Eye of the Tiger

We arrived home last night after our trip to Sunderbands, the largest tiger reserve in the world, without seeing any tigers. Rachel's bad pun, the tigers at Sunderbands reserve are very reserved....was sadly true:) We think that this is probably the case for 99.9% of people who visit the reserve..one man working on the boat we were on has worked there for 20 years and never seen one! We did see tiger paw prints in the mud along the river so they really are out there somewhere! Despite this slight disappointment it was a really nice relaxing weekend. As lonely planet had recommended the tour was a lovely escape from the chaos that is Kolkata.

We left Kolkata on Saturday morning and boarded a bus for three hours then came to our boat where we cruised through the waters for the next day and a half. We got off at a number of locations to visit watch towers to better spot tigers..however they were usually full of noisy people so I imagine the tigers stay as far away from them as possible! We did see a deer, many monkeys, a water monitor (like a giant lizard), a turtle, and many birds...not thrilling but still nice! Our tour was quite entertaining as well. There were three other international tourists, a friendly couple from the Czech Republic who were avid bird watchers and chain smokers and a Japanese guy who did not speak too much English but told Rachel and I that we looked like teenagers (I was amused and Rachel was very pleased!). The Indian tourists were mainly families who were friendly and many wanted our picture with them or just us alone ( i still find this so odd) and then wanted to chat with us. We are having such a hard time explaining occupational therapy to Indians, each time it is a different long, confusing explanation...why could we have not chosen a simple profession! My favourite person on board was Titly (which means butterfly) who is a thirteen year old girl from Kolkata who had perfect English and was very interested in Rach and I. We chatted with her for quite some time about many topics including her desire to go to school abroad (she really likes the sounds of living in L.A.!) and how she adores Miley Cyrus/Hanah Montana. My other favourite was this little guy about 4 years old who knew about two words in English including, superman, who really liked my flashlight, so we became friends:)

We are off to yoga, we need to arrive before it gets dark so Rach can do her special exercises:)After we are going to have ice cream to celebrate that I am finally well and am eating again!!