doesn't walk around much for some time. Its favourite food is the sambhar deer and it drinks water only once a day. It sleeps most of the day and hunts only in the morning or the evening, during which time it walks for more than 30 kms a day. It has soft paws, and so mostly prefers to walk on the soft tracks or roads, hence is easily spotted on safaris. Also, apparently the tiger is not a native of India and was brought here from outside. There were 1 lakh of them in the 19th century, and now less than 500 are left in total.

We also saw the metal enclosure which was used for the first tiger when it was re-introduced back in Sariska after they had become extinct. The first tiger was kept in the enclosure for some time before being released, as the habitat was a bit different from where it was brought from.

That day the tourist zone at Sariska had only 4 tigers in them, the rest had gone up in the mountains, reducing our probability of spotting one anyways. And so, we did not see a tiger in this safari too. Soon it was time to call it a day and head out. And surprise of surprises, it turned out that a tiger had been spotted right outside the park gate that morning. So we did not even have to get into the park! He had just walked out and sat near the gate for some time before going back into the bushes.

And then we got another surprise. One our drive back to the resort, we again saw almost all the animals on the side of the road in the buffer zone as we had seen inside! Almost all of them - we saw monkeys, sambhar deer, wild boar, spotted deer and peafowl. So going in hadn't been as successful 😕. That is how wildlife works unfortunately, total luck and completely unpredictable. But that's the fun of wildlife watching too, why I enjoy it so much..

Anyways, we came back to our resort and then left soon for Delhi, which was about 3-4 hours drive again. We did think of going in to the park again to visit the Pandupol Hanumanji temple but the drive did not seem appetising, so we decided against it.

Sariska Palace

There are a couple of other places to explore nearby too if one has the time, like the Sariska Palace right next to the ticket office, Neelkanth temple, Kankwadi Fort inside the park and the haunted ruins of Bhangarh nearby - all of which would have taken extra time. So we ditched it this time but maybe for the next trip. I am sure there will be more. We had a fun time at Sariska even though we didn't spot tigers, but I can see it being a popular place and me visiting again for a nice short trip near and outside Delhi.