We stayed the night before day 1 in a hotel close to Heathrow Airport and after a not such a great night’s sleep, we woke to rain. We drove our car from the hotel to the long-stay car park, dodging the rain to the transfer bus and onwards to terminal 5.

Naturetrek’s chosen airline for the flights to Mumbai & Nagpur were with Jet Airways, instead we paid extra to fly the long haul flight in business class with British Airways (an Avios led decision). At the business check-in desk I checked the weight of all our bags. Our flight from Mumbai to Nagpur with Jet Airways included only 15kg of hold luggage and 7kg of hand luggage… we had paid online to extend the hold luggage to 20kg for each of our bags and they weighed 19kg and 20.8kg. Our hand luggage weighed 7kg and 8kg. I sighed with relief, we were pretty much within the allowances.

Quickly though security we enjoyed our ‘free’ snacks and drinks in the business lounge. The chef was kind enough to make me some cheese free breakfast omelette rolls and it felt like no time before we were making our way to the flight and boarding. The flight was not very busy and Alan commented that we could probably have sat in economy and had as much free space around us as in business class… me thinks it wouldn’t quite have been the same!

The food on the flight was very nice, including the Indian snacks we had for supper. The entertainment system kept resetting itself for the first couple of hours of the flight and I was starting to know the script for the first 10 minutes of the Shape of Water off by heart! It soon settled down, as did we.

We landed in Mumbai around midnight and joined the first/business class immigration queue – one of the officials appeared to take a disliking to my blue hair colour and decided we didn’t belong in this queue and directed us to the back of the standard queue… had I not been so tired I would have spotted what he was doing and counter argued with our boarding passes, but by the time I realised what he had done to us it was too late. As it was, the queue moved quickly and our bags were waiting for us when we got to the luggage belt.

We had decided to get our Indian rupees at the airport and Alan got cash out from one of the ATMs at arrivals – doing it in multiples of 10,000 rupees, the maximum you could take in one transaction (came out in 500 denomination notes).

We had a room booked at the Niranta Hotel, located in the terminal building; we were checked-in and in our room within an hour of leaving the plane.

The beds were extremely comfortable and we both had a good night’s sleep, waking at 7am, we had breakfast at 9am in the hotel. Alan went to get the remaining cash we needed for the trip from the ATM and checked our room booking for our return before our flight home at the end of the trip.

We made our way to departures without having to go outside the terminal building, we had to show our passports and boarding passes (which we had printed out before we left home), going through 4 check points, each time showing our documents.

We dropped our hold luggage and were relieved they didn’t weigh our hand luggage. We had to split to go through security, women and men only lines, you are expected to carry your own boarding pass through security, fortunately we had gone to the separate queues with our own documents! There was much panic from those without their own boarding passes quickly having to locate their male/female travel companions. I was asked to take my camera out of its bag, but Alan wasn’t. Behind the privacy screen the female security officer asked me about my blue hair and told me she liked it very much.

Reunited with each other and our bags we decided to go for a ‘no beef’ Burger King meal so we could take our malaria tablet (must be taken with food). It was international women’s day, so I was given a rose when we visited a bar for a drink (Alan’s beer was £7… it was a big beer).

Thirst & hunger dealt with we went to the gate and looked for our fellow tour buddies and spotted the Naturetrek tags on Linda and Andy’s bags… we didn’t know this at the time, but Linda & Andy would be our vehicle buddies on the drives for the first three tiger reserves so it was funny coincidence we spoke with them first!

The plane was due to leave at 3:15pm but didn’t leave until 4pm. We arrived at Nagpur just after 5pm. All our luggage arrived ok, if a little battered and we met the rest of the group and the lead tour guide Yusuf in arrivals.

There was a bit of fun loading us into the cars and I waited at one side of the car but unknown to me Wendy was waiting at the other side and as I opened the door she hopped in the other side so Alan & I had to go look for another car. There was space for us all, but it could have been a bit better organised! We travelled the 20 minutes ride to the Radisson Blu Hotel in 4 cars and waited in reception for about 30 minutes while the check-in process was dealt with.

Meanwhile, we were given a briefing on how the optional tipping would be dealt with for the trip. The tipping method had recently changed from tipping as you go, to the tour leader now collecting a set amount from each individual and distributing the tips on our behalf, this would cover portage, drivers, park guides and hotel staff. The amount requested from Yusuf was 6,000 rupees per individual for those doing both tour extensions and 4,000 rupees for those doing just the one. Everyone was happy with this approach and it was agreed Yusuf would collect the money at dinner.

At 6:30pm our rooms were ready and we had an hour to get ready for dinner at 7:30pm. The meal was buffet style and the chef had been briefed regarding my milk intolerance and prepared a special pasta dish for me. Along with Andy & Linda we were last to leave the table and when we asked for our bills for the beer & diet coke we were met with bills for the water that was consumed by the rest of the table. We refused to pay them (we hadn’t asked for or consumed the extra water) and only paid for the drinks we had.

I was awake at 4am with a bad headache and felt sick, I took tablets for my headache and rested until 7:30am. I got up and repacked while I sent Alan for his breakfast, still feeling a bit nauseous.

Alan brought me some toast up to the room and starting to feel a little better, we met in the hotel lobby at 10:15am (left at 10:30am) before starting our two-and-a-half-hour journey to Tadoba in the 4 cars we had transferred from the airport in. We made one comfort break at a petrol station on the way.

We reached our destination, Sarvsara Jungle Lodge at 1pm and were served our lunch while we waited for our rooms to be made ready for us.