8-Travel Days Times Two

Phil was happy.  He had good tiger pictures and so did I, especially those of a 5 year old male cooling off in a wildlife swimming pool (man-made).  Phil and I had different angles on the same pose because we were in different vehicles.  The big male tiger who rules the territory was 8 years old.  We didn’t see him, but another photographer did.

We left the local airport for Delhi and the Radisson.  There the Haffleys and the McDonalds said “Goodbye” to our traveling companions, and later we said “Hi” to two new photographers, each with an endless sense-of-humor.  I wish I had taken better notes so that I could illustrate that last statement.

The next morning, the six of us boarded a flight to Mumbai, and from there a second flight to Diu.  On the first flight I was thinking that I should be reading more, thinking more, processing more photos, and then there was this blog which was why I was making notes when I could.

I intended to write about our travels and the wildlife we photographed on the blog.  But I could also write more about people and cultures.  Except to write about people and cultures, as interesting as they are, I would need to do more note-taking than I seem to have energy for.

For the second leg of this travel day, we boarded a Jet Airline plane with one overhead wing and two propeller (not jet) engines.  Phil and I hadn’t been on a prop since Alaska.

 

Bengal Tiger
by Phil Haffley

7-One Egg, Lallo

Spotted Deer
by Phil Haffley

After three days of tiger hunting, I had to take a morning off.  At some point while I slept, someone had snuck in and taken our laundry to be washed.  (Actually I learned from Phil that he had set the laundry outside our door.)  When it was returned to us, it had been washed in muddy river water and ironed.  The service did help us stretch our clothes to a full three weeks.

Every waking moment seemed to be taken up with travel, eating, or exhaustion.  Even when I took time off, I was fog-headed.  It showed in my handwriting.  What I need to do is limit my sojourns as a chronicler to one excursion per day.

I could stay at the lodges and take photographs of landscapes and the special people who work at these places.  They do seem to be content with their lives.  There are stories to write at those lodges—and some poetry.

For example, for each midmorning breakfast Lallo, the man in charge, asked me how I wanted my eggs prepared and how many.  No matter how I wanted them prepared, I always asked for one egg.  I would receive two or three eggs and then accused him of not being able to count to one.  But for my last breakfast, I received just one egg—and his arm to escort me to the parking lot where our bus waited.  I think Lallo was just trying to put some weight on these old bones.

Spotted Deer
by Phil Haffley

Spotted Deer
by Phil Haffley

6-Tyger, Tyger

My first tiger was a young female with a sister somewhere else in the park.  I took  some shots of her walking through the forest, but missed some when she was nearer the vehicles.  Mary Ann, who was with me, gave me copies of a couple of her shots.  I think she would have shared all of her shots if I had asked her.

Phil was jealous of my encounter.  He had yet to see a tiger, but the second day he made up for the deficit by watching a five-year old male cooling off in a watering hole.  I had a second row seat to a repeat performance that afternoon.

We both missed the best show on the last day of this mini-shoot.  Some of the photographers saw a tiger family with two 9-month-old tiger cubs—one male and one female.  The young tigress was carrying a dead baby rhesus monkey by the nape of the neck as if it were her cub.  The corpse was not bleeding nor obviously injured, but her play with it had probably been too rough.  Now it was but a doll for a mother-to-be to practice with.

Tiger
by Phil Haffley

Tiger
by Phil Haffley

Tiger
by Phil Haffley

1-Ashes

I wasn’t as excited about going to India as I might have been.

Our son, our middle child, passed away the previous month.  We’d been taking care of details and putting our home back into some sense of order.  Dan had lived with us the last several years and became a central focus of our daily lives because of his health issues.

Phil and I came on this trip to get beyond our grief.  In a way, it honored Dan.  He  had studied photography in college and had helped us both improve our efforts.  My dream had been that he and Phil could go on photo-shoots together when I was physically unable to because of my RA.  Now, I guess, it’s up to me.

In India my senses will turn outward.  I can’t seem to write about Dan right now.  I need to turn inward to do that.

“Photography and writing deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul,” according to the novelist Anne Lamott.  I’m counting on these kinds of soul food to revive me from my lassitude.

Jungle Cat Stalking Prey
by Phil Haffley