Journal

She has been on the eastern rocks for three mornings now — a young female, unbothered by the vehicle, drinking at the dam in the blue hour before the heat. Our guides have watched her since she was a cub, and to sit with her at dawn is to understand what makes Jawai different: no fence, no crowd, only the old truce between the cat and the hill. By the time the sun clears the granite she has folded herself back into shadow, and the plains are ours again.

Before the camp wakes, the herders are already moving — white turbans against the grey rock, goats spilling down the paths their families have walked for a thousand years. We share tea in the shade of a chhatri and talk, through our naturalist, of leopards as neighbours rather than threats. It is a way of living alongside the wild that the rest of the world has largely forgotten, and it is the quiet foundation of everything we do here.

There was no moon. After the evening drive we lay back on a warm slab of granite and let our eyes adjust until the Milky Way stood up over the plains, so bright it cast a faint shadow. A jackal called once, far off, and then nothing. This is the other wilderness of Jawai — the one overhead — and on a clear, dark night it is every bit as astonishing as the leopards.