The entrance to the 297 sq km wilderness area is a huge old decorative Rajasthani style gate (meaning the massive wooden doors are large enough to accommodate an elephant and rider) that blocks the road between where two craggy mountains meet. Once inside the portal the time seems to slip back several hundred years, the forest becomes thicker, strange sounds echo through the canyons, and the litter that covers the rest of India magically disappears. At the heart of the park is Ranthambhore Fort, now a ghostly spread of ruins which tower over the entire region. From mountainous cliffs rise the walls of the 4.5 sq. km bastion and it is only accessible by passing through 4 strategically placed gates. Through it's 1,000 year history the fort has seen many challengers yet none have ever conquered it. With several temples, a mosque, 4 lakes, stables, pastures and a farm the inhabitants could be self-sustaining for years on end. The monstrous remnants of dilapidated architecture makes one wonder just how they managed to accomplish such an   impressive feat. Sadly, one misfortune is that the Indian tourists have taken it upon themselves to let anyone and everyone know they were there - graffiti is a huge problem. While we were there we saw a couple carving their names into the side of an ancient temple. When I asked them if they loved India they both replied proudly and when I asked why they were defacing an important Indian treasure you would have thought I was speaking Pig Latin.

At the beginning of our eighth and final outing Helen prodded Naddeem by asking him if we'd see the cubs. He smiled and reiterated that you just can't predict such things. Helen made him laugh when she asked him to "just say yes" to which he dutifully agreed. Our touring brought us back to the familiar watering hole full of deer. We sat. And sat. And sat. And then she slowly appeared out of the brush. And then her three little one's tumbled out right behind her. With mom in the lead, the bouncing little Jungle Book characters skirted the brush and finally reentered it. All the guides were flipping out. We raced to the other side of the thicket hoping for more. Our expectations were met in seconds. Mom popped out followed by junior, junior, and junior. This time they were about 40 feet away. We followed them for about 5 minutes and they decided we'd had enough and disappeared into the dusky shadows. After leaving the park Naddeem told us the cubs haven't been seen that close before and we'd witnessed something truly auspicious. What a great way to end our adventure!

I apologize if some of the pictures are shaky, but the beasts prefer to come out at dusk and dawn so the light was pretty low. A bigger problem, however, was that the Indian men on the bus would get excited and start shoving everyone out of the way so shooting a picture became a full contact sport. Many of the same men found it necessary to shout a narration of the entire event scaring not only the tigers, but every living thing in Rajasthan. It got so bad that one very sweet and mild mannered Englishman on our canter had been elbowed and pushed so much was driven to shove one of the Indian nitwits back and snarl at him to "shut the f*** up." And of course, there was the screaming infant who almost became tiger bait....

Our last night I took Helen out for the first of many birthday dinners. We peeled off our skanky safari clothes and played dress up to go to a real swanky restaurant that was once the Maharaja's hunting palace and is now owned by the Taj Hotel Group. The best part was after dinner we ended up staying up way too late drinking and shooting pool with the staff. You can take the kids out of the pool hall, but you can't take the pool hall out of the kids.

Once again we struck gold with our hotel. The Tiger Safari Resort is a cheerful and comfortable place. Not only did Rahul, the manager, and the rest of the staff bend over backwards to make our stay as enjoyable as possible, but the hotel has the strategic advantage of being first on the pick-up route for the safari canters (open top buses) so we always got fantastic seats! I must also mention that Rahul is one of the most worldly and well informed people I've had the pleasure of meeting in India. He is also the first Indian I've met that has bucked the system of arranged marriage too - I have a tremendous amount of respect for what he and his wife went through. I promise we're not doing paid advertising blurbs here, it's just since we're living out of our suitcases the accommodations we mention have been an integral part of our nomadic lives.

Udaipur is our next destination. We'll see if it really is the most romantic city in Rajasthan.

PMB 3/12/06