Traveling in a pack, or you might say a group, is not something I do on holidays. I’m a lone wolf kind of traveler. See what I mean? Then I took the opportunity to escort a group coming to Cardamom County for a bird photography workshop into Periyar Tiger Reserve, and all my preconceptions disappeared. Although my companions came from all parts of India to take wildlife pictures and I arrived on day 1 with just an iphone, I quickly felt like I belonged. And we as a pack also seemed to belong there in the immensity. We each had space and time to marvel at our surroundings. To ask the forestry department guides how they could spot a white-bellied blue flycatcher or recognize the song of a great indian hornbill.

Between bird watching sessions, my companions taught me about macrophotography; one of them even kindly lent me one of his cameras. We could all be solitary together. When we stumbled upon a pack of dholes (indian wild dogs), a rare sight, we were all smiles to share this moment.

And when a great hornbill came for a friendly farewell right before we took the bamboo raft back, I felt like we belonged just fine, just like the Adivasis ladies who had come into the reserve to fish and collect wood.