After our interesting spell in Varanasi, we returned to Delhi. This signalled the end of our 'guided' tour, and it was now time to say goodbye to our excellent tour company, Abyss Tours. We were doing the rest of India on our own.
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| Village shops seen during our drive to Kohora |
Our first stop travelling by ourselves, was to Kohora, in the far north-eastern corner of India. After two connecting flights, we arrived at the airport in Jorhat, 97 kms from Kohora, so we negotiated with a driver to take us there. After a rather manic two-hour drive through many tiny villages, we finally arrived in the isolated village of Kohora.
We were there to see the endangered greater one-horned rhinoceros (or Indian rhinoceros) at Kaziranga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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| Kohora village houses |
Kohora is a very small and fairly basic little place, designed to service the National Park and the surrounding tea plantations that we passed on the way.
Unfortunately, we had to leave for the airport at 3 am to get a flight there. While our thoughtful hotel in Delhi had packed us a couple of bananas and an orange each for breakfast, by the time we arrived in Kohora, we were quite hungry.
So, we soon settled in to our tiny guest house, and their recommendation of a local restaurant became our go-to place for food. We tried a range of different dishes but sesame pork with roti became our favourite.
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| On our elephant and ready for safari |
The next morning, a 6 am pickup took us to the Central Range of the Kaziranga National Park. We were going on safari by elephant. We mounted our elephant - just the two of us with an informative mahout.
We had checked out the humane aspects of riding on an elephant, and found that all in the safari company that we were planning to use, were rescued elephants. Also, they were fitted with a leather saddle that was well padded, instead of a wooden platform across their spine, so we decided it would be ok.
All the elephants are female, and their babies walk with them.
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| Mother and baby rhino |
Then perched on our elephant, we lumbered off into the park where we soon spotted the sought-after rhinos. The rhinos were totally at ease with the elephants as they graze together. This meant we were able to get very close to a mother rhino and her baby; then suddenly another one with a baby as well.
What absolutely amazing creatures they are; and so big.
These rhinos are endangered but their population is stabilising now, due to the great work being done by the Park staff. However, they still have a major problem with poachers who are after rhino horn.
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| Scary - looking right at us |
They have armed guards throughout the park to prevent poachers. However, it is such a massive and natural park area with no fences, that it is hard to catch them.
The elephants work for only 1 hour per day. During our 1-hour ride, we saw several rhinos, as well as endangered swamp deer; wild elephants; wild boar, and many birds. A fabulous start to the day.
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| Huge wild water buffalo |
We also saw a huge wild water buffalo with immense horns, swimming toward us across a lake. But we moved on before he left the water.
The next part of our day took us to the Western Range of the Park, this time our safari was in a jeep.
Our jeep driver and guide, Linton, was a very knowledgeable man who was great at spotting all sorts of creatures, and especially different birds.
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| BIG rhino |
The highlight of course, was the number of rhinos that we spotted. We didn’t get as close in the jeep as we did on the elephant, but still had a fabulous view, and we saw several. One super large rhino crossed the road right in front of us to graze!
As it got later in the day, more and more emerged as they came out of the bushes heading for the water. We felt very privileged to have seen such amazing and rare creatures.
We are now preparing for another early start tomorrow - we have a two-hour drive back to Jorhat airport, then a flight to Bagdogra which will get us to Darjeeling, in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains.
The above blog is part of our 2-month tour of India. The first blog on this tour is called "Off to Delhi".