The Kanha Nature Trail: 7 Kilometers Too Scenic

We hit the trail at 5:30pm in the evening, an hour and a half before sunset. The Kanha Nature Trail began innocently enough, with a three-story watch tower and a path down to the nala (stream). Our boots scuffing against the red gravel, Sahas and I paced and paused, lifting our binoculars and calling out names of the shadows among the trees. As the trail wound its way among rocky patches and burned forest, we saw an Indian tree shrew cleaning itself with its long red tongue and spangled drongos weaving their way through branches.

At a fork in the trail, we turned left to follow an older trail into denser forest. More drongos and langurs, more boulders and burned forest. An hour later, the world grew dark through our binoculars and we quickened our pace. As the trail continued, so did our thirst. We had forgotten to bring water despite the evening heat. As dusk fell, I mentally inventoried our pocket contents – a few rupee notes, a mango candy, a mobile with no signal, and thankfully, a torch that Sahas had brought along had taken at the last minute.

We walked faster, Sahas leading and me running to keep up from behind. The trail continued. As the stars emerged above, the boulders around me shifted to panthers, the crackling leaves beneath me growling with each step. And then in the distance, a horn and a light, and suddenly the sal forest revealed a road and a resort, with lights to guide us ahead. Sahas had joked earlier that we were hiking to the other side of the park but as the resort sign swung in the night breeze, we realized that our 20 minute nature trail had turned into 7 kilometers. We asked the resort night guard and he gestured ahead, “Sida jao…long distance”. Sahas withdrew his cell phone and there they were – three glorious bars of signal. He called a friend and 15 minutes later we were cruising down the road to our forest rest house, parched, exhausted and exhilarated from our walk among tigers.