The morning of Feb 29th we were to report at the common area at around 6:15 AM. When we left our tent it was around 6.20 AM and none of the other tents had any lights on. Naturally, we felt that we were going to be the first to be there. Turns out it was the other way around and we were the last to turn up. IST did not apply here. This meant that we got split up in the jeep, with Anand having to sit in the back with 2 others who were clearly not happy to share, and me and Sharad having to split the couple in the front row and move the wife to the shotgun seat. We chugged along, but with split up parties and parties with strangers next to them, conversation was generally subdued.
There wasn’t much to sight, as we were in Zone ‘A’. There are two zones there – ‘A’ and ‘B’ split by the highway in the middle. You go to the right of the highway and it’s ‘A’ where there is no river or backwaters. ‘B’ is mostly along the river backwaters side and the sightings are higher. ‘A’ generally gets boring, but you can be surprised by a big one at times. Most people with big bazooka lenses like ‘A’.
Shades of grey... 