Trip Report - Wild India 2025
So in late March 2025 we took a group of 6 people on a very different Indian Safari from our usual Ranthambhore adventures, exploring three reserves in Central India. The plan was to get away from the tiger centric tours of Ranthambhore and offer a more rounded Indian wildlife experience. Of course we wanted to see tigers (which we did so so well) but the chances of seeing dhole, bears, leopards and iconic species like gaur made the adventure a more varied one.
Led my myself and Jamie Peters, the tour was marketed as a recce for a future tour, so everyone who signed up knew that it was a journey of exploration! So here is the trip report, with behind the scenes pics, accommodation and our amazing food plus of course some of the wildlife experiences that we had. Thanks goto our wonderful clients from myself and Jamie; they were awesome to be with and made all our hard work so worthwhile.
We had an amazing time with many different experiences and of course it being India, we had some challenges to overcome too. That’s our job as guides, to ensure that everyone has the best time, is kept fully briefed on what is happening and to always have a Plan B! Jamie and I are very experienced at travelling and working in India so for us we just take this in our stride, that’s why our clients trust us to deliver the best tours!
The trip started out as always with the travel days, which is something despite a lifetime of travelling I always look forward to. Always conscious of my effect on the environment this time I used public transport to get to Heathrow, which presented a few challenges. The first is that my village has no bus or taxi service to get anywhere so my neighbour James gave me a lift to the station. The second issue for anyone travelling west to Heathrow is that someone forgot to tell the designers of the Elizabeth line to stop at Heathrow on the way into London. It’s madness that they didn’t do it, so I took the the coach from Reading to Heathrow. It’s just a short walk from the platform at Reading to the coach, which drops you right outside Heathrow T5 so all in all it’s easy to do.
The flight was uneventful, we all met in Delhi, had a meal together and a few drinks overnight before the Indigo flight to Japalpur and the start of our adventure.
Kanha National Park - our first destination was Kanha National Park, a very famous national park in Madhya Pradesh, which is a mixture of Sal forest and grasslands. It was a real change from Ranthambhore to be in a forest and whilst everyone wanted to see tigers, I was secretly yearning to see dhole. I have always had a fascination for wild dogs of any kind and my only previous experience of dhole was watching a pack of them trying to naughtily take the tyres off a ranger vehicle at a safari park in the UK! Well on the first morning my wish came true, a lone dhole came running along the road towards us, passing right by the jeep. It was clearly in a hurry so we turned around and followed it, and after a bit of cat and mouse we came upon a fire break where the whole pack was gathered. Both jeeps parked together, just as the pack decided to move and came right towards us… then right by both jeeps! It was an incredible and emotional experience for us, and would be our only sighting of dhole for the entire trip, which shows how rare these encounters are. But you have to be in it to win it!
Whilst the dhole was the wildlife highlight of our time in Kanha, we did see several tigers, including a male that we waited close to for several hours as he was sleeping. Not daring to leave the area, we ate our packed lunch at a local rest stop; finally he came out, but much to our dismay it was through long grass and we were quickly unsighted. He did sit in a small clear patch for a time, but I had gambled and gone ahead, so it was left to Jamie to ensure that some of the team got good images, which he did. That’s why we have two experienced guides and no hierarchy on our trips!
We worked hard at Kanha as we had two full day all zone permits for both jeeps that made all the difference. Yes they increase the cost but when you are there it’s vital that you maximise all opportunities! When we were not in the park we stayed at the amazing Kanha Earth Lodge, awesome accomodation and the food was simply excellent as it was all Thali style. If you don’t know what Thali is, then check the image below, it’s a traditional small bowl kind of meal where you get to experience different types of Indian food. I have to say that the accommodation and food were incredible here, which for us is a vital consideration on any trip as you are on holiday and want to have somewhere safe, quiet and relaxing to be!
So we left Kanha after a few days with good cheer, it had been a great start to the trip. For Jamie and myself we had to adapt to many different rules in Madhya Pradesh parks, as it is very different from Ranthambhore, but all in all we felt that we delivered a great experience to the clients as the park is very beautiful and being with just a few jeeps in the middle of the day is a wonderful experience, you really feel like you are in the wilderness.
Pench National Park - After the highs of Kanha we were all looking forward to the spectacular teak Forests of Pench National Park. It was somewhere that I had heard of many times as being great for leopards, and which I was keen to explore. Unfortunately it did not live upto my expectations and for many reasons we just had bad luck. Our only tiger encounters were very fleeting; we spent a lot of time listening to alarm calls of moving leopards without seeing much and generally we just didn’t get lucky with the cats. So as always we made a different plan and decided to just concentrate on other wildlife; if the cats wanted to show themselves to us they were free to do so!! Probably the best encounter was a result of this, we found a jackal female moving pups from one den site to another along the road, so we followed her back and forth a few times and were rewarded with some nice shots of the very unhappy looking pups being carried by the mother. That was special.
One afternoon I held an impromptu slow motion and panning class whilst we were working with some Langur monkeys that were crossing a track next to us - I explained the technique and then everyone had a go. For me that’s what these trips are about - teaching people to take better photos and think differently about their encounters.
Again the accommodation at Pench was first class and provided a welcome respite from the frustrations of the park. We might have just been unlucky but I decided there and then not to include Pench in our next trip to India in 2026. It was a beautiful park no doubt, but it wasn’t one that was suited to us and what we need. That’s the point of a recce - to find these things out!
Satpura National Park - the surprise package of the trip, tigers from boats! I had little knowledge of this place before I arrived, yes of course I had done research but nothing prepared me for the tigers. To be honest the main reason initially for going to Satpura was for the sloth bears there, which are meant to be common and friendly, but as it turned out they were busy feeding elsewhere!
For us, Satpura was the highlight of the tour, a combination of great tigers, a simply beautiful place and a head guide and lodge manager willing to do everything to make the trip a success. That’s why the choice of ground partner is so important, it can be the difference between a mediocre trip and a brilliant one. Here we had several memorable encounters with tigers (I would have been happy with just one of them!)…
The first boat encounter was late in the afternoon, a young male was sleeping by the river so we waited just offshore in the boat, having a drink and snacks to pass the time. We changed position a few times as the light moved, then he decided to wake up and head to the river for a drink. We kept pace with him as he came striding down, stopping to drink right in front of us. Unreal and I had to pinch myself to believe it! Everyone was on such a high, it was amazing to be on the river around sunset with a tiger drinking in front of you! Afterwards we took our time going back to the lodge, photographing the sunset and the bird life returning to roost, before a much needed celebration drink.
The second encounter was the result of a change of plan, we had seen a toger by the water during the morning sleeping. I saw the situation and immediately abandoned the afternoon jeep safari for the boat. It was a challenging to get the boat to where the tiger was hanging out as it was only a few feet deep but the skill and determination of the captain really shone through. As we came around the corner the tiger was above us, walking right down to the water’s edge in front of us. He then got into the water and gave us 30 minutes I don’t think I will ever forget. Just a real cool dude (literally) and such a different kind of shot thanks to the angle of the safari boat.
The third encounter was this beautiful female tiger that you see here. She was in a stunning forest pool, with beautiful pastel colours reflected in the water. Our jeeps were in a good position for it, Jamie and I were helping clients out with their framing and composition as some of the shot was through a slight canopy. It really was a very relaxing way to spend an afternoon!
But it wasn’t all about the tigers at Satpura; we had a fun dragonfly session at a forest rest stop, plus some encounters with the enigmatic gaur too. On the river there was some good bird life and at the lodge ponds there were some friendly flycatchers and sunbirds.
We really enjoyed Satpura and would have liked to have spent a full day in the park to try to get to see the dhole there but the temperature was just too hot to be out and about so we just stuck to the usual park hours. It would have also been nice to see more than the single sloth bear that Jamie’s vehicle saw on the last morning, but that is the way it goes, and hopefully next time will be better. As previously, the lodge was a wonderful place to spend the heat of the day, great food and hospitality throughout with a lovely scenic bar for a sneaky mid day drink. The chef even cooked us fish and chips for lunch, Indian style, which was mega!
There was just something quite special about Satpura, it was also the first time that we had been driven in the future of park jeeps, the new Force Motors jeep. The iconic Suzuki Gypsy jeep has been discontinued and we have started to see this larger jeep in a few Madhya Pradesh parks. It’s much more comfortable for clients and guides, has great flexibility for everyone to move around, and the only negativity is its size which means it does not have the maneuverability of the Gypsy. But in my view the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages for our purposes. Anyway enough writing from me, here’s some of the pics we took in just 3 days….
And that was that, we were finished. After a quick morning safari in Satpura, where we saw a tiger pulling a fresh kill into the bush and a Barred Owl, it was a quick bit of packing, a lodge brunch then a couple of hours drive to Bhopal to start the long journey home. As a recce trip, it was a great success; we had some great encounters and all took some great pics too, all complemented with excellent lodges, food and atmosphere.
Wild India 2026
We have now announced Wild India 2026, a return to Satpura and Kanha with the addition of a few days at the world famous Bandhavgarh national park. We have added Bandhavgarh purely for tigers, and the fact we can have full day all zones safaris. At Kanha and Satpura we have full day safaris too. It’s a month earlier than when we went last time so slightly cooler, which means the tigers are just thinking of going to water in the heat of the day. We are using our excellent lodge partner again but this time they will supply all of our english speaking drivers and be doing all of our internal logistics.
Booking now for March 2026