"Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary" Shiliguri by aqazi

We arrived in Siliguri hoping to take the toy train to Darjeeling where we were going to do some treking but there was a regional strike which meant there was no transport to Darjeeling. Indeed newspaper reports spoke of travellers being stranded in the city unable to leave! Months of planning had therefore gone down the toilet so we had to think. We decided to run or itinery in reverse order and seeing that we were in Siliguri we made our way to the tourist office to see if we could go on a package tour to the Jaldapara game reserve.

Unfortunaltey the bus had left already but we were able to hire a guide and driver for a couple of days at a modest price.

As we weren't really expecting to go to Jaldapara we didn't have any expectations. We arrived to find our accomadation in the jungle which made for an interesting night's sleep. We saw some tigers in cages which made us feel a bit uncomfortable but the next day when we got to the reserve it was delightful. The jungle safaris are done on the back of an elephant and the tour leader carries a gun just to show that somewhere out there are tigers and of course white rhino for which this place is famuos for.

Unfortunatley we saw niether, there were lot of birds, some deers and monkeys I think (not sure though). The ride was really exciting though and the setting was quaint. We had stayed in Madarihat because all the accomadation was full in the sanctuary but if I came again I'd book in adavcne to be sure of staying in the middle of the sanctuary.

• Pros:Really nice setting, elephants were cute!
• Cons:You might not see any tigers