I can’t believe it was a year ago that this psychologist was in incredible India. After my initial thoughts on our trip around the North of the sub-continent I’m ashamed to say I didn’t ‘get around’ to continuing with telling you more about it. So I am going to give you some general impressions of our trip.

When we planned our trip, we wanted to explore the Holy places of India, both being interested in Eastern philosophy and spirituality. However, there were also some criteria that I imposed on our itinerary, since these were things I had always wanted to experience.

The first was that I wanted to see a tiger in the wild. I have always loved tigers and been fascinated by the myths as well as the reality of these gorgeous creatures. To satisfy my craving H.B. agreed we should visit the Jim Corbett tiger sanctuary north of Delhi in the huge Corbett National Park. Here a variety of wildlife is sheltered, but everyone who goes really only wants to see one thing – a tiger!

I had read Corbett’s books about India before Independence in 1947, and his simple tales of the Indian people he grew up and worked with, and wildlife in the forests of the North were one of my inspirations for being here.

The journey there by car was long and tiring enough – a whole day! But our guide got lost and we ended up traveling for an hour longer than expected and didn’t arrive until after dark. The journey was accompanied by all the usual perils of traveling on Indian roads – fascinating.

I was exhausted and cold (remember in January it’s winter in India and cold in the North). Even a psychologist with pretty thorough mind training can get tired and emotional after such a day and I’d had it. As we huddled in front of a two bar electric heater in our room I have to say that a Tiger was the last thing on my mind. I shivered and cursed and berated myself for dragging H.B. all the way to this God-forsaken place, but in the end it was so worth it.

The next day we were scheduled to be up at the crack of dawn for a Tiger safari by jeep. No way! We both agreed we'd take it easy and enjoy the fabulous view from the deck of the restaurant at the Corbett Sanctuary Resort, overlooking a rocky riverbed.

The jeep safari later that day took us at breakneck speed through the forest in a frenetic search for the elusive tiger we, and our two American companions, had come to see. I have to say we met hardly any other foreign tourists during our whole stay in India – our fellow travellers were almost invariably Indian. This is one of the delights of being able to travel with a car and guide or by yourself and not in a tour party where you spend all your time with people from every other country other than the one you’re visiting.

Getting back to the jeep safari – a tiger had been spotted earlier in the day and, wanting to please us, our driver and accompanying wildlife expert were doing their level best to do their job – show us a tiger. We hurtled along jungle tracks – flew from side to side and up and down and finally just made it back to the park gates by closing time at 5.30 pm. All safaris have to be back on time as they take the protection of the few tigers left in the wild very seriously. We felt as though we had been in a blender. We didn’t see a tiger but we saw pug marks and that was exciting enough.

We were due to duplicate this hair-raising experience at 6 am the following morning but we decided one (exciting though it was) was enough and we wanted to take a quieter route – one that we had seen the day before on the jeep safari – an elephant safari!

Sigh! What relief! Chantal, our charming pachyderm vehicle was waiting for us to climb the steps up to the Howdah on her back and our Mahout and guide urged her on her first steps into the forest on our Elephant safari.

Chantal was in no hurry, there was no frenetic search – if we saw a Tiger we saw one and that was down to good fortune. The forest was silent except for the sounds of barking deer (yes they do sound like barking dogs), birds and other wildlife and the contemplative noises of Chantal the Elephant having frequent snacks along the way. She would tear off small branches and munch away as we followed forest paths that were almost invisible.

What a beautiful, serene yet exhilarating experience, just nature and us. This is one of my most treasured memories of India and I would heartily recommend it to anyone.

Back at the resort I walked down into the riverbed to photograph some horses and there I developed a most amazing relationship with a wonderful creature of the wild. But more about that later.

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