November 16th
I woke up from one of the best sleep ever. The soothing sound of the river was strong enough to put even the worst insomniac to sleep, so for a sleepy-head like me it was like a sweet frosting on an already delicious cake. It was time for some serious business though. And so I got ready and headed to the breakfast room. While I spent time trying out the varieties at the buffet breakfast, my noble friends, Kiran and Ninad, went back to Ramnagar to figure out the formalities for getting into the Corbett reserve. After a heavy breakfast, I went to the parking to get the car cleaned. Since this a new Mahindra property, they did not have all the facilities in place just yet and the car wash was one of them. I requested the guards to provide me with a water hose the clean the Endeavour.
When you look at the Endeavour on the road, all you see is the huge hulk sprinting down the road. But take a pause from your regular routine and spend some time gazing at the SUV and you see how well designed this Ford is. The process of washing the Endeavour did just that for me. The classic three box look of the Endeavour makes the SUV look like rugged and hardcore. Though however, I like the frontal design of the previous Endeavour more than the new one. The curved headlights, to me, look out of place on the boxy body. The flared wheel arches and the side cladding are finished in the same silver/grey colour as the rest of the body and hence they totally gel with the rest of the body work. In any other body colour option though, the same silver cladding and arches make for a two tone colour combination and character to the Endeavour’s styling. The tailgate still maintains a classic SUV look with the spare wheel housing still bolted to the fifth door instead of stowing it away below the vehicle like most modern SUV. Frankly, it adds to the butch stance of any SUV and doesn’t end up making the tail a drab, van-like architecture like the one seen on the Tata Aria. The spare wheel cover has an embossed illustration of a mountain on it. This illustration isn’t there because this vehicle is meant to scale mountains, instead it depicts the ‘Mount Everest’, since outside India, the Endeavour is sold as a ‘Ford Everest’. Personally, I feel that the name ‘Everest’ would have worked better for Ford India than the current ‘Endeavour’, but probably the marketing surveys showed different results.
Inside the Endeavour, there is nothing too fancy apart from the two entertainment systems. The centre console on the top end model gets a Kenwood player that supports most audio formats and plays video DVDs and DivX encoded AVI files. It is also mated to a sat-nav system but frankly, I relied on the Google maps on my iPhone most of the time, as I am more accustomed to that. The other entertainment system is Nippon branded and is roof mounted for entertaining the passengers in the second and third row. This one down looks out of place though and doesn’t look as plush as the otherwise plush interiors of the Endeavour. The interiors have top notch fit and finish and throughout the 2,200 kms I had done so far, I did not experience any vibrating panels or any plastic bits coming off. The leather upholstery is top notch too and even with 28,000-odd thousand kilometres on the odo and thirteen months since the date of manufacturing, there were no wrinkles or loose ends on the upholstery whatsoever. Cleaning the interiors wasn’t too difficult either since there are hardly any nooks and corners in the vehicle which one can’t reach out to.
After the cleanup and gave the others a call to find out what was in store for us. We had gotten access to entry from one of the north-eastern gates of the Corbett park. This gate would lead us to the river where some animals were expected to be seen. The plan was scheduled for the afternoon and the authorities agreed to let the Endeavour go in provided it is led with another authorised Maruti Suzuki Gypsy and the necessary security personnel. As planned we entered the gates at 3:30 PM. We followed a white Gypsy through narrow path that was paved through the jungle. It was a descent trailing down into the forest area. The further we went, the sunlight became scarcer and probably that explained why the pathway was surrounded with ridiculously tall trees. We were moving at 10pm/h again – almost the same kind of speed that we were restricted to in all those traffic jams and bad road conditions, but here the same speed felt so much more different, so much more soothing. The Endeavour was tackling the undulating pathway with utmost ease, without discomforting any disc in our spines. The high floorboard makes you feel as if you are sitting in a regular car and hence, even though you sit high up, it somehow manages to prevent motion sickness better than most other vehicles in its class. Kiran continued crawling behind the leading vehicle while the rest gazed at the sheer beauty of the forest. The Gypsy suddenly stopped and the guard indicated us to switch off the engine. He had spotted some animal. Our friends in the open top Gypsy were pointing at something and smiling. From the Endeavour though, it was hard to see what was attracting all the attention. Then we got a small peek, it was a spotted deer sitting near a tree. We didn’t have enough clearance to get a snap though. The guide indicated to move on and the moment we started brought the 3.0-litre engine back to life, the deer got up and fled! We continued through the forest, stooping a couple of times again in-between when the guide spotted a few more deer. A while later we reached the river. The look of the river was similar to the one flowing behind my hotel room. Blue water, white pebbles on the shore, tall trees in the backdrop – it all looked familiar. But the moment we stepped down the feeling was different! There was a cold breeze blowing, the water’s sound was a lot more aggressive as tried to dominate the endless and priorly unheard-of sounds coming from the birds and animals. The two vehicles and us bunch of 6-7 people were the only animate objects visible all the way to the horizon, but it still felt that we were surrounded by many more. In fact there were so many sounds exchanging waves with each other, that the guide wouldn’t let us move more than 7-8 feet away from the vehicles.
Since flashes and lights are not allowed to be used within the jungle trail and since the jungle trail itself was too dark to take any steady photos, we requested the guide to let us take a few snaps of the vehicle near the river. There was a small pathway paved through the pebbled shore and that was the only place where we were allowed to set a foot on. The rest of the shore is infested with reptiles and so we were to stay away from it. We agreed. The journey from the gate to this river was hardly 13 kms but it had taken us over an hour to reach this destination. Hence it was imperative for us to move back and clear the gates before sunset. So far we had only spotted a deer or two, nothing more. We were hoping to see something more exciting on the way back. We took a slightly different exit route this time around to give our luck another chance, but this time around all we could see was a big langoor and the same deer we had seen at the start, again in the same place. Slightly disappointed, we headed back to the gates. Once at the gates, we checked out the map to find a more exciting place to visit the next day and hopefully spot a tiger or a leopard. The map told us that we were not even close to the entrance of the core area, no wonder we did not spot anything exciting. All along we kept blaming the engine, for we thought the sound might have driven the animals away. Disappointed, we headed back to the resort. On the way back we spotted a few camouflage painted trucks heading up the highway. Looked like army trucks were headed up north. Those trucks gave Ninad a chance to start jabbering about his friends in the army and how difficult the training is and how an army man lives a tough life to give us a secured one. Before long, we were already at the resort to conclude the day. The Endeavour needed some rest too after its faithful duty through the safari drive.
After a disappointing day at the safari, our spirits were low. We had a very light dinner sitting by the fence that overlooked the river behind the hotel room. It was 11 PM. A wild thought then crossed our mind – why not drive around on the highway section that passes through the jungle? Probably we could spot animals…and so we wrapped up the dinner and headed straight for the car park. The Endeavour stood there shining under the moonlight ready for its duties yet again. We drove out of the resort and followed into the highway. There was a layer of thin fog that had settled over the road. No street lights, hardly any reflective strips around the road edges and the only things making sounds were the insects and the Endeavour’s 3.0-litre engine. As the bulk of the SUV moved through the woods, the fog would cut across as if we were testing the Ford’s aerodynamics in a wind tunnel. Like the update I sent from this night to Motoroids.com, the whole environment looked like a setting from the thriller Xbox game, Alan Wake. It was spooky nevertheless. A few curves after the resort, Ninad, who was sitting in the front seat, suddenly shouted, ‘wait, I see something!’. A cow-like silhouette stood in the woods. The fog was making it unclear to see what it was. Ninad tried to get focus on it with his cam, but the moment the flash flickered to track the subject, the silhouette jumped back into the thicket and disappeared into the darkness. It was a Sambar we guessed. Since we lost the animal, we decided to move ahead and see if we could spot more.
The moment we turned on the lights again, we saw a couple of deer staring right in front of the vehicle! Innocent animals? Sure. But when they make a sudden appearance like this, they send a less-than zero-degree-chill down your spine! Kiran revved the engine to shoo the deer away, but that infuriated Ninad since he lost a golden opportunity to take a snap of the deer from such a close distance. We assured him though there would be more such chances up ahead and hence we moved on. The road was silent. Slowly the fog disappeared and we could see some light at a distance. It was one of the many gates that can be used to enter the jungle. There was a small building next to the gate but we couldn’t see any civilisation. A few huts lay around this area. Everything was shut tight, no open windows either. Behind the gate, we saw a small herd of deer again. The leader had large antlers and when he heard us he put the entire herd behind his back. Don’t know if it was coincidence or the actual way in which a deer herd operates. We moved further down the road and on multiple instances we came across more deer, spotted ones, or another variety called the ‘barking deer’ they were all there, enjoying the beauty of the night. The fog was settling in again and was a hint that we move back before we lose our way.
On the way back we saw a section of the road being lit up by a campfire. We didn’t remember seeing this setup when we had moved into the woods. What stood near the camp fire was a small truck with camouflage paint on it – something similar to what we had seen on our way back from the safari. We slowed down over there. A man in camouflage uniform and a rifle clung on his shoulder got up from the campfire and asked us to stop. He walked up to Ninad’s window and started questioning us on where we were from and what we doing in the jungle in the middle of the night. After answering his questions he made us open the fifth door and check out the Endeavour from the inside to make sure we were just tourists and not poachers. After getting over with his verifications, he warned us to head back to our resort. Upon asking him if it was illegal to drive on a national highway at night, he revealed that the problem was something different. These men were deployed in this area because a man eater was on the prowl! A day prior to our arrival, a woman had gone missing from one of the small villages around the jungle. A search party was later sent into the jungle. Unfortunately, the woman’s dead body was found in the morning, in half-eaten condition. We were further told that the suspected animal was either a 3 year old tigress or a 12 year old male tiger. The latter was reportedly the oldest tiger in the reserve and had gone missing from the jungle for over two weeks. There were no traces of his death either and hence some believe that he could have turned into a man eater due to old age and could be lurking around near the villages itself. Though the story sounded scary and interesting at the same time, we didn’t know how true it was. We headed back to the resort, discussing the same thing…
