On February 28 of this year, Mylène and I had lunch with our good friends Jaime and Paloma in Cabanyal, here in Valencia. Prior to the main course I learned that one of Jaime's childhood dreams was to see a tiger in the wild. Soon thereafter, he produced a brochure for a 6 day Bengal tiger safari in Madhya Pradesh, India.

Exactly 7 weeks later to the day, Jaime and I were wheels up on our way from Valencia, España to Delhi, India.

I will share all of my travel drama in the June 2026 issue of the Tripod Traveler, so for now - let's get to the safaris!

The Safari schedule was not designed for late sleepers. Each day, my alarm was set for 430am in order to gather all my gear and grab a half a cup of coffee and a banana during the pre-breakfast. See, breakfast is served in the park sometime between 830and 930am on the hood of the Gypsy jeep as seen below:

Why only a half a cup of coffee you ask? When in the reserve it is strictly prohibited to get out of the jeep except at designated rest areas. And this makes complete sense because the animals must understand that while we may talk loudly, drive around in noisy jeeps, and capture our images - we are of no danger to them whatsoever. Therefore, after entering the park at 545am when it opens, there is no way to visit the rest room until breakfast - some 2 and a half to 3 and a half hours later. And that's a long time to hold a pee so I reverted to my strategic dehydration strategy that I acquired during my time sitting in a hide waiting for Iberian Lynxes.

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The morning safari typically ends at about 1130am making it a 6 hour run. The best time to spot tigers is the early morning as they typically hunt during the night and are normally active at this hour. However, they will hunt and be active whenever they are hungry so it pays to remain alert. But by about 9am, they are normally sleeping in the forest so after breakfast we would search for owls, deer, mongoose, rabbits, peacocks, jackals, leopards, sloth bears, various birds and my surprise favorite - Langur monkeys as you can see below.

Once we arrive back at the lodge, there is always a welcome party of staff waving to us and prepared to dust off our camera backpacks and clean the protective dust blankets for the afternoon safari. After dismounting the Gypsy jeep with my now dusted camera backpack, we slowly walk towards the lodge where there is always a cold and wet towel to wipe off the dust and sweat with along with a cool glass of lemonade. Somewhat refreshed, we would head back to our rooms for a shower and some chill time and I, unsurprisingly, downloaded all the images from the 6 hour safari onto my external hard drive after each morning safari. Then, I would take a well-earned power nap before our 130pm lunch.

Since I am not my sons, I don't take pictures of food, I only eat and enjoy it. Between our two lodges - in both Kanha and Bandhavgarh tiger reserves - the food was good although at my limit of spiciness and very plentiful.

And if you are one of those people who simply can't wait to view the images, here's a link to the Indian Safari gallery on my website - please enjoy and share with your friends and family!

In each park there are as many as 60 jeeps cruising around at any one time and since the tigers are limited, there was much jockeying for prime viewing positions when a tiger was spotted. With very few exceptions, the drivers were very professional but minor bumps and scrapes can happen.

One afternoon, I was standing up on the very back seat of our Gypsy jeep taking photos of a tiger when a less experienced driver accidentally bumped our jeep . I lost my balance for a split-second but fortunately recovered quickly as the speed of the other jeep was just 5 km/h. He apologized and I acknowledged and the photography continued.

From a sociological perspective, it was very interesting to watch the drivers try and predict to where a tiger would move. Using experience and instinct they would take up a preferred position for their clients and hope for the best. Tips, as one might expect, are a big part of their income so those who predict correctly are rewarded. In one of those particular situations where there was about 20 jeeps watching a resting tiger, our driver pulled up in a prime place, allowing me to capture this footage of a tiger walking towards the river for a drink of cool water.

We typically entered the park for the afternoon safari at about 345pm until sunset at 630pm. Any of the guides who stay in the. park after the 645pm closing hour receive a fine so we were always out on time. The afternoon safari sometimes consisted of exploring watering holes for all sorts of wildlife. See a few images below:

I sincerely love photography as well as the process of capturing special wildlife images. However, after 6 days and many dusty kilometers of driving around in a bouncy Gypsy jeep, I felt that another day would have been too much. So, we happily drove from the lodge to Jabalpur airport for the flight to Delhi. Things went dangerously sideways on the way home and that story will be told in the June 2026 issue of the Tripod Traveler. Until then, I leave you with this image below.

I went to India because my good friend Jaime had a dream to see tigers in the wild. We were both fortunate enough to see a several tigers along with an impressive array of other wildlife and I truly enjoyed the trip. My Indian Tiger Safari Experience exceeded my expectations plus I got to spend quality time with my friend. That makes me happy.