Kaziranga

The next halt of the sojourn was at Kaziranga. In Assam. Like Bengalis Assamese too pronounce their 'A' as 'O' and 'ssam' is 'sum', thus the true pronunciation of Assam is 'Awesome' and truly it is. Mere Kaziranga passes with high colors, but that does not mean that the other parts of Assam are not awesome. They equally are but Kaziranga takes away the crown.

From Tawang to Kaziranga is like traversing the entire world in every which way. Distances kill you really. From Tawang to Bomdilla it's 170 kms, from Bomdilla to Tezpur it is 153 kms and from Tezpur to Kaziranga it's 94 kms. Not only distances, topography along with climate too, changes drastically. The jackets and warmers those are worn to combat the deadly cold of the mountains slowly start  getting down one by one . Kaziranga is on the planes of Assam and is on the banks of great river Brahmaputra. So the climate is hot and humid. We crossed Brahmaputra for the first time near Tezpur. Imagine the greatness of river, when I say, 'The bridge built on it near Tezpur is 3.5 kms long.' It took as if eons to cross it !

Like the battalion that takes halts after halt to reach the destination we too, took a night shelter again at Bomdilla , lunch at  the same dhaba that served Karela bhaji and reached Kaziranga at around 6.00 in the evening, being east it was pitch dark by then. But the journey was not uneventful as expected. One of the buses conked off on the ascents to Bomdilla.Huffing and puffing it was trying to negotiate the curve with steep gradient. It tried but gave in, in the end. Now what ? We were stranded in the middle of no where, nearest help point was 30 kms away down the hills.Repair was not the problem, cutting the time was. But we were prepared for the calamities like this and what's better than the play of cards. Tarpaulin was borrowed from the tour assistant Arindan and we had pleasure of playing cards in the wilderness ! But we could not finish even two rounds. Montoo our maverick driver rectified the mistake within minutes and we were on the beaten tracks again.

The scenery around  was too astounding, I could locate this small house hiding in the deep jungles from the prying eyes but my tele lens could capture it beautifully !

As usual Himalayas never cease to wow ! 

The snow capped peaks, with mountain ranges in different hues of blue, were though oft seen, never prevented from uttering 'Ah !' It just escaped!

 

Our Hotel in Kaziranga  was par excellence. Lavishly spread over acres of land, the Borgos was like a dream in the jungles.Use of wood in large quantities added a different splendor to its' rich interiors.

But it turned out be bad for us.

It was 31st March and it was the day we had semi finals with the West Indies.On spacious lawns of the hotel, a projector and big screen was arranged for better viewing. With heart held in hands we saw the first few wickets falling like bungalow of cards. To add to the woos, it started  drizzling. Distant thunder increased the anxiety. Later players, especially [as usual] , Dhoni and Virat rekindled our spirits when we reached 150s. By then it started raining heavily. Though hotel management arranged for the umbrellas, it was projecting system that was at stake. So we had to abandon the match from our side and had to go for dinner with question mark in the head.The tin roof of the dinner hall made so much of noise, making it amply clear that it was really a heavy downpour. Surprisingly within shorter time than expected, showers stopped and finishing the dinner we rushed to the lawns to watch the Windies play. It was another shower. Of runs and it came down heavily, really heavily that we lost the match, though not miserably, but lost all the same, wiping  away all our chances  to reach the finals.With small faces and heavy hearts we returned to our rooms consoling ourselves, saying, ' We have to get up early in the morning , have to go for elephant ride.'

Kaziranga national park is spread over more than 400 sq.kms, 430 to be precise. Limited on one side by Brahmaputra which becomes bane and boon at the same time. It's the huge water supply for the marshy land that flourishes flora and fauna, but at the same time, as it is  low level marshy terrain, during floods Brahmaputra submerges acres and acres of Kaziranga, at times killing many animals  simply by drowning.

It's home to many animals including Tigers, Bison, dears, elephants and last but not the least single horned Rhinos. As estimate goes the park has more than 1600 rhinos, more than 100 tigers [with highest density in the protected areas ] and innumerable swamp deer, fawns and bison, wild buffaloes. Elephants are there but are rarely seen in the open though it's good breeding site for them.

The park management has made excellent provisions at Bagori for elephant rides. Montoo dropped us from our hotel in Kohora to Bagori very early in the morning at 6 AM. Surprisingly there were many early birds before us ,who had come to take the ride at 5 AM! It was such  because there are only two rides in the morning and whole play finishes before 8 AM for animals to have their natural freedom. And it really does not matter because even at 5 AM in the morning it's like 8 AM in Mumbai.

Mounting on the elephants is really made easy by the management. The platform to ride  the elephant is as high as the elephant and one can easily get into haudah without any problem . Each elephant carries 6 people in haudah, 3 on each side. Haudah is safely locked so there is no danger of falling off the elephant.

Once deep in the planes, [it's jungle of medium level grass and  bushes mostly, may be better breeding place for rhinos and tigers,] it was like raining rhinos. May be they are used to daily elephant rides, so at times they don't move even an inch, by approaching elephant. Rhinos of all hues, shades, sizes, and ferocity were grazing lazily without giving two hoots for the encroachers, us !

The skin of rhinos seemed so thick at times that some of us named them after our popular local heroes , like the Pawars, the Bhujbals or the Laloos. [ Strictly tongue in cheek, no malice towards anybody whatsoever] The conversation thus went like this,"Look how that Bhujbal is pataoing Pawar, probably wants something in return.'' "See that younger Pawar , has gone exactly after his uncle."or "See, How Laloo is lying lazy after grazing on lots of grass."

 It was really sight to watch. Due to heavy body of mother rhino, baby rhino can not suckle the udder from the sides like  babies of other mammals, so it has to go behind, between the legs for feeds.

The purse of one of the tourists from our haudah fell down. We felt. its gone now. In grass infested [!] with rhinos it was definitely risky to get down and retrieve the purse. Our mahout was definitely used to such catastrophes. He goaded his elephant in some sign language that elephant understood. And wonders of wonder , he picked up the purse with his snout and returned to the owner !

All in all, in the morning session all the rhinos looked dull, almost looking like pets.But in the afternoon session, in open jeep, one literally charged towards our vehicle menacingly terrifying the driver. In a flash of a second driver accelerated the jeep to get away from him. Luckily there came another jeep, and with the noise of that jeep he retraced his attack and disappeared in the tall grass. We wanted driver to wait a bit more but he was more knowledgeable so refuted our request and continued his driving. 

Full grown rhino may reach one tonne even more in weight, but at the same time can achieve speed of more than 80 kms/hour while running, thus can easily topple vehicle like jeep even if having obese riders, by sheer momentum !

Thank god we took morning session of elephant ride, because in the afternoon session of jeep ride, it has to go on stipulated rough road and can not reach the rhinos or any other species from close quarters. If  you see tiger in its natural environment you are damn lucky. Even after straining our eyes for eons we could locate neither tiger nor  wild elephant even. Could see only few bison, tamed elephants and few beautiful birds which we could not identify.

This one was the villain who attacked our jeep.But retraced back putting his tail between the legs after realizing that THE Benurwars are riding in the jeep !

 

We did not want to waste the spare time that we got at Kaziranga. So explored the village nearby. Normal Assamese house in the interiors has to have a pond next to the house for fresh fish. Staple food is no hard guess, rice again. So the houses are near paddy fields and have small kitchen vegetable garden always attached to it.
 

 Typical Assamese house with pond attached to it. To get to the water it has that peculiar ladder.

 Interiors of the kitchen of small farmer's house, with bare minimum utensils and provision.

 Bamboo shoots, used as vegetable.

Paddy fields. Development has reached. at least to bare minimum. It has electrical water pump to water the fields in absence of rains.

It was sayonara time for Kaziranga .With heavy heart we said bye to all those Rhinos and headed towards our next destination, Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya.