If you are looking for an extremely comfortable wild life experience in India where the park is not over-run with tourists of both the Indian and European/American variety and where you are sure to view a variety of animal and bird life, The Forsyth Lodge in the Satpura Wildlife Preserve 3 ½ hours south east of Bhopal is definitely the place to go. The accommodations are wonderful and if you choose the Machan style, not only will it have a big bedroom/living room with sit-out on the jungle itself, it also includes an upstairs covered roof-terrace with a king-sized bed surrounded by mosquito netting and comfortable chairs and a sofa to view the forest from above. You can also sleep the night up high outside if you don’t mine climbing down stairs to the bathroom. The staff is outstanding in service and the guides are incredibly knowledgeable not only about the animal life but also regarding trees, insects and jungle life. We were provided with our own guide, Surya, for our entire 5 days at the lodge who took us out on Jeep and elephant rides or walks in the forest or around the 42 acres of the lodge itself. He ate dinner with us as well and he was incredibly intelligent, educated, kind, courteous and just a pleasure with whom to spend time! In general the staff cannot possibly do any more to make you happy and comfortable while making you feel welcome and a highly valued guest. Rishi, the director, oversees the staff and the venue with top level management skills as well as wonderful attention to the guests. On top of all this, the food is delicious, varied and fresh and schedules around dining are relatively flexible to your desires. Of course there is a lovely pool. After 30 years of travel in India and visiting many animal preserves I had always wanted to see a sloth bear having seen their claw markings on trees and their pug marks on the ground. When I arrived and was asked what I most wanted to observe, I said a sloth bear. I saw 7 in Satpura forest and 2 were mothers with their cubs! Elephant jungle safari’s are always the highlight of my animal viewing trips and at Forsyth Lodge I was provided with two elephant trips to view animals. One was 2 hours and one was 1 ½ hours – much longer than usually experienced in other parks. Here the elephants are so well trained that the mahouts do not use discipline of any kind but do all their driving gently with their feet and the elephants respond with sometimes minute changes in their walking through the forest so that you very unlikely to be touched by a branch or tree even when you are off the paths. It’s just two passengers per elephant and our guide traveled on a second elephant so we had plenty of room to change position and relax in our howdah. You can also take rides on the holy Naramada River, which separates the lodge area from the preserve. We saw Guar, Chittel, Sambar, wild boar, Sloth bears, a jungle cat, langur and rhesus monkeys, and many wonderful forest and water birds.
