Sasan Gir at night

A friend of our family friend owned a farmhouse at Sasan Gir - so we were told; and we were to call him up when we get there. And so we did. We had no idea who he was. Couple of his acquaintances were to receive us on the way to Gir. We soon realised that the friend of our family friend was a big political figure of the region and a trustee to the local and many other schools.

Over the edge and into the river, and the bike follows

Our escorts were secondary school teachers. They told us that it was not possible for us to go any further on the motorcycle and that they were arranging a tractor for us!! We did not ask any questions and went with the flow. A tractor arrived in the next half an hour and we transferred our luggage from the bike and perched up. Our first time on a tractor. Soon we realised why. We left the tar road and went into the forest and then suddenly we were at the edge of the earth. Without halting the tractor went full speed (20 km/hr) over the edge and we were rolling down a hill and into the river, crossed the 3 feet of water and up the hill again.

Sasan Gir at dusk

We were hoping that they might be getting our bike by a longer way around but before we could think any further our bike was following the same path. Mentally we bid a silent goodbye to our bike and held on to the tractor for dear life. We reached the farmhouse after 45 mins of a jittery ride. It was beautiful, we were in the middle of the forest with no tar road coming to this place. 

 

There was a village nearby and some villagers had come to pay respect to the 'trustee's friends' and told us about an injured lion nearby that the forest officials were trying to move. As per the villagers lions were harmless as long as we did not come in their way. The scarier animal was the leopard. According to them a leopard would not discriminate between cattle and humans while the lions were only interested in the cattle. The other animal to watch out were the snakes. 

Left:Holding on for dear life; Right : mp3 player being fitted

Tractor resting at the village, Gir

 

By 6 pm it was almost dark and the tractor was ready with an inbuilt mp3 player fitted for our enjoyment. We were to go on a night safari!! The forest closes to the public by 6:30 pm and no one is allowed on the safari trails. But for us everything was fine since we were already inside the forest. We climbed aboard the tractor once again and started off with our bike right behind. As soon as we entered the forest the music blared out from the tractor - Aashiqui, Saajan with Jhankaar beats.

We reached the village where 2 more bikes were waiting for us. We were to abandon the tractor now and get onto the bikes. We entered the forest in the middle of the night escorted by two bikes one in the front and one in the back in a complete state of shock and mortal fear. We drove in complete silence through the chilly air and the scary forest noises for an hour till at one time the bike behind had disappeared and we badly needed to pee. What followed were few embarrassing compromises and we made it to the next village. We had dinner at a local's place and drove all the way back.

Though we did not see any animals, the thought of that night still sends shiver up the spine.