Jim Corbett National Park Trip

This post solely covers my trip to Jim Corbett National Park which is located 250 kms from New Delhi. It does not contain anything other than the subject. No, not even my rant or my abusing you. Nothing more, nothing less.


Deer in the forest

So you live in and around Delhi but do not know how to approach the Park. You have heard that getting a booking is difficult and is little complicated to get reservation inside the park. You do not even know which is the off season or on season. You just packed your bag with a jeans and few t-shirts to try your luck for an accommodation at the park.

Right then, you landed at the right place to get more than a first hand information without approaching the agent.


Dhikala main entrance

Dummies guide to Jim Corbett National Park

1. Catch Ranikhet Express from Delhi to Ramnagar. By Delhi station, I mean Old Delhi station not the New Delhi one. As on date, the train departs from Delhi (DLI) at 22:35 and reaches Ramnagar (RMR) at 5 am the next day.
2. The train has the number 5013. Reservation to Ramnagar should be easily available.
3. After reaching Ramnagar, take a tempo (shared auto) which are available just outside the station. They will drop you at the booking office of Jim Corbett National Park.
4. The booking office opens at 6:30 am and issue day safari tickets to other parks inside the Jim Corbett Park namely Dhikala, Bhijrani, Jhirna etc. The safari tickets are very limited which are 30, 20 in number for different parks.
5. Tickets are strictly issued only to visitors but not to agents who stand in the line.
6. If you are given a form to fill your details, that means your safari to one of the parks for that day is fixed. You have to talk to the gypsy guy who is going to take you for the ride inside the park and have to write the vehicle number on the form.
7. Gypsy's are available right in front of the office itself.
8. You have to pay nominal charges at the counter ranging in the range of Rs.150 to 200 to get an entry inside the parks.
9. You then take your gypsy with a driver and head straight to the park to which you have the permission.
10. You have to pay Rs.900 to the gypsy driver who takes you inside the park for the Safari. The price may vary depending on the park that you are going to visit.
11. It will take two hours for you to complete the safari and the driver will drop you back at the booking office or where desired in Ramnagar.
12. It is mandatory to hire a guide at the Park. He charges Rs. 250 for no reason after explaining a few things on the history of the park.
13. It is advised to take food stuff like fruits, cool drinks, water bottles with you while going for the safari.
14. If you do not want to book a gyspy, there are also Canter rides. Canter is like a mini bus which should cost you cheaper. It is Rs.600 per person for the ride.
15. That is how you are done with your day safari more or less.


Beautiful Ramganga river

Booking an accommodation at Jim Corbett National Park

You planned to stay for a day at the Park? Then you have to book accommodation at the office.

1. The ticket counter to book accommodation at the Park is adjacent to the ticket counter that issues the safari tickets. Accommodation counter opens at 8:30 am as on date.
2. It is not that easy to get acoommodation to stay in the park. Dhikala is the main place where you preferably want to stay. It is the important gate as compared to other entry gates.
3. If you cannot get a room or dormitory or hut at Dhikala, you can try for a place to live at a different place like Gairal, Kande etc.
4. Gairal is the place where we stayed in and it is 20 kms far from Dhikala.
5. Reason to prefer an accommodation in Dhikala is you get a chance to go for a safari early in the morning so you get a chance to see more animals.
6. Accommodations will also be available for a day stay in other entry gates like Bhijrani, Jhirna etc, but if you take an accommodation there, then you can only visit that particular park.
7. You cannot go for a safari in Dhikala if you take accommodation in other gates.
8. The facilities at the resting place are neat and they also serve you good food. So you do not have to worry about that.
9. As long as you get a stay in Dhikala, the gypsy driver will stay with you all day. You can go for a safari ride in the evening which starts at 3:30 pm and an early morning ride which starts at 6:30 am.
10. Gypsy driver charge you Rs. 2500 for both the safari's. He should drop you back to Ramnagar or at your desired location the next day.
11. Whether you are one person or four persons, the gypsy charge should be the same.
12. If you are living in Gairal hut, the driver should charge you Rs.3000 for your stay because Gairal is not inside Dhikala. It is 20 kms away from Dhikala and it takes a 1 hour ride from there to Dhikala to go for a safari inside Dhikala.


Gairal hut

How will be the food and accommodation?

Accommodation in Gairal is very neat. They also serve you food at their canteen at reasonable prices. Even though there is no fan you do not find it necessary to use. Lights will be available in the night for few hours. You have a emergency back up light though.

Gairal hut should cost you Rs. 950 for one day. All the accommodation places are surrounded by electrical fencing so there is no possibility of any animal sneaking in to your location. You should check out your room by 11 am the next morning no matter whatever time you have checked in.

My room in Gairal hut

I have tried to cover as much of known information as possible. Pictures were taken from a camera mobile and you have to bear with the quality. I hope this is helpful and would present you a clear picture of the trip before your travel. If this is not enough, do drop in a comment and I will share whatever I know.

In anycase, if your plan has failed and you could not get an accommodation, you can always head to Nainital which is 64 kms from Ramnagar. It would take 3 hours to reach there. You can approach the Corbett office the next day with better preparation.

The plan before the travel

You are one of those idiotic freaks who plan before a month from the tickets, to the local conveyance, to the lodge, to the food and even to the laundry guy? Then the hidden tip that you can search somewhere in between the post is not for you. What's more, you get worried to your last toe-nail before the travel? Mate, when you are in tension, logic says give a kiss preferably to your opposite gender. Who knows, tension may ignite fire.

I have this habit of packing things 'on the fly'. That fly phrase got to me when one bloke here used that phrase often. Do things on the fly - in mid air. Right now, Swine flu is on the fly which originated in Mexico. So precaution measure experts say, you are not supposed to fly on the fly to Mexico.

I always planned to go to Jim Corbett National Park but it never worked out. Considering that it is just over 250 kms from Delhi, it is nothing of a travel. I asked my room mates and few blokes to see if they are interested to visit the Park in this scorching summer, which touched 43.5 degrees centigrade yesterday.


Considering that they are as sensitive as a lilly, which might sound silly, I did not ask them twice. Suddenly an idea flashed after I spoke to my friend after a long gap, over the chat for few minutes. It felt good talking to her because, because there was once this restlessness with her. Now I am getting restless for a totally different reason even when I see my maid.

What you folks can learn from that is, she is following my blog even at this moment. You should hang your head in shame if you are not following this. You can even refer this stupid site to your friends. It's free..free...free. But beware of eggs flying in your direction when you recommend this blog. So follow the blog, do not follow me.

Any talk about me or my blog, I become so freaking pompous and divert the topic. Glad that you are not a Leo so you cannot understand what I am barking.

So I checked train tickets at 11 pm. Fortunately they are available in Tatkal quota and I should be taking the train today to Ramnagar. How do I go from the station to the Park, I got no idea. I packed my bag last night itself with one jeans and three light t-shirts. I am ready to face the heat. Eh, when I decided to travel in General class even when I do not get ticket where does Summer and heat come into picture. When things happen, they happen fast.


I once had a friend who should be intimated a day before if we plan to a disco. I also had a friend who was given 10 minutes to put the clothes of his choice and run to catch the last bus. If you are with me, you will either be spoiled for choice or be given no choice.

I shall be blogging my trip experience if I am not consumed by famed unseen tigers prowling in the Corbett. This is billed as the third most all time adventurous trip ever taken by man by Time magazine.

Stop rolling your eyes, adventurous because you do not know how long you have to wear your stinking clothes in the heat without washing them. Watch this space for more crap where I will eat your head with tea spoon gram by gram at my comfort.

Something's catching up

Anytime you felt in your miserable life that something is not going your way? I've already ranted on that stuff quite a few times in here but this time it is little different. In the sense, I am doing it again. Go figure.

When your project is done and wait for the next one, those are those moments termed as anxious moments especially in this recession period. What are companies doing when their clients are not giving them projects? They are generating internal projects to show something is going in the Number of projects running database. They also cover it up by saying, we are doing R & D projects which does not have a deadline. Do not share this secret to everyone.


If someone is given a chance to browse whole day in the office, heck, whole week - what is he going to do? Write articles in Bleacher Report, browse Cricinfo, Google news is always handy because it gets updated, vent your spleen at Blogger or sleep on the desk. I've never tried sleeping though. I may with you, if you come to me.

I do have some activity other than barking on you folks all the time, which is bleachering on Federer. Did your brain get creative anytime ? Ok, I do not want to rub salt into your already unhealed wounds. This is my work which tickled few bones when I put my thoughts on what could be the ultimate preparation for Federer at the French Open finals.

My style of writing has also varied from what I used to adopt here. You can see fewer sentences in the paragraph that could make the content more readable. It was a habit that I developed from B/R where I published four articles in a week's time. Whoaa...goes to show since when I had been counting the clock for the scheduled nine hours to tick off in my office.



Looks like I made this habit of composing and publishing articles in record time. Just goes to show, what experience can make you do. It can turn you into an adept professional or an incapable slouch.

I've havent shaven for couple of weeks now since I last went home. Planning to shave again when I go home next. Did I tell you something's catching up? It's my beard if I am lying.

Unforced Errors:

1. Of late, my mom started asking me whether I am into a project or not. Such is the effect of recession hitting the household women.
2. Believing your social network sites such as Orkut, Facebook, hi5, Friendster, Jhoos, Yarri, ne maamma barri etc would bring you more chicks into your grip is as good as believing no hole in your banian.
3. Your mates pose that are adept in coding but they are as dumb as you. It is just that they let their mouth do the talking for no reason.
4. IPL chicks this time in SA are real hot than what they were when it was played in India.
5. Fake IPL blog has already created some ripples in the upper echelons of the game.
6. Just heard a rumour that Bin Laden was killed. Even if he was killed, he left a long lasting legacy which cannot be terminated anytime soon.
7. Without doing HP and coming to the office on Monday morning will cause you for some distraction, especially petite ones.
8. Summers here would be so hot this time that people would be raped with their clothes on.
9. Chewing a gum for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon after lunch could lead into possible of words while expressing yourself.
10. You cannot comment here because you think, "It's not worth even though I enjoyed reading". Thinking great of yourself will not do anyone any favour.

Tjena folks

It's been a while since I last posted here again. Even if you don't threaten me at gunpoint, I would still explain myself to that lone visitor, hoping in anticipation to see a post at this stupid site but returns disappointed.

I went home for a quick break when I took a comp-off for two days and I turned up just today to brighten your day. Meanwhile, the internal reviewers are not letting us breathe. Their reviewers are so strongly oriented that even if there is an indentation fault at some comment part of the code in one section of the file, they are going for our head. While the top dogs say this change is for the good, this dog says, where have you been hiding your balls until recession has hit straight in your face ? Try selling your bullshit to someone. But change is constant, that even your doggy knows.


Right now this is that part of the stage in my miserable life when things don't happen your way. I've been barking on things don't happen your way since you were in your diapers. So do not lose your night's sleep over it.

Just want to mention on few of my colleagues but keeping it to myself because they will do what all stupid things they want to do but at the end, they too need privacy. They should drown themselves down the kitchen sink if they talk something and do the other.

It was some heat in the sleeper class coach in which I was travelling. We were three blokes who booked the train tickets from Del - Hyd on different days but we all got the same berth number, 38, in different coaches. Talk about coincidence. Nothing weird happened other than the train getting delayed at the departing station. So I reached safely with a hair cut.

Unforced errors:

1. Roger Federer finally married his long time girl friend Mirka without ditching her.
2. People were staring at a lady in the train when she was cajoling her 5 month kid in the sleeper class.
3. Chicks in Delhi are any time hotter than any part of India. I am willing to chop my limb over it.
4. After getting raped by our internal reviewers multiple times we were finally given a nod for our project completion.
5. There are some times stupid articles in B/R which I find weird.
6. Political campaign by zoo NTR from his bed at his residence sucked. This shows Balayya lacks balls to deliver a coup-de-grace speech before the polls commenced.
7. IPL is getting started on April 18th and I am telling people when it is getting started.
8. Putting a hand on girl's ass will always make her comfortable and uncomfortable for obvious reasons.
9. I know you find this stupid list more interesting than my rant in the blog.

It's pleasant

The weather that is today. If you start writing something for the sake of writing when you don't have anything this is how it goes......................think.....think........and you start searching for words. The feeling is quite similar to the one when your hands don't come out for your disability on natural coding.

So what do you do when you get sometime on a Friday like this where it's a holiday in Bangalore and Hyderabad in some offices on account of Ugadi ? Go through your Phonebook and make a call to your favourite opposite gender who is your fan and can spend some time with you talking some crap which you would like to hear as well. You know that your Phonebook is just not to store the numbers but is also to maintain good relationships.

When was the last time you made calls one-by-one to the friends of your choice on a normal day? The call is worth more than a rupee you are thinking about.


Ok, on a totally different plane, do you know why more than half the people get so pissed off with their jobs and feel like a change? The reason is this. It is lack of motivation. I am not really at that stage but that motivation station may soon arrive for me as well.

In this recession time (read IBM has cut 5000 jobs recently) you cannot really look for excuses. Work on projects not of your choice and no doubt you would be under the gun if you quibble over the location of the project. The good news is BSE has touched 10,000 mark in a while now. It can be a short recovery but nevertheless some hope to some traders who were brutally assaulted by the index when they invested at 21k mark.

I still am not enrolled into playing tennis. Last year same time when I was learning my abc's of the game and was highly passionate to get on to the court every day. I badly used to wait for the weekend when I was taught the game for just couple of hours. This is 2009 and you see the change.


I am quite good on you today even though I know I am turning lethargic with no activity seen round the corner. It is because today is our New Year and we have a sentiment that whatever we do today, we would be doing the same good thing for the rest of the year. The fact that is also pleasant has also prevented you from receiving some whiplashes.

Not always you end typing a whole lot of crap when you still din't know what you want to type at first. It takes a shape of this course. This is one clear indicator that make a start and you would find some shape to whatever you want to achieve. In my case the end of this post.

Upward swing in your career

This is when you know that's happening in your life.

Virender Sehwag

You will do the unthinkable then. And how do you know that you've achieved something ? You would punch the air like you never did !

Moronic March

It's been quite sometime since I last shitted here. It is because I was occupied with some work (stop rolling your freaking eyes) . We could have some work by the next week but heck, we just celebrated Holi in the middle of the week by hitting eggs and tomatoes on each others head and ofcourse by putting colours. So that I would say was an eventful Holi with my room mates since I last celebrated it in my third year engineering days with my class mates.

It is quite a big occasion here in the North and you can say this would be ranked a close second to Diwali. March is almost half way through and I am still contemplating whether I should be heading for tennis or not. The weather is quite pleasant as of now and I guess it would be just a matter of time before we all are gang raped by the scorching sun coming in April. News that I received from Hyderabad and Bangalore centres by my friends says that people there are already getting unrobed as we head into what could possibly be the daymarish of summers see in couple of years.

Then comes your tax savings. You must have already had your things done and if you haven't then just do it. Who knows you may be given a bad rating at your company's appraisal because you haven't filed your tax returns. Don't believe it ? Then believe this. People are given bad ratings because your CV is there in your job portals - which means you are one of those unreliable employees who is looking for a job change. Go figure that moronic logic.

You must have already seen people huffing and puffing saying this is March and it's the year end. But this is the only place where you can see some serenity in this writers life where you can draw some solace and apply the same to your miserable one. Don't grudge on bad rating and good rating given to some useless junkie. Yes, I know you have been a victim of office politics. So was your Boss in his chaddi days, remember ? Bottomline:

"You will get your day when you can drive the nails instead of getting driven".

I only pray your and my job is safe coz we all live together. If you had already been on the hitlist, I sincerely pray that the global market gets better where we can have the good old secured job days back. Think about standard Govt. jobs where you are secured and crib for life at the same time? How about migrating to an other country?

Not everything comes easy except your belly. Not job, not money, not peace and not an 'Express Interest' from a Matrimony site.