Archived Testimonials: Nature Safari India

Hi Sharad and team at Nature Safari India

We’re back home after an amazing trip and I would like to share our thoughts 🙂

Let’s start with the planning. I was impressed with your prompt replies, constant communication during the trip and professional planning. Thanks for making the planning stress-free.
In Bhopal, our driver Javed was great, punctual and also spent extra time taking us to few other sights in Bhopal on our request. Our guides at Sanchi (Rakesh) and Bhimbetka (Shailendra) were excellent. Appreciated their enthusiasm, knowledge and friendliness. We were awed by these UNESCO world heritage sites and their history. Our hotel Jehan Numa Palace had a fantastic ambience, but our room was surprisingly average. The staff were wonderful though when we asked for a room change as the mattress didn’t look clean.
Our train journey to Jabalpur was peaceful and a good experience.
Narmada Jacksons was a really good hotel – well designed room and bathroom and spotless. The food at their restaurant was also great.
We loved Singinawa lodge at Kanha. Beautiful room tastefully decorated, excellent service and delicious food. We enjoyed interacting with all the naturalists, wait staff and management. Very special people. Mr. Solanki, our naturalist was the best among the rest! We loved that he loved wildlife and respected it just like we did. He was very knowledgeable, enthusiastic and adored the outdoors. We learnt so much from him and enjoyed his company.
It rained a lot on our last safari. Thankfully the lodge provided ponchos. However, I wish they had an adaptable jeep that could be covered in the event of rain as it’s pretty miserable to sit in an open safari jeep during a heavy downpour.

All the cars you provided for transfers between places were perfect and the drivers great. A special mention about the driver who drove us from Kanha to Bhandavgarh. An hour away from the tree house lodge, it started raining and soon visibility was almost zero. Navigating those narrow roads with massive ditches on either side takes a lot of skill and patience. Our driver was just amazing!

We absolutely loved our tree house! Our room was just lovely, the staff were so so good – so attentive, so friendly. We enjoyed watching two documentaries too, a great touch. They also laid out a candle light dinner for another couple who were celebrating a birthday and us outside and that was delightful. The food was fantastic! Our naturalist Sanjay Gupta was great. We were a bit disturbed by the behaviour of one of the forest rangers (mahout) on an elephant. The jeeps were parked near where Solo (the tigress) and her cubs were resting inside and everyone was waiting for them to emerge. We felt the mahout deliberately went in and caused the tigers to move closer to the jeeps so everyone could get a look. The thrill of a safari and wildlife spotting is the uncertainty and observing animals in the wild on their own terms, without disturbing their usual routine. If this wasn’t enough, the mahout took a tourist’s camera and went back to where the tigers were and clicked photos of the tigers for them and then accepted payment from the tourists too. That was quite shocking especially if it becomes a trend. We were quite impressed by the forest department otherwise with all the great work they’re doing and the strict rules they enforce so this incident was a dampener.

We enjoyed Ken River Lodge too. Simpler than the first two lodges but had an unbeatable location by the beautiful Ken River. The food wasn’t up to the mark as compared to the first two lodges. The service was good. I wish I knew in advance that they offered a night safari at the lodge, would have planned to fit that in. Also, the boat cruise was just a ride on a small section of the river outside the lodge by one of the wait staff. I thought it would be like a boat safari with a naturalist. It was still a pleasant experience. We learnt later that Panna National Park also offers boat safaris inside the park, we would have loved that option had we known about it earlier.

Khajuraho was just fabulous! Our guide (I can’t believe I forgot his name) was the best ever! We loved his cheerful personality and he made the whole complex come alive for us. His knowledge was unparalleled and he made the whole experience so interesting for us. We could sit and listen to him for days!

All in all, we had a fantastic experience. We saw so much of wildlife and we were fortunate to have great naturalists and guides who shared our interests in all wildlife and not just tigers. We saw an amazing variety of birds and ticked off many on our lists! All the parks were spectacular, so diverse and well maintained. Just wish that the forest department can consider having a brief orientation before every safari where a guide can explain to tourists about the need to maintain silence when observing wildlife. Some guides and naturalists too were making sounds and calling out to get the animals to look towards the camera to please their guests. We experienced that in Africa too and it’s sad that guests’ expectations trump respect for wildlife. Maybe the forest department can do more to train the guides and naturalists to quietly observe the animals they way they are and not to expect them to pose for tourists or do anything different from their natural behaviour.

Sorry for writing this super long review but thought you might find some feedback helpful.

Once again, thank you for putting together this beautiful, memorable experience for us.

Cheers,
Lolita 🙂