Leaving Jaipur we headed for Ranthambore national park. This is a nature reserve and is known primarily for its population of tigers and leopards - although there are many other species present that are worth seeing if you get lucky. There are two options available for traversing the park: you can sign up for a canter, which is basically a ruggedised MPV that storms around the park with a load of around 25 people crammed into the small space like certain proverbial fish, or you can take the more expensive option of a jeep which holds no more than 5 people. The main advantage of a jeep is that with fewer people it is quieter, easier to see over/past other people (so better for photography) and you have a little more say over where you go and what you see. The vehicles are supposed to stick to specific routes around the park to minimise the impact on the animals, but in practice this is poorly policed so once though the gates and away from prying eyes the drivers basically go wherever the hell they want. Because all the vehicles are in radio contact (although it could have been ESP as far as I could tell - I never actually saw our driver use a radio) this means that if one group spots something of note very soon it is party-time safari style. Possibly not so good for the animals (although that is debatable), but given the cost of hiring a jeep and the likelihood of more than one route encountering a big cat in any one 3hr safari, better for tourism. And the drivers know they get better tips if their passengers see big cats.

We took three safaris in all - all in jeeps (although we were lucky to get them three times). In the first two safaris, despite seeing a range of interesting creatures including: several species of large deer, monkeys, several wild boar, a couple of jackals, a 2ft monitor lizard, a black tailed mongoose, many many peacocks and a host of other interesting bird species, such is the draw of seeing big cats that we somehow quite bizarrely considered these safaris to be unsuccessful.

Ranthambore is approximately 360 square miles of wilderness. Within that space there are no more than 25 tigers at current estimates which means, with only a few roads traversable by jeep, they have lots of places to hide. On top of this evolution has done a pretty fine job of making them hard to spot even when ostensibly in plain view. It is therefore lucky indeed to see one. Nick, our driver, has been to the park 6 times and on multiple safaris each of those times, and seen a tiger on one occasion only and then from a distance. Leopards, if it is possible, are more elusive still. If I were a religious man (which I am not) it would be easy indeed to consider that divine intervention was occupying the spare seat in our jeep on our third safari. For within 2 hours we had seen 2 leopards (we think a mother and a large cub), courtesy of a monkey issuing an alarm call in the vicinity, along with a female tiger who strolled nonchalantly within 15 feet of our open topped, no-sided jeep.

There are occasional moments in my life when a small overtly practical voice at the back of my head screams violently at me WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING??? Standing, more or less unprotected, 15 feet from a 9ft long wild female tiger was one of those moments. There is no doubt that being looked straight in the eye up-close and personal by a tiger without the benefit of bars to protect your puny physicality is an intense experience. While my conscious mind was fully engaged in appreciating the uncompromising beauty of the force of nature that was passing in front of our jeep that small part of my mind was conscientiously pressing every panic button available to it.

I have no photographs of that experience. I don't need them. It is something I will never forget.