Pench

Pench straddles the Madhya Pradesh–Maharashtra border in the Satpura hills, and its landscape of teak and bamboo and the winding Pench river is the closest thing in India to the 'seeonee jungle' that Kipling described in The Jungle Book — the actual territory he was drawing on.

The teak forest here is drier and more open than Kanha's sal, allowing longer sightlines through the canopy and making for a different quality of wildlife encounter — the kind where you see the tiger at a distance across a clearing before the alarm calls begin. The park has a smaller tiger population than Kanha or Bandhavgarh but compensates with its wolf and dhol (wild dog) populations, more reliably sighted here than in any other central Indian park.

The early morning drive in January, through forest so quiet that you can hear a tiger's claws on bark from two hundred metres, is the most completely realised wildlife experience in the Pench ecosystem. The combination of the relatively uncrowded safari tracks, the knowledgeable naturalist guides who have worked these zones for fifteen years, and the unmanaged quality of the encounter — no carefully positioned vehicles, no guaranteed sightings — makes Pench the most honest wildlife experience in central India.

Places to Visit in Pench

• Pench National Park core zones
• Pench Tiger Reserve buffer zone
• Totladoh Reservoir

Things to Do in Pench

• Tiger and wildlife jeep safaris
• Boating at Totladoh Reservoir
• Birdwatching in the forest