Out with a Bang (and a whimper)

My sojourn here is coming to an end, and I can only be happy that recent events did not happen earlier.  

At Satpura National Park we went on five bone-crushing safari rides, looking for the elusive tigers. No tigers were available to please the tourists. Plenty of deer, birds, wild boar and finally, a sloth bear. The tigers, we were told, are more likely to be seen in summer. (With temperatures in the high forties in the summer, it's extremely unlikely that I will ever see a Bengal tiger in the wild.) 

Yesterday afternoon, we took a ferry to the "core zone" in Satpura National Park, and then another bumpy ride, but still no tigers, though I did see a pygmy spotted owl--and managed a photo in the headlights of the gypsy (jeep), though sadly, my photo will never reach the light of day. More about that later.

As we got on the ferry to cross the river and return to our accommodation at Forsyth Lodge in Satpura N.P., I heard one of my fellow travellers burping very loudly, many times. I thought it was strange because he had been generally quite a polite man. Then he began projectile vomiting into the river. When we got to shore, I discovered that his wife had also thrown up. I wondered when the rest of us would succumb.

We had dinner, minus the vomiting couple, while we watched a David Attenborough doco shot in Satpura N.P. Then I went back to my room and began vomiting myself. I slept very little that night.

The next morning, after a four-hour drive to the station, we took a seven-hour train ride to Agra. I drank Sprite all day and couldn't eat anything. I dozed a little--very little--on the train, but slept well, almost immediately, in the hotel in Agra. 

I was so tired that I didn't realise that I hadn't brought my camera off that train. So, while I still have my wildlife camera, I don't have my street camera and lenses. I'm sad, but It's a job for the insurance company now.