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Veeresh Malik

Corbett National Park in season is a destination which has been written about, spoken about and been the subject of the audiovisual media till a stage has come when even the wild tigers, apparently, start preening and strutting their stuff the moment they smell a camera roll.

I have been visiting Corbett since the days when wildlife like jackals and peacocks were common visitors to the wilderness around Defence Colony, in New Delhi, in the 60s. Today my children jump in joy and consider it a trip successful if they get to see the same animals and birds in the jungles of the Kumaon when we get there. Human tourism has been a mixed blessing for the eminently simple folk of the Kumaon, and while the local clarion call, Jai Badri Vishal, still resounds, it is surely a fact that even the gods have, possibly, retreated in the face of the onslaught

The National Park itself usually closes down completely for visitors somewhere around the middle of June, to give the bio-diversity inside the control area a chance to recuperate in non-human impacted solitary splendour.

The best time to visit Corbett, therefore, is in the short period between the time they reopen after the monsoons and after the wild hordes start descending around the time the festive season starts. But vacations are obviously difficult to get during that phase and making day trips on weekends is not the way to see this part of the country.

What youcan do, however, is to try and take off for a short period of time, about three nights is just fine, during the height of the monsoon. And stay at any one of the variety of jungle camps, cottage clusters, hotels, motels and other vacation spots that have sprung up on the periphery of the Corbett Park, mainly along the excellent road that forms the marking line. Rates are low, and privacy, thanks to low occupation levels, is high. Of course, you need to do a wee bit of planning before you leave because walk in rates are obviously not going to be discounted. Especially if they sense that you have nowhere else to go, are tired and dusty after the rather amazing drive through most of western Uttar Pradesh and will agree in the interests of a peaceful night's sleep.

So, first of all, do contact your travel agent, and find out about all the deals available. Most of the holiday camps in this area are stand-alone independents, and tracking down their own agency offices in Delhi or any other major city would be a trying experience. Expect upto 60 to 75 per cent off during this season (mid June through mid September on full board and lodge) is not an exception. But do also be prepared for the fact that it is as this time, also, that the places would normally cut down on staff, as well as go through their maintenance and expansion cycles.

The two places which I liked best, when I could afford them, are the Ramganga lodge which is high up on the Ramganga river and an excellent place to stay at from all counts, especially if you like personalised service, fishing and upscale cuisine.

The other one is the Claridges Corbett Hideaway. Closer to civilisation and more in keeping with the demands of city people it is popular as a conference venue. So make sure you don't get stranded there when some group of, say, toothpaste or coffee vendors are making whoopee.

At the same time, there are many small lodges and houses which can be rented out. But these need planning. In some cases you have to take the cook and the butler with you from their base camps to assist the resident chowkidar. These sort of deals are better if you are looking at, at least, spending a few weeks.

And of course, there is a rash of new hotels coming up in this area. One almost every week. Too many to keep track of. But the newer they are, the more chintzy they seem, appears to be the thumb rule. I mean, equipped with cable television in every room is the USP now?

Next is setting up how to get there. The best way, of course, is to have your own transport, any vehicle which can get there is just fine. You don't really need all those fancy high powered four wheel drive monster machines. Just to keep matters in perspective. We have done the complete Kumaon Hills on a hand-me-down Lambretta scooter as well as on, subsequently, everything else, including ancient Ambassadors, Maruti vans and even, one glorious time, in a mid 50s Citreon-2CV being driven across the world by a Dutch couple. Having your own wheels, even a cycle, keeps you off the hands of the local transport sharks.

Trains are not such a smart way to get there, unless it is to reach the well connected rail heads at New Delhi or Moradabad, depending on where you are coming from. Moradabad, incidentally, is where the main lines connecting the east to the north pass through, and has eminently decent connections from all over the country.

Beyond that, unfortunately, a spur line towards Kashipur and Ramnagar works on a rather wishy-washy schedule and is best avoided except by the most ardent of railway-philes. In any case, for Corbett, the railway method has this bad habit of depositing you, bag and baggage, at miserably unequipped little stations out in the boondocks, inhabited solely by man eating mosquitoes, thriving near the manmade swamps that now litter this part of the country, especially near human habitations. And you will never ever get reservations to go back to wherever you want to go to.

The other good method is to try and set up with the place you are going to stay at, and see if you can move with the regular provisions and other support vehicles that ply, regularly, between New Delhi and Moradabad and the camps themselves. This, again, needs planning as well as coordination, but everything is possible during the off season!

And lastly, use the state transport buses out of New Delhi/Moradabad. Cheap, packed with local colour, they take forever. But you get value for money and they will get you there. Some of the most amazing contraptions-- formed by joining engines, steel ladders, a few wheels, some sticky chewing gum and baling wire -- manage to keep the economy going in this part of the world and can be the subject of separate articles, absolutely. The amazing thing is that Jai Badri Vishal must be working overtime. Everybody gets there, safe and sound!

At the holiday resorts or camps there is usually not much to do apart from eating, sleeping, walking around and sleeping some more. The weather is amazingly changeable. One moment it pours in buckets, next there is a cool breeze and a few minutes later you are sweltering in the 100 per cent humidity. This is caused by the mix of being in a valley and being surrounded by all sorts of deciduous fauna, since we are still well short of the pine-line. Luckily most of these camps have fully air conditioned facilities, though the insects come free, maybe they like the air-con and mod-con facilities, too?

Apart from this, you can go on amazingly boring jungle safaris, preferably with people you don't know, who will insist of stopping at every sight of a deer or a monkey. They will swallow everything the tongue-in-cheek guide will tell you about pug marks of tigers, which were there en famille just a few moments ago... "See that is a puddle of tiger's urine!"... before you got there with your en famille. At one such safari we were shown a few bleached bones as belonging to some unfortunate cows that had been done in by tigers, which was, to my not so impressionable mind, a lot of bull.

But the best part is that if you want privacy, good board and lodge and reasonably pleasant surroundings when you will do nothing but loll around, then nothing beats hitting the beaten path in the off season. And nothing is more off-season than Corbett in the monsoons.

Of course, if you do know your way about and the locals get to trust you, then there is a lot of activity going on inside the jungle -- from night spotting of the wildlife to simply walking about on the wilderness trails -- that you can organise for a fee. But ever since some idiots decided to take their helicopters into the park, with their guns, a few seasons ago, to consequences which still reverberate today, you need be advised that it is not easy and not advisable to go into the jungle off season.

Which is a pity. Because the monsoon rain forest you can get to see here is unbeatable. And I've seen the one in the Amazon, too. One, because it is so close to civilisation and human habitation and two, simply because it is shades of green which, sorry Shashi Tharoor, beat Kerala palms down.

Delhi to Corbett by road takes about five to 10 hours, depending on the day of the week, time of day, local conditions. Fridays and Tuesdays are particularly bad along this route when everybody comes onto the road to pray and fight. Driving through Western UP at night is not advisable.

The best way is to leave Delhi at about three or four AM, pelt through Moradabad a couple of hours later without stopping, to avoid the daily morning ablutions happening on the other side of the road and pull over for a cup of tea only when you reach Kashipur or Ramnagar. You have never been stuck in traffic jams if you have not seen the ones in and around Hapur en route, which can be caused for any reason. It is a distance about 280 kilometres from New Delhi here. And Claridges is about another 30 kilometres upriver. Roads are very good to OK all the way.

In season Corbett is best avoided because it is flooded, swamped, overrun, by government types who make a bad habit of driving inside the park in loud cars. Off season you will need to be cautious but if you really need to do the nature trail, nothing like it.

There are also cheaper and in some cases better located government rest houses and bungalows along this route which need some amount of sarkari patta or government connections to get into. They are usually unoccupied but the guards will not let you near them unless you offer them a straight bribe. Very Kipling-esque, for about Rs 100 for a bed plus whatever they charge for the standard aloo-gobhi paratha-with-pickle kind of fare. Jungle game is made out to be very exotic, frankly it is highly overrated, stringy and it stinks because most jungle game is now home reared on feed pumped up with steroids!

There is no fact sheet on this part of the world because rates and availability come down to a what-you-can- pay level. Do, however, keep a beady eye out on the fine print and specify what full board means, no fun paying Rs 200 -- and busting your budget -- for an early morning cup of tea as per the high season rates.

P S: If you like to go fishing, please throw the mahseer (trout) back in after taking your photographs.