How I Survived A Bengal Tiger Outside Ranthambore National Park (2024)

Last Updated on March 13, 2024 by Nicole

One of my bucket list experiences that I had always wanted to do was go to India and see the Bengal Tigers in the wild. For my 50th birthday, my husband made my dream come true. We took our four teenagers and headed to India for 2 weeks and shared some unbelievable experiences in the Punjab and Rajasthan. Nonetheless, nothing was more life changing than when I stumbled upon a Bengal Tiger at our lodge outside the walls of Ranthambore National Park. Somehow, I survived and my children and husband were unharmed. Here is my story.

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Background To Our Trip To Ranthanbore National Park

In March, I took my family of 6 to India for two weeks. My children were 12, 13, 15, and 19 years old at the time. We toured around Amritsar, Hoshiapur, Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. It was truly an extraordinary trip. The historical and cultural sites were breathtaking. The food was absolutely delicious, and the service and hospitality were exceptional.

However, without question, the highlight of our trip was our tiger safaris in Ranthambore National Park.  

Ranthambore National Park

Ranthambore National Park is around 10,000 acres (400 square kilometres) and about 217 miles (350 km) from Dehli. It is known for its’ Bengal Tigers, but the National Park also has other animals, including Leopards, Striped Hyenas, deer, monkeys, Jackals, Black bucks, Indian Wild Boar, Fivestriped Palm Squirels, Indian Foxes, Indian Gerbilles, Indian Mole Rats, Indian Porcupines, Longeared Hedgehogs, and more.

Currently, there are around 80 tigers in the Park. Each tiger has its’ own defined territory. They fiercely guard it and re-mark its boundaries every couple of months. They rarely enter other tiger’s boundaries unless it is mating season, or they are young tigers looking to find their own territory.

We Stayed In Luxury Accommodation At Sher Bagh

We arrived just after lunch to Sher Bagh, a luxury lodge located just outside the walls of Ranthambore National Park.The hotel was stunning.

There were about a dozen large white tents scattered throughout the resort that served as hotel rooms. Inside them, I felt like I had stepped back into colonial times. The rooms were filled with delicate wooden furniture that would have easily been found in any British household in India in the early 20th century.

The bathroom was huge and more luxurious than many five star hotels. Running hot and cold water, plumbing, air conditioning, and heat were all within arm’s reach in these seemingly magical tents.

We had two tents, side by side, for the six of us. We were a little more removed from the other tents, and the tents were nestled right next to the outer wall that bordered Ranthambore National Park.

Nearby, there was an enormous white tent filled with multiple couches and card tables in a similar style, where you could relax together, have a drink or play cards.

Another tent offered breakfast and lunch, also with beautiful carved furniture. Every tent had framed photos and art hanging from the wall, and rugs and lamps were scattered about. I felt that I was a guest at someone’s beautiful home.

The rest of the resort was made up of outdoor spaces. There was an outdoor bar, and campfire area around 100 metres or 300 feet away from our tents. There was a stunning outdoor pool overlooking a pristine view of trees, plants and hills, sequestered from the rest of the resort. Everywhere you looked, you felt immersed in nature.

The resort was very dark at night. The pathways had a little bit of lighting from lights planted along the edges of the path. However, each tent had flashlights and you were encouraged to take them with you when you went for dinner or outside in the evening.

Ranthambore Safaris

We went on our first safari after lunch on the day we arrived. All six of us climbed into an open safari jeep, and with a guide and driver we set off to look for tigers. We drove around 15 minutes along country roads before entering the Park. Once in the Park, we drove to the section that we were allowed to explore.

Each Ranthambore safari is regulated by the Indian government. Only a certain number of permits are issued each day and then, you are assigned a zone within the Park. You are only allowed to tour that area at certain defined times. We had around 3 1/2 hours per safari in Ranthambore.

This afternoon, we did not see any tigers. However, we saw many other animals and some spectacular scenery.

Nonetheless, I left feeling a little bit disappointed. There was never any guarantee that we would see any tigers over the two days that had in the Park. I thought how disappointed I would be if we had to leave without seeing one.

Dinner At Sher Bagh

We returned to the hotel. Once it was dark, we went to the campfire for cocktails and dinner. There, elegantly dressed men in uniform offered us hors d’oeuvres and drinks while all the guests sat around the fire and chatted about their own experiences that day.

Dinner was offered buffet style just steps away from the campfire. There were some lights around the campfire, but everywhere else was completely shrouded in darkness.

We were all exhausted, having started our day in Agra that morning. Our kids ate their dinner, and each one left on their own to go back to our tents.

About 30 minutes or so after the last one left, I finished my dinner and left to go to bed as well. I said goodnight to everyone, including my husband, who wanted to stay and talk with the other guests for a bit longer. I left the campfire and walked alone back to the tent.

A Strange Encounter

From the campfire to my tent, it was around 100 metres or 300 feet along a path. I walked by the outdoor bar, other guests’ tents, and then, the enormous tent with the living room furniture.

It was super dark. I forgot a flashlight, so I pulled out my I-phone and turned on the flashlight. Even then, I could only see a couple meters beyond my feet.

It was a beautiful evening with lots of stars in the sky. No one was around.

As I approached my tent, I saw a large grey animal in front. At first, it was hard to see much of anything other than a faint outline of a lumpy figure, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was.

I didn’t slow my step. Cows were everywhere in India. Even though I hadn’t seen one on the grounds of the Lodge, I was fully prepared to find one sauntering around the property. I kept my light on the path in front of me and kept walking.

Amazingly, I was almost upon it before it even realized that I was there. It startled and bolted away. Where, I didn’t know as it was too dark to see beyond a couple feet beyond where I stood.

When it dashed away, I realized that I had been looking at the back of a large animal. However, it wasn’t a cow.

Instead, it looked like one of the large deer from the National Park. We saw a few types of deer on our afternoon safari. There was a Chittel Deer that was small, cute with little white dots. There was also a Sambar Deer which looked more like an elk – big, stocky and brown. From behind, this creature had the shape of a Sambar Deer.

In addition, when I startled it, I thought I heard hooves trying to grip the ground.

I smiled and thought how lovely that a deer had found its’ way out of the National Park and was grazing nearby. Unconcerned, I didn’t even break my pace. I was tired and wanted to climb into bed. I headed directly to the door of my tent.

It Was Not A Sambar Deer

I took about eight more steps towards the entrance to my tent and stopped. The zipper on the flap was completely shut, from top to bottom, which was perfect. I had asked my kids to make sure that they zipped the flap completely closed to stop mosquitos from finding their way in.

As I reached down to the very bottom of the tent to pull up the zipper, I heard rustling behind me.

I froze, then slowly turned around. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as the light from my I-phone scanned the darkness in front of me. Nothing.

Then, I caught some movement above the ground. I raised my phone higher.

And gasped. There, on top of the 6 foot berm (a mud wall), was a creature. As the light settled on its face, I realized in horror, that it was a Bengal Tiger.

I turned back around to the tent and screamed, “Oh my God, there is a f$#king tiger out here. Open up”!

Nothing.

I turned back again towards the tiger and brought up my I-phone light. I zoomed in on the tiger’s face. It blinked a couple of times, turned it’s head to avoid the light, but did not move.

I turned and screamed again at the tent, “There is a f$#king tiger out here. You need to open up the tent right now.”

Again, nothing.

My heart dropped. Where were my four kids? Two should have been in the tent right in front of me, and another two should have been in the other tent about 20 feet away.

I was yelling. It was deathly quiet except for my screams. How could they not have opened their tent doors to see what was going on?

Did the tiger kill them?

Thank Goodness For My I-Phone Flashlight

For whatever reason, I was, inexplicably, alone.

So, I went into survival mode.

Every few seconds, I turned and pointed the Iphone light into the face of the tiger, who blinked and turned its’ face to avoid the light. Then, I turned back around to quickly pull the zipper a little bit more, slowly opening up the flap to the tent.

Back and forth, and back and forth.

Each time, I pivoted back to the tiger, I shone the light into its face. It blinked, turned its’ head away, but otherwise never moved.

Eventually, I managed to unzip the flap enough so that I could dive into the tent head first. I stood and quickly zipped it back up.

With utter relief, I saw my two girls. However, they were completely oblivious to what had just transpired. The youngest was happily watching a movie on Netflix with earphones and my eldest was grumpily getting out of bed, informing me that she had been asleep and I had woken her.

Everything was so normal inside the tent that I wondered whether there really was a Bengal Tiger outside from which I had just escaped. Maybe, I was losing my mind?

Thankfully, my eldest managed to get out of bed, take the few steps to the door flap, unzip it, poke her head out, and say in a borderline bored voice, “Wow, there is a tiger out there”.

My youngest pulled off her headphones, and said, “What?  There’s a tiger out there”?

Were We Safe From The Bengal Tiger?

I didn’t know what to do next.

I felt like I had to keep an eye on the tiger, so I stuck my head back out of the tent, flashlight in hand. The tiger, still immobile, and I stared at each other.

After a few more seconds, the tiger looked away and sauntered along the berm, eventually disappearing behind my tent. I watched until I couldn’t see it anymore.

Now what?

My husband was still at the campfire, the direction in which the tiger was going. I still didn’t know whether my two sons were safe. If they were, they would be alone in the tent next to me and I had no idea what they heard or what they were going to do about it. Were they going to leave their tent to investigate?

There was no phone in my tent to call the front desk and warn the hotel employees or the other guests. I didn’t have a phone plan for India so I couldn’t use it to call the front desk or my husband. My husband didn’t take his phone to the campfire so I couldn’t even message him.

I couldn’t safely leave my tent – I had no idea where the tiger was.

Trying To Keep My Family Safe From The Tiger

In each tent, instead of a phone, there was a butler’s button. It was connected to the front desk. We were told at check-in to push this button if we needed anything and someone would come. After around 15 minutes of weighing my options, I decided I had to push the button.

A few minutes later, a small elegantly dressed Indian man in uniform arrived at the door flap of my tent. He politely asked me what he could for me.

I said, “There was a tiger out there!”

He kind of smirked and calmly replied, “Madam, there was no tiger.”

I replied, “I think I know what a tiger looks like and there was a tiger out there!”

He paused politely, looked behind him, and nodded. Then, he turned and left.

I felt like I had been immediately placed in the hysterical woman category by this man, and was furious.

Monkeys’ Howling

I waited. I busied myself in my tent and listened for every twig snap or footstep outside. However, there were no sounds like that. What I did hear were monkeys howling all around me.  

Earlier that day, on our first safari, our guide told us that the monkeys in Ranthambore National Park are one of the animals that warn others when a tiger is lurking. They holler when one is near and set up a network warning each other as the tiger moves.

I realized then that I had heard monkeys shrieking as I walked back to my tent earlier that night, prior to seeing the tiger. I thought how foolish I had been to not have listened more carefully to my surroundings, although to be fair, I didn’t think stumbling into a tiger outside the National Park was even a possibility.

Here We Go Again

Around 10 minutes later, there was another knock on our door flap. I unzipped the door to find two Indian men. One was small and in uniform like the other one who was there earlier. The other one was in a suit. The one in the suit identified himself as the manager. I thought, finally!

He said to me, “We found your safety deposit key at the campfire”.

I said, “Thank you”, and he returned the key to me.

Then, I waited and looked at him. He smiled and turned to walk away. Incredulously, I realized that the first employee had not reported anything that I had said to him.

I said, “You know that I saw a tiger out here”?

The manager looked at me intently, I think trying to figure out whether I was drunk or crazy, or both, and said, “You saw a tiger?”

I said,”Yes” and pointed behind him at the wall where the tiger had been. “He then walked behind my tent.”

I could tell the manager was grappling with what I said. On the one hand, I was a guest and seemed sane (I’m projecting here, but I’d like to think that I was confident and in control of what was going on at this point). On the other hand, I think that he was struggling with the unbelievable image of a tiger outside Ranthambore National Park prowling around his luxury resort. Apparently, that had never happened before.

Throwing Your Employee Under The Bus

So, what was the manager’s solution? He said to his employee, “Go check behind the tent”! The employee looked terrified.

I replied, “You can’t send him to look behind the tent. There is a tiger on the loose!”

The employee reluctantly left and looked behind the tent, came back and reported that there was no tiger. I couldn’t believe that the manager had done that.

Great! There was no tiger. But, what did that prove? It certainly didn’t prove that there wasn’t one earlier. And what if the tiger had still been there? What are the odds another human would have been escaping a Bengal Tiger unscathed that night?

The manager asked if he could do anything else for me, smiled and left.

I wondered if this was going to be the story that no one ever believed.

Vindication

Another ten minutes passed, another knock on my door flap. This time, it was a very large caucasian fellow who was in charge of safaris in Ranthambore National Park. He had in tow yet another small Indian man in uniform.

In a very posh English accent he said, “We saw the tiger paw prints. We know that there was a tiger here. Are you alright? Can I bring you a cup of tea”?

Seriously, he asked after I had just survived bumping into a Bengal Tiger whether I wanted a cup of tea!

I politely declined and we said good night to each other.

It was then that my husband came into view out of the darkness on the exact same path on which I had been when I had returned from the campfire and saw the lumpy animal in front of me.

I told him what happened. He rushed to the tent with our sons and found them with their earphones on watching movies, oblivious to everything that had happened.

With adrenaline streaking through my body and my brain replaying what happened and the “what ifs”, I tried unsuccessfully to sleep.

The Next Day

The next morning, I searched for the fellow in charge of the safaris. I wanted to know the details. Where did they find the tiger tracks? Where did they lead? What was the resort going to do to keep us safe?

I found him and he told me that I had misheard him the night before. It wasn’t that they had found tiger tracks, but had actually seen the tiger.

First of all, the tiger was a two year old female named Lightning. She was almost full grown physically, but still considered immature – her actions would not necessarily follow normal adult behaviour.

Apparently, after she terrorized me, she walked behind my tent, then over a wall onto another path where other guests’ tents were located. A couple sitting on their little patio in front of their tent, watched unconcerned as the tiger walked by. Again, the lighting was so bad they thought it was a cow.

The tiger then approached the campfire around which a few lingering guests were sitting. In addition, there were waiters still serving drinks and kitchen staff around the large outdoor buffet.

The kitchen staff were first alerted to the tiger’s presence when they heard her growl behind them as they stood by the buffet. Everyone took off towards the campfire.

The guests already around the campfire, with the staff, were told to group together around it, get as big as possible, and face outwards. After a few minutes, the tiger simply turned around and left back into the darkness.

Once we heard this, my husband and I looked at each other. We realized that as he was walking back to the tent the night before, the Bengal Tiger had been approaching the campfire. We were both lucky to be alive.

What Next?

We still had one more night at Sher Bagh. In addition, we had a full day of safaris planned for this day. Were we safe inside or outside the Park?

Our tents were set right against the brick wall, the outside boundary to Ranthambore National Park. When we first arrived to the town and drove to our hotel, we could easily see this brick wall. We laughed at how low it was – around 7 ft (2.1 meter). I remember saying to the driver that this wall couldn’t possibly keep the tigers in. Our driver laughed too.

But I was only kidding. I thought for sure there must be other impediments to keeping the tigers inside the Park that we couldn’t see such as wide deep moats filled with water or hidden barbed wire. However, that was not the case.

Before booking this part of our India itinerary, I had heard of tiger attacks all over India. In fact, a couple of days earlier, I had read about a woman and her father-in-law who were killed by a tiger while collecting firewood in the forest next to their village in another region of India.

However, I thought that Ranthambore would be different. It is one thing to be killed by tigers roaming about, but I trusted the government to ensure that if you were luring people to a national park to see tigers, it would be safe. I was wrong.

So, what was the tiger doing outside Ranthambore National Park?

We were told that she was likely marking her territory. As I said earlier, tigers are very solitary and territorial creatures. They each need to have their own area, and other tigers stay away unless it is mating season.

Accordingly, young tigers need to find their own territory. Once any tiger defines it’s territory, they then safeguard it from other tigers by marking its boundaries every couple of months.

In other words, Lightning now believes that the grounds of this lodge are part of her territory. This looks like a disaster waiting to happen.

The day and evening progressed like barely anything happened except employees came up to me and asked me if I was the person who survived the Bengal Tiger. They actually looked at me with envy.

We spent the day in Ranthambore on our tiger safaris and saw Arrowhead, Lightning’s sister. We watched and followed this magnificent Bengal Tiger and was in awe of this beautiful creature.

That night, dinner was still served outside but right next to our tents. We only had a few steps to go to reach it. Employees accompanied us to and from our tents. Thankfully, Lightning wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Last Word

Since 2018, there has been a steady increase in tiger attacks in and around Ranthambore National Park. The Indian government has been under sustained pressure to increase the size of the Park to allow for young tigers to find their own territory. However, it seems to be silent about increasing the barriers within the Park to ensure tigers are kept inside.

We loved going to India and going on our tiger safaris. However, when booking your tiger safari, make sure that you research where your accommodation is located and what kind of fencing the hotel has also put around its’ property, independent to the brick wall around the National Park.

Your life may depend on it.

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