Bandhavgarh

Bandhavgarh lies in the Vindhya hills of Umaria district, a former hunting reserve of the Maharajas of Rewa that was notified as a national park over 105 square kilometres in 1968 and became a tiger reserve in 1993. Its critical core now runs to some 716 square kilometres, but tourism is concentrated in three compact zones, Tala, Magdhi and Khitauli, and that is why tigers here are seen so often. Tala is the classic zone: sal forest opening onto the Chakradhara meadow, streams where sambar drink, and the great sandstone plateau of the fort rising to 811 metres.

The fort itself, held by the Baghel rulers of Rewa and linked in legend to Rama gifting it to Lakshmana, has tanks, gateways and the Sheshshaiya, a 10th-century statue of Vishnu reclining on the serpent, fed by a spring that becomes the Charanganga stream. A safari day starts in the cold dark with a jeep queue at the gate, then four hours of reading alarm calls of langur and chital, a tigress walking a forest road with cubs, wild dogs, a leopard if the day is generous. Afternoon drives end with gold light on the meadows and the fort cliffs turning red.

Between drives there are naturalist walks in the buffer, visits to Baiga villages, and sandstone caves cut into the cliffs, carved with boars and elephants and inscribed in Brahmi around the 1st century BCE. Vultures wheel over the cliffs, Malabar pied hornbills cross the road, and more than 250 bird species have been recorded.