It was in April 2nd week only that I suddenly decided to visit Lucknow and while up there, to spend couple of days with family. Fortunately managed to got couple of rooms booked for 19/20th, thanks to my sister.
The hard part was booking a decent vehicle (MUV) from Lucknow. The distance from Lucknow to Dudhwa is around 250 kms, however it doesn't gel well with taxi rental guys. The reason being they charge for minimum of 200 kms for the day and a 2 night trips to Dudhwa would come to max around 600 kms, which means for 3 days their taxi only does minimum fare. The good part was that I managed to get an Innova booked only on the 18th while flying into Lucknow but the worst nightmare was when I started getting calls from the driver cum owner, who had the audacity to suggest that we would be wasting our time in doing more than one safari there and best to plan for visiting Kathmandu, Poonadevi and even Jim Corbette in those three days. Any ways to cut a long story short, we had planed to leave Lucknow by 8 AM on Apr-19, get a call from driver at 8.15 AM if we still have plans to go, he gets some peace of mind from me, comes at around 8.40 and we leave at 9.00 AM. Not mention he had been up on the roads all night, the car interiors weren't cleaned and he dozing off in between. Welcome to Uttar Pradesh/Lucknow guys....totally un-professional ethics and the saga doesn't end here.
The route to Dudhwa is pretty straight and can be covered in 4-5 hours. On the way we stopped just after Hargaon and before the right turn to Lakhimpur for lunch. It was a decent and clean dhabha unfortunately didn't take any photos. Some very original dal fry and aloo jeera. Always remember never to order any dish with gravy and you will enjoy the food. For me the order of the day is always daal fry, roti, aloo jeera and egg bhurji...I never get wrong with this combination.
So with heart full, we reached Dudhwa office located at the centre of the park, on the road itself, at around 2 PM.
The road map from Lucknow to Dudhwa via Gola.
Dudhwa Tourist Forest Office Welcome Board
Dudhwa comprises of 2 parks: Kishanpur and Dudhwa and between them they have more than one rest houses. A board within the tourist campus displays the map.
Dudhwa tourist office is located at Dudhwa rest house. It comprises of cottages and perhaps a dorm as well.
Rest house at Dudhwa has a canteen which serves decent food. The trick is not to order any curry item except for egg curry which was truly yummy. We forgot to carry mineral water crate and suffered heavily as there was a shortage of drinking water there. Any ways nearest market at Pallia is just 5 Kms before Dudhwa hence not an issue.
For Dudhwa rest house, they charged around INR 400 per cottage/day and INR 100 per head/day as charges. The safari timings from the Dudhwa campus is from 6 AM-9 AM and in the evening it is 5-7PM. For safari one can either take their own vehicle or open gypsy by paying INR 1000. Guides are available for INR 200 and they all have same info. Open gypsies are better as they allow guide and everyone to spot animal in the bushes.
Since we had no clue, we had booked Dudhwa rest house. However the trick is to book rest houses inside the park and then you can do tiger trail all day by taking a forest guy along with you.
Inside the park, it is dense jungle with numerous water holes. Both at Dudhwa and Kishanpur there are tigers and tourist are able to see them every other day. Unfortunately we missed them on 2 occasions and were only treated with fresh pug marks. But we weren't unlucky, as we got to see some tuskers which were in Dudhwa from Nepal, got the thrill of being chased by one of them, saw Black Bear as well as numerous birds and rhino. Rhino trail is within another portion of the park and it is done on an elephant back with bushes as high as elephant itself. Its a real jungle experience and many a times tiger too are spotted within rhino area.
Few images from the first day - evening safari
We spotted this male tusker far ahead and the gypsy driver was not ready to ply near to this beauty
After bullying from the guide he took us very near to the male and the moment he charged, driver drove away like mad.
And the split second before he charged
An Oriental Pied Hornbill in flight
A Greg-headed Fish Eagle next to a water hole
A Crested Serpent Eagle next to a water hole
Black Bear under the fading light
Next day we did the Rhino park on elephant's back.
