The day started with covering 230Kms from Guwahati to Kazironga. Our drives were two govt red-light and siren armoured jeeps; the kick of travelling in one is like no other, one can see people make way for the official vehicles and the power is addictive. For a brief moment, i was regretting not having even attempted the IAS.
The journey by itself could’ve been much more scenic, but the dark thick cloud cover spoilt a lot for us. We started in the morning at 7AM a time when it should’ve been bright, but the clouds played spoilt sport. On the way, we passed many small villages and smaller Kendriya Vidyalayas, brick kilns, tumtum loaded with people in every inch available, skinny rickshaw-men pulling fat aunties and potholed roads. Had we to do this part riding, we would’ve had a tough time. But overall, it passed peacefully with the journey peppered with chai breaks and discovering Uncle Chips in the local stores.
On our way, we spotttted our first Rhino, it was distant, but the excitement of sighting the first Rhino even before reaching the reserve made us greedy and ambitious, we believed a story that tigers are sighted at Kaziranga and started hoping that we will spot one, but more on that when we talk about the safari. We reached Hotel Emerald; a nice little place with open areas for kids to enjoy, a building for the eating area and another with the rooms. We settled down, had lunch and relaxed for a while.
At 16:30 an open gypsy came over to pick us up, they took us to the park. Enter Kazironga!
Entering the park somewhere reminded me of the movie Jurrasic Park, obviously the facilities where not a speck as compared to the movie, but it had the feel. The guide, Mohan was a kid studying for his B’com exams. He started working at the park when he was all of 15 spending time with other senior guides and his dad who worked at the park, now he intends to complete his graduation and study wild-life in a lot more detail. Mohan first pointed at elephants, mostly tamed, then deers and started explaining the difference between the Hog and Sambhar deer. Just then, Zoravar started telling us about his last visit here and where he spotted the first rhino, and ‘Shazzam!’ the rhino was there. Our first sighting in such proximity. We were all excited and clicked pictures from every possible angle, this is when even the rhino got bored of getting clicked and moved out. Post this, we kept moving and spotted many more rhinos, exotic birds, turtles, otters, deers and more. By the second hour, rhinos were not as rare and they had lost the novelty charm but one thing remained, its capacity to keep people scared and hence at bay, Rhinos find their mention even in the ‘Big Five’ of the African forests. The ‘Big Five’ are known to be the fierciest animals and includes animals like Lion, Elephant andWild Bulls. Kazironga has 78% of the one-horned rhinos, who also happen to be the deadliest of all rhino breeds.
Now that we were homeward bound, we saw something that only a few get to see; we saw the rhino’s mating ritual! This was from a distance but because this was a rarity, the jeep turned around and tried to take us close but the noise disturbed the giants and they disappeared into the tall grassland.
When we got out of the park, we had a hot cup of chai with local brand of biscuits, one of them especially gained our attention, the wrapper was designed like the 50:50, but the brand was called 60:40.
We got back to the hotel and generally chilled, we had an early morning next day.
Morals: Carry proper lenses to shoot wildlife, else you’ll hardly capture anything at all. Avoid getting too late, sightings are even more difficult as the sun sets. Carry rain-sheeters for yourself and the camera. Get binoculars, it helps. If possible read up about rhinos and migratory birds. Mar – May is good to sight rhinos and Oct – Dec are better for migratory birds.
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