|
Hello
again from England.
At last
I have the trip report prepared and am
attaching it to this mail. Please feel free to
use it as you will in your website or to send
it to any person interested in it. You can use
any of our letters as an endorsement of your
excellent service.
I
hope you can use the trip report and look
forward to your feedback on it.
regards
Monica and John Kirby
This trip was
organized through an Indian company based in Jaipur that I found through the Internet. The company is:
Indo Vacations
(Tour
Operator & Holiday Planner)
312 / 6, Valmiki Marg, Pushpawali, Raja Park
Jaipur-302004, INDIA
Tel.: 0091 141 2622098 & 0091 94143 12872 Fax: 0091 141 2622098
Mobile: 0091 98291 53949
www.indovacations.net
E-Mail:
info@indovacations.net
We told them the places we were interested in visiting and they arranged an itinerary for us to include
these. After a little adjustment we agreed on this and
were quoted a price of $1010 (approx £580) per person to include all transportation in India and accommodation with breakfast, the services of a driver with
a Toyota Qualis car and an experienced bird guide. Also included were airport transfers and a full day sight-seeing in Delhi.
All the arrangements went very smoothly and we would recommend this company for their flexibility and organisational skills. The driver we had, known to
us as Paul was really good. He had to drive on the most testing of mountain roads as well as endure the traffic jams in the cities and he did this all without
complaint or the slightest sign of road rage that we all get from time to time. He was great and, once he got used to mad birders asking him to stop at the
slightest sighting of a new bird, he joined in with us.
Our bird guide was Raju (Jagdish Bhatt). This young man is from Binsar and works as a guide at the Binsar Tourist Rest House. He had good eyes and ears
and with the mountain birds he was invaluable. He knew the places we needed to go to see the birds and was excellent. Raju was so friendly and such a
pleasure to have with us. He seemed to enjoy the trip as much as we did! We were very sad to leave him at the end for his 100k journey back to Binsar (a lot
of it to be covered on foot!!)
Flights were arranged through Lastminute.com with Virgin Atlantic for £515 each. This was a direct flight which arrived in Delhi at 11.30 am and back in
London at 5.30pm approx. We liked these flight times and even though we could have got a cheaper price the flights were either via a European or Middle
East airport and/or arrived in Delhi around midnight and left about 2am for the return journey. We felt it was worth the £30-40 pounds extra to get this flight
and it certainly proved to be true.
Our itinerary was as follows.
Day 01 – 29.01.06 – Arrival in New Delhi, transfer to the Hotel / Hotel Metro Heights
Day 02 – 30.01.06 – Drive to Saatal / Saatal Tourist House
Day 03 – 31.01.06 – Full day birding in Saatal / Saatal Tourist House
Day 04 – 01.02.06 – Excursion to Pangot
Day 05 – 02.02.06 – Drive to Binsar / Binsar Tourist House
Day 06 – 03.02.06 – Drive from Binsar to Ranikhet / Hotel West View
Day 07 – 04.02.06 – Drive to Corbett National Park / Hotel Tiger Camp
Day 08 – 05.02.06 – Full day Sightseeing in Corbett National Park / Hotel Tiger Camp
Day 09 – 06.02.06 – Drive to Nainital / Hotel Claridges Naini Retreat
Day 10 – 07.02.06 – Full day in Nainital / Hotel Claridges Naini Retreat
Day 11 – 08.02.06 – Full day in Nainital / Hotel Claridges Naini Retreat
Day 12 – 09.02.06 – Drive to New Delhi / Hotel Metro Heights
Day 13 – 10.02.06 – Full day Sightseeing in New Delhi / Hotel Metro Heights
Day 14 – 11.02.06 – Flight to London
January 29th:
We arrived in Delhi at around 11.30 am and were met by our driver from Indo Vacations. We had changed some money at the airport so were ready to go
straight to our hotel. Hotel Metro Heights is in the Karol Bargh area of Delhi not far from Connaught Place. We really wouldn’t recommend it although it was
adequate. The rooms were ok and had everything we needed including a “ minibar” which contained 2 bottles of water and 3 soft drinks! It is in a “motor
trade” area and there are no local restaurants you can walk to so we used the hotel restaurant which was interesting!. The food I have to say was excellent. We were puzzled however by the fact that most of the dining chairs were actually computer chairs on wheels. The dining room staff were great and real
whizzes with a spoon which they used to open beer bottles and also to change channels on the TV!
In the afternoon we took a taxi from the hotel to Okhla Barrage on the Yamuna River. Due to new road construction and also to the fact that the driver
probably wasn’t a registered taxi (our hotel reception called him) we got lost taking an hour and a half for the journey. We eventually found Khalindi Kunj
Park and in desperation got out of the taxi there. Don’t bother with the park itself but bird along the tracks leading off the road to the left of the park. The
return trip back to our hotel took 30 minutes!
Birds
Seen
|
|
|
On the road up to Binsar inside the National Park there is a temple (Binsewar Temple) with a field in front and a muddy area to the side. This had Spotted
Forktail, Blue Whistling Thrush and Plain-backed Thrush.
3rd February Ranikhet:
On the drive to Ranikhet we again had good views of the Himalayas although the cloud cover comes over early in the morning. We made several stops
along the way to view overhead raptors and one of these proved to be a Golden Eagle. Ranikhet itself is an army town with several barracks. We stayed at
West View Hotel, an old colonial style hotel with very large rooms. A little faded in its glory but warm and comfortable with electricity AND hot water!
The area looked good birding habitat but we saw very little apart from
Asian Barred Owlet and Himalayan Griffon.
4th – 5th February. Tiger Camp. Corbett’s National Park:
The journey to Corbett’s took about half a day and we arrived at Tiger Camp in time for lunch. This is a very comfortable lodge with two roomed bungalows. The food at this place is buffet style but plentiful and delicious! On our arrival the resident ornithologist/organizer had his scope set up on a pair of Collared
Scops Owls close to the restaurant. After lunch we drove back along the Ranikhet road for a few
kilometers. We stopped by a bridge over an almost dry river
bed. Walking up the river bed we were looking for Slaty-backed Forktail but were unlucky. We did see
Small Niltava, Rufous-bellied Niltava and Crested Kingfisher.
The resident “organiser” arranged our visit next day to the Corbett’s reserve with the permits, guide (obligatory), jeep included. Total cost was approx 4500
rupees for 5 people (included Raju our bird guide). Also 1500 rupees for an elephant ride. The elephant ride was just that – a 2 hour trek through the forest
with little chance of seeing anything! The reserve guides are geared up to finding a tiger (we failed although there was plenty of evidence of tiger activity) and to get them to stop for birds is
quite difficult.
We went to Bijrani Camp and saw most of the birds around this area. While we ate our packed lunch here we also saw a Jackal.
Biggest failure here was not seeing Slaty Woodpecker.
Best Birds
Seen |
|
6th – 8th February Nainital
On the way from Corbett’s we passed through Ramnagar. We crossed the Kosi River at the barrage and parked by the road. We walked along the almost dry
river bed. No Ibisbill seen and there have been no reports of any here for some time!
Birds seen.
Egyptian Vulture. Hair-crested Drongo. Pied Bushchat. Indian Robin. Pied Kingfisher, Lesser Whitethroat.
From Ramnagar we stopped after 4kms at a very wide river bed, just past the village of
Chhoi. Here we saw
Ashy-crowned Sparrowlark, Common Kingfisher and Plain Martin.
We
came to a place called Corbett’s Falls and paid a small
entry fee. The drive down inside the entrance was through a
forested area to a car park. It’s a very scenic spot with
some birds. Black Bulbul, Crested Bulbul. Tits and
Warblers
Another long drive along winding mountain roads to Nainital.
We stayed at Claridges Naini Retreat which was almost
luxurious compared to Saatal and even gave us hot water
bottles! A stop at a ravine by a sign for Nainital Zoo and
Hotel Aroma was very productive. Spotted
Forktail, Rufous Sibia, Bar-tailed Treecreeper. White-capped Water
Redstart, Plumbeous Redstart, Brown-fronted Woodpecker, Pink-browed
Rosefinch, ,Rufous-naped Tit and a little further on by a sign
for Himalayan Botanical Gardens, and some rather curious
statues of Hindu Gods, we had wonderful close views of a
Lammergeier.
A trip to Pangot from Nainital took about 45 minutes. Unfortunately by the time we were on the road the mist had rolled in and we didn’t get to see the
mountain views. This happened each day and you really need to be at the viewpoints for sunrise or you wont see anything. After Pangot the metalled road
turned into a dirt track to the village of Gugukan. Here, near the school, we saw a party of 20 White-throated Laughing Thrushes.
Other birds seemed scarce (no accentors) and we returned to Pangot and had lunch at the Jungle Lore Lodge (a good birding base with guides).
In the garden we saw Black-headed Jays, Streaked Laughing Thrushes, Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush, Stonechat, Green tailed Sunbird,
Red-rumped
Swallow and Grey-backed Shrike Taking the road downhill to Bagar. We passed over a stream said to be good for Slaty Forktail but there were a lot of
workmen shifting boulders so no forktails at all. The trees had a lot of Phylloscopus warblers but we could only identify
Blyth’s Leaf Warbler and Lemon Rumped Warbler.
9th – 10th February Delhi:
We left Nainital to head back to Delhi and on leaving the town we noticed a large number of raptors on what looked like a rubbish tip on the left of the road. Most of these proved to be Steppe Eagles, probably 30+ .Once again the road was terrifying with lots of hair pin bends. Thank goodness for a steady driver!! We heard on our return to Delhi that the Nainital – Delhi bus had gone off the road and down into the ravine the same day.
The road crosses several rivers and stops can be made at these. A walk along one wide river (name unknown) produced
Wire-tailed Swallow, Ashy Prinia, Hoopoe,
Greenshank, Redshank, Snipe, Ruff, Indian Cormorant and Black-winged Stilt. Black-tailed Godwit, River Lapwing. Spotted Dove, White-throated
Kingfisher.
.
We spent most of the day on the 10th on a city tour taking in the sights of the temples and mosques and the Red Fort and Gandhi’s Cremation site. In the
afternoon we went to Tughlaqabad.
The fort here covers 6 km and was very interesting and would have been well worth a longer visit! We went in through the main entrance at a cost of 100
rupees and birded the scrub inside the walls.
Birds Seen |
