----- Original Message -----
From: Sarah St. George
To: Nature Safari India Pvt Ltd
Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2007 10:34 PM
Subject: Thank you!
Dear Sharad,
Thank you for your e-mail. I have been meaning to write and thank you for all your help. I am happy to share my experiences with the Nature Safari.
My family and I travelled to India this past December. I was overwhelmed with the idea of planning a trip to India. I knew we wanted to go to the Bandhavgarh National Park�and contacted Sharad at the Nature Safari to make reservations. His response was immediate and he offered to help with planning the rest of my trip. He was fantastic, and he ended up booking train reservations, drivers, guides and hotels for our trip. Planning this from the United States would have been impossible without his help. Prior to leaving I was anxious if indeed all my reservations had been made - this group is extremely honest and reliable, and my worries were for nothing.� Upon our arrival we were even more pleased with the staff and service of the Nature Safari. They were prompt,�courteous and extremely helpful. A special thank you to Manjeet who was always available to help us with our needs!
Seeing Tigers in the wild has been a life-long dream for me and our trip to Bandhavgarth and our stay at the Tiger's Den surpassed my expectations. It was the highlight of our trip. We had a fantastic guide/naturalist, Jagat, he was extremely�knowledgeable. His ability to track tigers and his expertise of the wildlife and park made our experience exceptional. We were blessed with seeing 11 tigers during our 5 days, a dream come true.
It's my pleasure to highly recommend the Nature Safari to anyone thinking of traveling India
.
Sarah St. George
United States
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---- Original Message -----
From: CarolatHFC
To: info@naturesafariindia.com
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 6:46 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Attn Sharad
Hi Sharad
Just a quick note to thank you so much for the arrangements you made which gave us such a fantastic holiday in India. All the logistics worked perfectly, your staff were always on time, friendly, knowledgeable. The itinerary was great, met our wishes absolutely - seemed like we had a new adventure every day, without being rushed. We managed to see 13 tigers, and were amazed at the culture, history and beauty of the buildings in Agra and Jaipur. Even the long car drives through the countryside were fascinating. Hotels all well chosen - the Neemrana was a perfect ending, what a place! We both absolutely loved the part of India we saw, and will no doubt come back to see more of your beautiful country at some stage.
Can't thank you and your team enough
Best regards
Carol Thompson & Mike Brock
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----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Phelps
To: Nature Safari
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 9:21 PM
Subject: Re: Feedback
Dear Sharad,
"We wanted our India trip to emphasize wildlife and nature (and of course
we hoped to see tigers!), but we wanted also to get a feeling for the diverse
spiritual and cultural history of India and her people. With the limited time
we had available for travel these goals seemed almost too much to ask. But as
it turned out, from start to finish our India trip was a resounding success,
thanks mostly to the superb planning and professional care provided for us by
Sharad Vats and Nature Safari Ltd. At each camp, national park, and historic
site, we felt like we were treated as VIP's. Transfers were generally seamless,
and Sharad Vats arranged and kept viable backup plans in place in case we experienced
flight delays or cancellations due to weather. We were always met on time by
a friendly and knowledgeable guide upon our arrival into a new train station
or airport, and the personal sightseeing tours arranged for us in cities and
historic areas were outstanding and truly informative. Our hotel and camp accommodations
(most of which were suggested or recommended by Nature Safari) were always of
very high quality and comfort, as was the food and service. Our car transportation
arrangements were uniformly excellent and our driving days were quite comfortable,
despite the inherent difficulties of road travel in some of the remote regions
we visited. To top it all off, we were fortunate beyond our hopes in sighting
tigers and other wildlife in the parks, due especially to the superb skills
of the naturalists and trackers arranged for our visit by Nature Safari. We
arrived home with photographs and memories to last a lifetime! I recommend most
highly the expert services of Sharad Vats and Nature Safari Ltd. to all serious
travelers who seek the best experiences that a cultural and wildlife-oriented
visit to India can offer."
(Robert Phelps, Professor of Biology, San Diego Mesa College, San Diego,
California, USA), email: Robert Phelps. rphelps@san.rr.com
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Kamcilla Gaunt"
To: "Nature Safari" <
info@indiawildlife.co.uk; info@naturesafariindia.com>
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 1:19 AM
Subject: Trip Report
Dear Sharad
Finally the trip report! Apologies for taking so long to get round to this.
Firstly thank you very much for arranging a fantastic holiday for us. Everything went very smoothly and we enjoyed the holiday very much. Most importantly of all we saw tigers in the wild!
Guides:
The arrangements at each destination and transfers were all very good. The guides were good, in particular, My Janesh in Delhi, Mr Mueen Khan in Agra and the guide in Mumbai - unfortunately I can't remember her name. Our driver for the first part of the trip, Umesh, was excellent. Unfortunately we don't know who his boss is - so we were not able to say how pleased we were with his services but if you can, we would appreciate it if you could inform his company how pleased we were with his driving.
Hotels:
The hotels were great - in particular the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur. We were quite pleased that we could spend an extra morning there (since Ranthambore was closed).
We were disappointed with Tiger Den - mainly because we had a bit of a disaster when we got there. We arrived after an overnight train journey (which, by the way was fine. It would have been a lot better if we could have had the 4 berth sleeping bit - instead of beng scattered around - but it was fine). Anyway when we got to the hotel they put us in the new "deluxe suites" - which were anything but deluxe! The buildings had obviously just been completed and smelled of wet paint, the floors were just concrete with some vinyl placed on it, it was freezing, and the rooms weren't connected to the generators so there was no electricity and no hot water come out of the shower (the room didn't have a bath). I was
horrified - and must confess burst into tears! After breakfast I met the the managing director (Shalendra?) and asked to be shown the rooms in the cottages which was infinitely better so we moved into those rooms. We had them in separate cottages for the first night and then next to each other for the next two nights. According to Jennie and Doug Palmer (who are also using you, I believe) the rooms were a mere foundation when they got there a few days before. They really were uninhabitable. If you send other clients there make sure you ask that they be placed in the old cottages. Once we were settled in the older rooms everything was okay. I did try to call you when we got there but my mobile phone didn't work and the receptionist - who I couldn't really communicate with- connected me to someone else! On the plus side our guide at Tiger Den was fantastic. The resort was completely packed (with some unfortuante people staying in the new rooms) and the park was very crowded too so our guide kept us away from the melee and we managed to see a tigress with her 3 cubs who were terrrified of cars. We were the only ones on our side of the road when we saw this. It was amazing.
I'm surprised at the difference in the standard of accomodation at the other parks (Ranthambore and Kanha) and Bandhavgahr. I see that you have another resort. Royal Tiger Resort, at Bandhavgahr on your web site. Is Tiger Den better than Royal Tiger Resort? Also I believe the new Taj resort, Mahua Kothi, opened in November. I'm sure that would be up to usual Taj standards. Although we did see the extremely large Taj vehicle several times in the park and according to our guide nobody on it had seen a tiger!
It was a pleasure to get to Kanha and the luxury Tuli Tiger Corridor tents. We were the only people in the tents on the first night and the solitude was real pleasure. Again our guide at Tuli, Inderjit, was really good. I'm not sure whether you asked for specific guides - and if you did, thank you, they were both excellent.
The other hotels were all great. As I told you on the phone, The Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai didn't have 2 sea-facing rooms so gave us the Neptune Suite instead which was fantastic.
So, all in all, it was a great holiday. The only disappointment was, as I mentioned before, not doing the trip the other way round - i.e. first to Mumbai, then Kanha and Bandhavgar and finally Agra, Jaipur, Ranthambore and New Delhi. According to the guides the park always gets extremely busy between Christmas and New Year and this year was even worse. The worst effect is that all the animals keep away from the roads. There were no tiger shows on 2 of the days we were at Kanha and one at Bandhavgahr. The guides said the time to come back is a week after New Year. Everything quietens down after New Year and after about a week the animals start coming out again.
However we did see tigers - so we were happy with that. I think the parks must be really amazing places to visit when they are not so crowded so we shall have to make a return trip at some time!
I think the only other thing we would do differently is try to spend more time in the various places and even skip something out if we were short of time. Two reasons for this: firstly I'd forgotten that the kids do like doing nothing except sitting at the pool on their holidays and secondly I would have liked to have got more of a feel for some of the places. I would have liked to have spent more time in Delhi - I don't think I really got a feel for the place. The extra night in Agra was a real pleasure. It gave us a bit of time to relax between travelling and the kids really enjoyed the facilities at Amarvilas. I think everything would have been extremely tiring if we had gone to Ranthambore for 3 nights as planned.
Anyway, we had a great time and again thank you so much for arranging the holiday for us. Please don't hesitate to use us as references and I will certainly recommend your company to anyone I know coming to India.
Please give my regards to Manjeet and do keep in touch. I will take a look at your website from time to time and we will be back in India at some time in the future. We will be in touch then.
Thank you.
Best wishes
Kamcilla
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----- Original Message -----
From: SurenSen
To: info@naturesafariindia.com
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 6:36 PM
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Mr Sharad Vats
Nature Safari India.
Being a keen wild life enthusiast & photographer i would like to contribute a short note on the Safari to Bandhavgarh - Kanha arranged by your company for us recently. I have travelled to India many times since the late 80's & visited most of the wildlife parks, some of them on several occasions on tours arranged by numerous Indian travel agents. I am delighted that our last visit was refreshingly different from the earlier bad experiences in the hands of unscrupulous travel agents trying to make a fast buck.
We have finally found a knowledgeable, capable & most importantly an honest & reliable travel agent. He provided us with vehicles, lodges and other ground handling arrangements to perfection in accordance with our contract. We were indeed fortunate to have excellent sightings of 19 tigers including a family of five and 2 sloth bear during our six day visit, thanks to the excellent tracking & anticipation of well trained guides provided to us.
I take great pleasure in recommending Shard & staff at Naturesafari as a trusted, reliable and hospitable agency to handle travel in India.
With Warm Wishes for your continued success
Suren Senewiratne
London
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----- Original Message -----
From: Mary Heys
To: 'Nature Safari India'
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 12:49 PM
Subject: Nature Safaris
I found Nature Safaris and Sharad and his team while searching Internet in 2005. I saw on the site that they also had links to Care for the Wild, WWF, and was impressed that they even contribute towards conservation. I have a tiger adopted through Care for the Wild and so of course I checked up on Sharad and company with CFW! Sharad doesn't know - but now he does!! I got a very good recommendation and so I went for it. I had a wonderful 2 weeks in Bandhavgargh and Corbett (although Sharad quite rightly tried to discourage me from doing both, and so far apart, in such little time - never again!!) It was wonderful and Tiger's Den so warm and friendly and my guide excellent that of course I came back again this year (2006) but only to Bandhavgargh this time and of course I'll come back next year!!! Nature Safaris are a wonderful, small but serious and very personal company and they care very much about their clients. I could go on and on and on!! I have aleady been to India and other parks twice before so I have a comparison. I am a Nature Safaris fan!
Mary Heys/Rome/Italy
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Our
Guest's Blogs & Websites
http://markandsueindia.blogspot.com/2006/02/nature-safari-tours.html
http://www.pieterverheij.com
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