The thrill of seeing the Royal Bengal Tiger up close in its central Indian wilderness would be reason alone to make the trek to Kipling Camp.

But prospective visitors to this most famous of India's jungle encampments would be well advised to find out whether Kipling's entertaining patriarch, Major (retired) Robert Hamilton Wright, OBE, is in camp.

If your luck is in, and Bob Wright is in good form, you'll get a bonus statesman - and some living history from one of India's last Englishmen - around the camp's groaning dinner table, along with Kipling's other remarkable bluebloods, the impressive striped ones from the animal kingdom.

A "statesman", however, is not how Calcutta-born Wright sees himself, despite his gong from Buckingham Palace and a lifetime at the heart of India's establishment. As the cravatted octogenarian kicks back in his easychair overseeing Kipling's myriad activities - pink gin (one of six to eight quaffed daily) and cigarette (one of 40) in hand, Becky his loyal labrador at his feet, youthful twinkle in his eye - he suggests an altogether different description.

"Cad!" Wright firmly declares. "If I wrote my biography, I'd call it The Cad of Calcutta. And it would be a most wonderful book," he adds triumphantly. "I'd be a very naughty boy, I'd tell all my secrets. Well, maybe not all."

Perhaps fortunately for India's great and good - and many of Kipling's guests, who include the rich and famous of other countries as well - Wright is too busy being Kipling Camp's bon vivant to put pen to paper any time soon.

But gently prod him as he sits himself in front of the open fire after a day's tiger-spotting and tall stories will tumble forth about Bob and the British royals, Bob and Mother Teresa, Bob living the high life of the British Raj in old Calcutta, Bob and ... well, you name them, Bob Wright's probably got an anecdote about them.

But are Wright's stories true? Did the King of Bhutan really do that? And Princess Diana? Surely not? Well, after an enraptured evening at Wright's feet, it probably doesn't matter. Their joy is in Wright's vivid telling - and the magnificent venue he's occupied since 1982 for his yarn-spinning, Kanha National Park.

But Wright, a former Cambridge Blue and England international at rugby (or "rugger" as he insists) who saw World War II action in the Sudan (of course), isn't the only great yarn-spinner who is famous around Kanha.

This magnificent national park, one of India's few remaining wildernesses, was the inspiration behind Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.

They're all here: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose, Baloo the friendly bear, Shere Khan the majestic tiger who killed the parents of Kipling's hero, Mowgli. While it's not clear if the 19th-century chronicler of British India actually visited Kanha or the camp that bears his name - a pragmatic Wright is uncharacteristically coy about that - all the book's characters seem to frolic in its protected jungles and grasslands.

Kanha is regarded by naturalists as one of the world's best locations, outside Africa, to view wildlife in its natural habitat - and probably the best to see tigers in the wild. And Kipling Camp itself is not a bad place to start the safari. About as close to the park as the law allows, its unfenced boundaries form part of Kanha's buffer zone. Tigers - a 2002 census tallied 114 in the park - regularly wander through Kipling's grounds, along with leopards, jungle cats, wolves and gaur (also known as Indian bison).

Indeed, it's quite a magical thing to be enjoying an alfresco lunch with Wright on a cloudless day only to hear him break off one of his anecdotes because deer, a family of delicate chitals or barasinghas, are grazing just metres away. Or a squadron of langur monkeys have descended on the kitchen, anxious to sample some of Kipling's famous curries.

Part of Kipling's - and Kanha's appeal - is its glorious remoteness. Almost precisely at the geographical heart of the Indian subcontinent in the state of Madhya Pradesh, it's 24-30 hours by rail from Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. And that's only to the regional railhead at Jabalpur.

From there, it's another three to four hours on very ordinary roads by pre-arranged 4WD to Kipling. Travellers can fly from India's bigger cities to Nagpur, in eastern Maharashtra state, but add another two hours to the 4WD trek to Kipling.

This remoteness is underlined in camp. Naturally, there's no mobile phone cover and you can pretty much forget about the internet. There is a phone, but it was down for three of the four days I was in camp, which I'm told is normal. While Kipling is well catered for, with provisions brought down from Jabalpur's markets with each arrival, visitors are advised to bring any creature comforts and personal items.

But somehow it doesn't matter once you're in camp. The accommodation - 18 double cabins - is basic but very clean, likely much as it was in the days of the Raj, or perhaps at your eccentric great-aunt's house. Camp life revolves around a central area, covered but without walls, which is Kipling's dining room/living room/lounge/library.

With Wright's young staff of well-bred but enthusiastic English teens on their gap years before heading up to Oxford and Cambridge, the camp has a house-party atmosphere. There's a vaguely military whiff about Kipling, unsurprising given the major's stints at Normandy and in the Sudan Rifles and that British India attracted nicely squared-away officer types. A typical Kipling day involves bed-tea - a diehard British Indian military tradition - at 5am. Then it's out of bed and into the back of one of Kipling's safari 4WDs by 5.30 and to Kanha's gates for the 6am opening as dawn breaks over the park.

This is considered prime time for tiger-tracking, as the great beasts go hunting the deer they breakfast on. With luck (visitors are rarely disappointed), a tiger or two will be spotted - along with leopards, hyenas, deer and birds - along Kanha's rudimentary tracks. Naturalists complain Kanha is being overrun, but during a morning's sorties through the park it's likely you'll see no more a dozen people.

Kipling provides a picnic breakfast at a safe area in the park around 9am and then it's a few more hours in the wilderness before a much-anticipated lunch back at camp.

Afternoons provide a choice of more animal-spotting in Kanha or a ride aboard Tara, Kipling's resident elephant, over the two kilometres down to the waterholes of the Banjar River for her daily walk and bath. Kipling boasts its own howdah (elephant seat).

It's all very appealing and one could easily while away a week in Kipling. If Wright is in, make that two. And be sure to pack Rudyard with you.

Fast facts

Kipling Camp is open from November 1 to mid-March. For details, see www.kiplingcamp.com.