Bandipur & Nagarhole

Bandipur and Nagarhole face each other across the Kabini river inside the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, and together with Mudumalai and Wayanad next door they hold the largest population of wild Asian elephants anywhere on earth. Bandipur began as the Mysore maharaja's shooting preserve, became Venugopala Wildlife Park in 1931 and one of India's first nine tiger reserves in 1974. Nagarhole, formally Rajiv Gandhi National Park, protects moist deciduous forest of teak and rosewood broken by swampy grass clearings the locals call hadlus.

Drives here are classic dry-teak country: gaur the size of a small car, dhole packs trotting down the fire lines, chital in the hundreds, Malabar giant squirrels overhead and, in the Kabini zone, the melanistic leopard that photographers travel across the world for. A day means two safaris. The 6.30 jeep goes out in cold blue light and returns for a late breakfast; the 3.30 one runs until the forest turns orange and the langurs begin alarm-calling.

Between them there is nothing to do but read on a verandah, which is rather the point. The Kabini backwaters, formed by the Beechanahalli dam, draw huge elephant congregations onto the exposed grass in March, April and May, when the forest dries and every animal must come to water.