Travelling in the North-East in the summer of 2006
Guwahati >> Eaglenest >> Tawang >> Nameri >> Kaziranga >> Shillong >> Cherrapunjee
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+Next: About Kaziranga National Park
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I spent two days in Kaziranga, going on elephant rides, taking jeep safaris, walking all around, looking for birds and listening to stories from a Manipuri guy who was with me.
“Don’t go to Manipur”, he said when I told him that my travel plans further are not very rigid. At last count, he said there were more than 80 militant outfits in Manipur. The porous border with Myanmar had resulted in everyone taking to guns, and at some point of time it seems to have become a common practice that people got accustomed to. The militants lay their own check posts on the roads, ask for their taxes, etc. It is apparently complete lawlessness and my friend was very upset about it. A few months down, some friends who went their unknowingly, confirmed that Manipur is an avoidable region for the traveller.
After going through the bureaucracy to get a seat of elephant back, we managed to secure an allocation for the next morning. The park entry where you assemble for the ride is a good 3km from the tourist complex where the hotels existed. Having no means of transport, we were walking the way on the pleasant morning, and were picked up half way by a friendly park officer. Once there, I realized the reason for having a booking process in place, even if it is a cumbersome one. They have way too many – more than a dozen safari elephants in Kaziranga, and they serve more than one one-hour shift every morning. The number of tourists who take the ride is probably more than hundred. We had secured a booking for 7am slot and when we reached there around that time, there were no elephants. They had gone into the forest(meadow is the better word) with 6am batch and started returning around 7.10am. I can’t recall if there was an 8am batch, I think there wasn’t any.
A Rhino walks in style, head high, in its territory
You can get really up close to a Rhino during elephant ride. Close enough to shake hands(with its legs or horn as it wishes!), if Rhino willing!
Yawnnn… these tourists are so boring..!
Though I despise elephant rides, it is the best way to see Rhinos, and any other animals that you might get to see in the park. Elephants and Rhinos seem to live a harmonic life in the park, and they tend to get as close as a few feet to the rhinos. So close – if you ever happen to fall from the pachyderm’s back, don’t be surprised if you land on the rhino’s back!
Ah.. Nice pool for a good bath!
In the hour long ride, we saw plenty of rhinos. Kaziranga is one national park where people never go back disappointed. With a good and thriving population of Rhinos, you are pretty much guaranteed to see them. And if you are there in summer, you will also surely see herds of elephants and wild buffaloes. There are also plenty of deer to see, including the swamp deer(barasinga), ubiquitous chitals and a few barking deer. It seemed like a season of babies in Kaziranga while I was there. We saw many baby Rhinos and baby wild buffaloes. Even some of the escort elephants we were riding on, had babies following them!
A wild buffalo watches us wearily as it feeds its baby
A herd of wild buffaloes
Small family.. happy family..
Herd of deer
Elephant Herd
There were many birds too. I vaguely recall someone saying that everything comes in a big scale in Kaziranga. The mammals – rhinos, elephants and wild buffaloes are big. The wild buffaloes grow to such size that you can almost mistake them for elephants from a distance. Even the birds – pelicans, lesser adjutant storks and white necked storks are so big that they can probably easily lift a baby in their beaks and fly away.
Don’t mess with me!
A lesser adjutant stork
A red jungle fowl keeps a watch on us
A hoopoe
Later in the day we went on a jeep safari which lasted for good two hours. It was in the safari that I saw a few more birds, like the commonly seen Indian Roller, Jungle Fowls, white necked storks, pelicans, emerald doves and a many more.
Deer..
I spent the next day walking all around the place outside, to nearby villages and tea estates, looking around for birds. From here, I headed to Guwahati and then moved on to Shillong to spend a few more days.
Travelling in the North-East in the summer of 2006
Guwahati >> Eaglenest >> Tawang >> Nameri >> Kaziranga >> Shillong >> Cherrapunjee
+Previous: Nameri National Park
+Next: At Kaziranga National Park
+Go to the beginning of the series
I spent a day in Tezpur to take a short leisurely break before heading further to Kaziranga. Tezpur is not much of a city, with one main road around which most of the commerce happens. But to my surprise there were quite a few hotels and yet, rooms were short in supply.
The next morning when I was in the bus stop waiting for a bus to Kaziranga, I realized I had chosen a bad time to wander in Assam. Assembly elections were about to happen the next day, and buses were in short supply. Luckily a bus arrived after an hour of waiting, and I found a seat available. Tezpur to Kaziranga is 1.5 to 2 hour journey and goes through smooth, traffic free highway connecting Tezpur with Dibrugarh. It is a wooded region and occasionally you can see rhinos from a distance, grazing in the grasslands next to the forest.
The bus dropped me at Kohora village outside the park where all tourist facilities exist. I walked a little ahead from the bus stop on the main road and found a few budget hotels there, but all of them seemed to have been closed for some reason. After a quick chai in a small shop, I headed to government tourist complex almost half a kilometer off the main road. When I inquired, it turned out that there was no accommodation available in all the three government run hotels. There was no hotels nearby and just when I was wondering what else to do, fortunately found accommodation in nearby Kaziranga Wildlife Club. It turned out, some people who arrived after me had a tough time later in the day. There are no hotels nearby and there is a short supply of places to stay in Kaziranga, especially in the peak season.
Later in the afternoon, after checking out on options to spend time in Kaziranga, I decided to take an elephant ride into the park next morning. Booking an elephant ride is a painful, two step process. First you register your name in the office at any time of the day. At this time, it doesn’t guarantee you a ride and nor will they tell you if they can give you a seat. The same evening at 7pm, you need to head to an assembly point where everyone who has registered will arrive, and they read out the names of the registered people one after other. Only if you are present there and pay the fee when your name is called, you will get to take the elephant ride the next morning. Trust our officers to come up with interesting ways to make things complicated!
I spent most of my evening walking around the place, and in the evening, managed to get my elephant ride booked for tomorrow.
Travelling in the North-East in the summer of 2006
Guwahati >> Eaglenest >> Tawang >> Nameri >> Kaziranga >> Shillong >> Cherrapunjee
+Previous: Returning from Tawang
+Next: Arriving at Kaziranga
+Go to the beginning of the series
The angling camp at Potasali village is the only place to stay anywhere close to Nameri National Park, and so it was our natural choice. It was a delightful place to be in, located in a quiet village at the border of the park, just next to Bharali River.
Potasali Angling Camp
The names were many – Bharali river, as it was written in the map, was locally called Jia Bhorelli. The angling camp being in Potasali village, was normally called Potasali angling camp while the sign on their gate read – ‘Bhorelli Angling Camp’.
It was early evening when we had arrived, and the rest of the day was consumed in a short walk towards the river. Bharali river served as a border to the park, and we could see the thick forest with tall trees to the other side of the river. As we walked on the shore, a couple of people in a raft with some angling gear arrived floating down with the current, ending their day-long fish hunt.
Bharali river and the forest of Nameri National Park
The next morning we went on a guided trek in the park. The guide said that the park does have some tigers, and obviously we did not get to see any. But the birds were in good numbers and there were many species that we had never seen earlier. Green Pigeons – yellow footed green pigeon and a few more varieties were prominent. But what awed us was the presence of hornbills in great numbers. We were once walking on an open patch when my fellow traveller sighted four great hornbills flying past. When another one followed from behind, he started counting. Soon came two more and then there was silence. There were seven in all, he said, and by the time he finished, another one followed! We were all walking towards them, and now stopped and decided to wait. In the next few minutes while we waited, they kept coming one after another, taking the count up to more than 30! None of us had ever seen great hornbills in such big numbers, and watching them arrive with swooshing sound of their wings was a real treat. We walked further only after waiting for a few more minutes and ensuring that there were no more of them coming in.
Great Hornbill flying past us..
We decided to go rafting later in the afternoon. This was no rafting in the rapids, but a pleasant floating journey down the river with no major obstacles to worry about. We descended into the river almost 15km upstream from the camp. Two boatmen in the raft took care of steering and rowing the raft while we sat back and enjoyed the beauty around. The Himalayan river Bharali, which probably originated somewhere near Sela pass carried down perfectly clear water in which we could clearly see the bottom even in the deeper stretches. At the start of the ride, we saw a few Ibis Bills, a bird which is hardly seen anywhere else in India. It was a pleasant sailing down the river as the current carried us smoothly downstream most of the time, with few or little turbulences. At some place where the river widened, the boatman pulled out the raft ashore and said we can swim here if we like. We were all waiting for an opportunity and jumped in the very next moment. It was indeed a bit cold but not too cold to feel chilling. We were accustomed to it in no time and immensely enjoyed swimming in those clear waters. Infact we did not really feel like getting out of there, but we eventually had to. We spent nearly four hours on the river and it was late in the evening and already pretty dark by the time we arrived at the camp.
A bird we had managed to identify with great difficulty; but I can’t recall its name again..!
It was time for us to depart the next morning. We were all heading in different directions from here. I was planning to go to Kaziranga, another one of us was headed to Namdhapa and the third one was heading back home. It was a short, but very eventful stay for us at Nameri.
About Nameri National Park
Nameri National Park, adjoining Pakke Tiger Reserve in Arunachal, falls in Sonitpur district of Assam. The Potasali Angling Camp or Eco Camp as it is sometime called, is the only accommodation close to the camp. Book in advance, as it often gets full. Next option to stay would be at budget hotels in nearby town of Bhalukpong. To reach the camp, drive to Tezpur from Guwahati. Take the Tezpur-Bomdila highway and drive for another hour via the town of Balipara till you reach a place called Haathi Gate. Turn right on a small road without tarmac at Haathi Gate, and ask around for the camp. Frequent buses connect Guwahati and Tezpur. From here, you can take local buses or shared jeeps to reach Haathi Gate.
You can trek in the park with the assistance of a forest department guide. The angling camp can organize angling trips and pleasure rafting trips on Bhorelli river.