Its A Jungle Out There !!. Review on Kaziranga National Park

My annual Santragachi "birding" excursions, great as they are, had led to a habitual ennui lately. Someone suggested Kaziranga for a'wider' palette of experience. And there I was - on board to Guwahati, the very next weekend.

Birdlovers dont need an intro to the Kaziranga. Its the Birding equivalent to the religious "Dhams" in India. With an area of 400 square kilometers, Kaziranga National Park is one of the larger sanctuaries in the country. It has also been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, further fueling international interest. The Park is located on the'marshy' banks of river Brahmaputra in Assam, making it haven for wildlife.

Without boring you with technical details, suffice it to say that Kaziranga has a most rich selection of fauna and flora, so much so that many foreigners choose to spend the best part of their winter here with repeat safaris in search of the few ever elusive species of fauna. The one-horned Rhino is quite the "poster-boy" of these parts, The Asiatic Elephant, buffalo, Sambhar and deer are other frequently seen mammals. But the outstanding feature by far is the birding which is absolutely fantastic. Apart from the local ones, hundreds of birds migrate from distant places like Siberia. Kaziranga sanctuary is divided into 3 major ranges - Western, Central and Eastern. The Central is the most easily accessible on account of the large number of hotels but to me the Eastern one is the must-visit category.

Getting there - This part is the most taxing and will literally test your resolve. You could fly to Guwahati(235 km) or Jorhat(90 km) and take a cab from there or take a train to Furkating(~75 km) and then take a cab. Of the three, flying to Jorhat is the best option. We took the toughest route by flying to Guwahati and taking a cab from there. While the roads are good in most places, things start to get pretty nasty 40 kms. short of Kohora, the town in central range where most of the hotels are located. This stretch is heavily interspersed with multi-bump speed-breakers which will break your'back' and many even break your resolve:-P

Accommodation - is widely available at entry points to all 3 ranges with most of it being concentrated at Kohora, the town at entry point of Central Range. We had booked ourselves at IORA which is pretty much the go-to hotel for Kaziranga. However the wildgrass is supposed to be very popular with the safari-smitten foreigners. This might be a great choice if you are hoping to latch onto a hardcore safari seeking foreigner group, something I'm looking to do on my next visit.

Fooding - The place is a non-veggie's delight with the most delectable selection of dishes. IORA's own restaurant has a great selection of cross-country cuisine including Indian, Chinese, Italian and Continental. We also dined at a specialty restaurant called Maihang which brought in a lot of local flavor. Liqour is cheap as is non-veg. And if you like going liberal on the two, Tea is cheap too(for next morning):-P

Now for the serious stuff:

The Safaris - If someone were to ask me what's the best part about Kaziranga, I'd say its the Safaris. I never thought they'd be this good. A typical jeep safari costs around 2k to 2.8k(including jeep hiring charges, entry fees, camera fee and other incidentals) depending upon the range and lasts around 2 hours. Safaris are conducted between 8-11 in the morning and then again during 1 to 4 in the afternoon. The 8-11 slot is the best during summers but during winters its very foggy this time of the day and human vision and AF capabilities of SLRs are rather impaired. Now the most critical part of any safari is the skill with which the driver manoeuvres the vehicle while approaching the subject(animal or bird). The idea is to be absolutely inconspicuous and try not to scare the thing away. We were very lucky in that the driver lent by IORA, a chap named Vinod, not only knew this art well but gave us ample time(wherever he could) to get the "best moment". Usually one of the armed forest rangers accompanies a caravan of 3-4 Jeeps to fend against any attack. Again we were lucky to have him in our Jeep. The two had a very good knowledge on bird species and were expert'spotters'. The only thing I had to manage was the shooting.

We also tried elephant safaris which are scheduled early morning between 6-7.30. They cost about 1.5 k but turned out to be more of a fad what with short time of 45 mins. and restricted mobility of the elephant(3-4 kms. max). We had 4 safaris in 3 days(the 3 ranges plus the elephant) and had one whale of a time. The only regrets we had was(1) we inhaled more smoke on our way to Kaziranga in one day than we normally do in Kolkata in 1 week, and(2) we missed the Tiger!

The Experience - Frankly, I did not expect such a close encounter with wildlife. I almost lost my life when a rhino charged us in Eastern range(the ranger had to fire many blank shots to force it away). In another encounter, we saw a couple of rhinos battling it out. If you are aware of the hardness of rhino hide, you'll know the force required to penetrate it. Such was the ferocity of the combat, that it left the rhinos bleeding as if they had been shot with a bullet! On yet another occasion we heard groans of two elephants that sounded so remarkable similar to that of a Tiger that all of us froze on our tracks! We were witness to the "Jungle law" in all its primitive glory every now and then. It simply couldn't have got any closer than this. Sadly, I was on a 600mm which is a tad short for jeep safari. For a sampler of what we came across, you might like to check out the gallery:-

https://mouthshut.com/sydbarett/photogallery

What makes this place special is the excitingly alluring concoction of thrill, love of wildlife, great food, modest prices(relative to many other cut-throat tourist locations in India) and last but not the least the extremely simple and affable local gentry. I almost ended up prolonging my stay just for the prospect of repeat safaris. Sadly I had to come back to earn my daily bread. And to horde up enough money for more Kaziranga Safaris in future:-P

Wildlife doesn't get any better than this. And if wildlife is your game, Kaziranga is the name.

Its a jungle out there! A real one.