16/11/2012
GIR NATIONAL PARK:
The last remaining home for the Asiatic lion which is in the western part of our country in a Gujarat state of the Junagard District, The forest which is occupying the land area is almost 1400 sqkm and core buffer zone that is national park’s land area is 270 sqkm ,But the visitors aren’t allowed to the national park premises.
There are two places where the name is Devaria and sesan gir is the place where you are allowed for the safari, In Devaria it has only closed door bus service for the safari but in a sesan gir you can have open gypsy safari service like a south Africa safari trip and this is limited number of service at morning and afternoon secession and for this trip we need to get the permit from the forest department and it includes the open gypsy service which is having a seating arrangement of 6 nos (3+3 in two rows) along with one guide and driver,
keep it in your mind this trip is solely depends on your risk and cost and no safety equipment would be available neither guards nor lion tracker.
Its purely a luck based trip out of 1400 sqkm of forest we are covering only a 40 to 45 kms even which is out of buffer zone, the total net shell of the population in a last 5 year counting was 411 lions including a cubs. There are limited number of resorts are operating in the forest to stay with quite luxurious even you can’t imagine the facilities they provide. Make plan for more than one trip if you couldn’t view any lion in a first trip, there are 8 routes which is having a span of 40 to 45 kms and you can’t request to the specified route it will come in computer automatically .
The forest is having good rich of fauna and flora. The major is Asiatic lion, leopard, panther, jaguar , sambar deer, spotted deer, Black buck, and even crocodile.
After passing a 30 minutes of trip seeing one by one from deer to crocodile, we were little frustrate because of we couldn’t view any lion, lioness or even cubs, after a little while we saw the one lioness which was sat on the vehicle route , we stopped our vehicle even a lion tracker called to come closer our guide declined the offer , he said we shouldn’t rush at first slowly we need to go, we moved our vehicle accordingly, The lioness was started to stand and move slowly that was quite amazing moment viewing a lioness in a 10 feet distance in a open gypsy which I never had it like ever before , then we relaxed our breath and running blood system which we held . I shouldn’t be a live for a couple of minutes but I shouldn’t be because I sat on the center of the seat which I have barrier of both the sides with my friends . One of my friend comment after every one relaxed “we got paid what we paid the amount” Every one in gypsy LOL at the moment. After the first one passed we had seen another three number of lioness. We are proud enough to add our name in the list of luckiest people in the trip. This is no one can avoid after viewing the lion their enthusiasm and energy get dried up.
I am not sure enough there would be a such kind of open safari in India which guarantee to view tiger even it perhaps not possible in Sundarbans which is having large number of tigers or Rathanbore which is having a quite number of tigers in the limited land area. The weirdest thing is there is several group of tribes who live in the forest at different locations who’s business is cattle and diary where the lion is quite busy. The best time to visit the park is April to may. The maintenance and treating the visitors by the guards and drivers are quite appreciable , they try to satisfy the visitors by never crossing their limit of law. Being an Indian can proud enough to say we have such kind of safari and still we have given safest home for the Asiatic lion where many countries refused or forgot, This safari would be quite full of feast for those really loves a wild life and those understand the nature.
