Project planning visit (PPV)

Alpha two's spirits were high as we set off from fieldbase on Friday morning to reccy the environmental project sites for the India 08I expedition. Giresh the driver loaded up the car and Hamish, Zoe, Jerry, Antje and I all piled in.

Two hours of constant photo opportunities later - cow traffic and women transporting huge containers of water on their heads to name but a few sights we encountered on the road out of Mysore - we arrived at the Hediyala Forest Ranger station where we met our project partners for phases one and two of the environment project.

The rest of the day was spent scoping the proposed site for the anti-poaching camp (APC), doing some fairly serious off-roading around Bandipur National Park and taking lunch in another APC (example in picture below)

On arrival at our accommodation for the night - and the next couple of months - we met the resident guard dog Sitar, who loyally followed us around and took very good care of us.

Hamish and I then took a trip to Hediyala village for fresh food supplies, where at one point I turned around to find surrounded by a crowd of men all staring at me rather oddly. Realised this was because I was standing at the village bar, and being the only woman in the immediate vicinity and therefore something of a freak show, I quickly excused myself and went to talk to the village children instead.

On the drive back to our accommodation, the Chikka Boirgie Forest Guest House, there were yet more exciting photo opportunities - whole families working in paddy fields, people drying tobacco leaves by the side of the road (see above), herds upon herds of cattle being driven home for the evening...

The project site for phases 1 and 2 is challenging to say the least. We're all quite concerned about the lack of natural shade, lack of drinking water, exposure of the slope where we will be building etc. Mobile phones don't appear to work either, so we are entirely reliant on the sat phone for comms contact with fieldbase and emergencies. What a view though!

The accommodation also has its own challenges. Although the four walls and roof are much appreciated, being in the middle of a National Park means that after dark we have to be very careful about remaining within the compound boundaries and ideally indoors due to the wildlife risk (elephants, tigers etc.). This should prove interesting given we will have about 15 young people to entertain and it gets dark at about 6pm!

We travelled to a different area of the National Park for day two of our project planning visit and met with a different set of Forest Rangers, this time at the N Begur Forest Ranger Office. The rangers took us out to the project site for phase 3 of the environmental project, an incredibly remote site deep in the jungle.

The highlight of this excursion was definitely our wild elephant sighting! Don't have any pictures as we only saw it for about 5 seconds, but this was enough time to worry the Forest Rangers sufficiently for them to feel that we needed an armed ranger to jump into our car.

We spent an excellent couple of days out on project sites. The trip back to fieldbase was as colourful as the drive out, with a stop in a local town (HD Kote) to scope the local hospital and buy some flower garlands and fruit.

Since getting back to fieldbase we have all been busy compiling our project reports, risk assessments, casualty evacuation plans and environmental/cultural impact assessment.

Writing the project risk assessment has gone beyond anything I've ever encountered in the civil service - somehow "being charged by elephant", "accidentally setting off ranger's gun" and "getting shot by poachers" never made it into any of the risk assessments I've experienced in my career to date!

Finally, since getting back we have spent our evenings attending some of the Desera celebrations in Mysore. I have seen music and dancing shows, elephants and camels, and the Palace has been lit up every night - dread to think what the electricity bill for 97,000 lightbulbs must be!