INDIA 2025: RATHAMBORE NATIONAL PARK DAY 1- KHEM VILLAS AND OUR FIRST TWO SAFARI DRIVES

 November 26-27 (Thanksgiving Day in the United States), 2025

Five or six hours after we left Keoledeo National Park, located approximately mid-way between Jaipur and Agra, we finally arrived at Rathambore National Park, It looks like a short distance on the map below, and it is--just a little over 150 miles--but we were driving through lots of small villages and the pace was agonizingly slow.

Ranthambore NP is large--515 square miles--and was established first as a game sanctuary in 1955 at about 1/5 of its current size, but then was declared as a Project Tiger reserve as part of a wildlife conservation program in 1974. In 1980 it was named a national park.

The tiger population in India has doubled since the early 1970s, but at about 3,700 tigers, it is still woefully short of the estimated 40,000 tigers that roamed the country at the end of the 19th century. Without Project Tiger, tigers would likely be extinct, at least in India, which has almost 75% of the world's wild tiger population.  Today there are 57 protected areas in India that have been designated as tiger preserves.

It was getting to be late, so our driver took us directly to our place of residence for the next few days, the Khem Villas, located ten minutes from the reserve. The place consists of eight luxury cottages, ten tents, and four double rooms. Our group of three couples had tents, but not exactly the kind of tents you think of when you hear that word.

The approach to the Villas is a long, private drive flanked by the property's gardens where they grow much of the food they serve to guests in the all-vegetarian meals. There is a lot of fencing around the gardens, which I assume is to keep wildlife scavengers out.

And here is the local bakery--but I don't think you want what they are baking . . . 

Cow dung cakes, stacked five high after they are dried out and sold as fuel for cooking and heating.

TEXAS: CORPUS CHRISTI AREA, PART I (THANKSGIVING DAY, PADRE ISLAND, PORT ARANSAS NATIONAL PRESERVE)

 Thursday, November 25, 2021 (Thanksgiving Day)

It's hard for me to be away from home, family, and friends on a holiday, although it doesn't seem to bother Bob at all. It was especially strange to be the Gulf Coast for Thanksgiving. NOTHING about the Gulf Coast says Thanksgiving to me. We didn't even see wild turkeys there.

We left Houston at 6:30 PM on Wednesday night, heading for the Corpus Christi area, a distance of just over 200 miles. Bob was worried that we would hit Thanksgiving traffic, and rain seemed to be imminent, so his anxiety was high. 

But neither heavy traffic nor rain materialized, and we made good time.

In the morning we drove to North Padre Island, a barrier island along the coast.

The road took us right onto the beach, where we drove on the sand along the shoreline. The rising sun broke through the clouds, giving us a pretty start to our day of thanksgiving.

We saw lots of pelicans, egrets, and other seabirds hanging out on the shore.