Kaziranga National Park Day

My visit to Kaziranga National Park didn't begin so well. The ranger had told me he would pick me up at 4:45. I was outside the guest house and waiting at 4:30. At 4:45, the ranger had not appeared. 4:50. 4:55. 5:00. 5:05. No ranger. I began to think about how I was going to get the situation fixed and I actually started walking down the road towards the park to try and work things out somehow, when the ranger finally appeared in his car. He had overslept and worried me.

But he did show up and we headed off to the park entrance. We arrived at the elephant boarding station perhaps a bit late for the 5:15 trip, but that was okay. I was with a ranger and besides, most of the people taking the trip hadn't boarded their elephants yet. There were various sizes of elephants. Some were older and therefore bigger. The bigger elephants had seats for four people. Other elephants had seats for three and even two people. I rode on one of them.

And we set off. One of the first things that became depressingly clear was that I need to invest in a camera that can handle lots of different things again. I suppose I will have to buy the same camera as I lost again. I didn't really like it overmuch, but I have the one battery for it and those batteries are very expensive. So unless I can make some kind of deal on a new camera that I like better by trading in the battery and charger as part of the sale, or unless the newest camera in the series uses the same battery (which I doubt, as Canon seems to have decided to go for a money grab on that particular scene), it will be smartest to get the same camera. And with the next one in the series now out, it might have cheapened up considerably. But I definitely need to get something that will allow me photos in odd lighting. The cheapie that I bought ends up with this sort of thing, at least in the low light of early morning. It took a lot of fiddling and just taking lots of photos to get anything decent. The photo is of a couple of hog deer.

Here is one that is much clearer.

As we headed out through the grasslands, dawn approached. And sunrise was a special thing from the back of an elephant, spreading over the national park.

Then it was onward with the search for the object of this particular quest, the one-horned rhino. They are not so wary of being seen, built as they are like armoured tanks. So unlike the hidden tiger, we did find a couple of crouching rhinos (wait, I think I got that wrong somehow) without too much trouble. The guide we had on our elephant told us that they were in the process of discussing whether to mate or not. Because we were on the backs of elephants, and elephants belong in an area like this, and they are also quite manoeuvrable, we were able to go right up close to the rhinos. This suited me just fine as I was using this rather non-versatile camera. And I was able to get some quite good shots to aid my memory in the years to come.

I gather this was a sign that she was agreeing.

Then we headed off through the grasslands, in search of other wonders. At times the mud was quite soft and deep. The sounds of the mud sucking at the feet of the elephants was quite amusing. And there were a couple of baby elephants tagging along as well. They almost got stuck a couple of times. One of the things that I noticed, and never knew, was that elephants put their back feet almost exactly in the vacated footstep of the front foot when they are walking. It was very interesting to watch.

There are several kinds of deer in the park. There are the hog deer and these Som deer. I'm not exactly sure how to spell it, but it sounded something like this.

 

The grasses, which I guess are called elephant grass, are really tall. The elephants almost disappeared from view as they walked some parts of the grasslands.

We reached a forested area. Sitting on the top of one of the trees were a pair of really large cranes. They shortly flew off. There was some kind of eagle in another nearby tree, but it was sitting inside the branchy part of the tree (which I thought was bit unusual as eagles seem to usually be almost out of the tree so they can spy prey), so it was hard to see.

Then we came upon another pair of rhinos. This time it was a mother and baby. The baby was apparently 6 or 7 months old.

Then we headed to the B elephant station. The first elephant rides of the day start at the park gate and end some 500 meters or so along the road into the park. The second elephant rides of the day start from the B station and go back to the A station. We dismounted our elephants and it was time to head back to the front gate.

I guess it floods rather seriously every year in the park, and probably the surrounding countryside. Yikes!!

I had come on my own, and not as part of a group. There were a whole bunch of vehicles waiting for the riders, and I thought they were somehow for the ones who had come as parts of a group. I asked one of the people if I could walk to the front gate. He said yes. I suppose that I really should have thought about it a bit more. I should have realized that it was a wildlife park and no road inside the park would probably be considered safe. But I had asked and been told it was okay. It never occurred to me that a staff member, particularly one with a gun to ward off danger, wouldn't know to say to a visitor that it wasn't safe to walk through the park. So I set off down the road. Another staff member came running after me and told me that I couldn't walk, it wasn't safe. Hmmm... I ended up getting a ride in one of the vehicles back to the front gate and got to walk from there.

Nevertheless, I found it a bit silly to have not been allowed to walk the road through the park. This was compounded by a view like this, which is directly outside the park boundary. You can see them, but there is a “fence” with two wires that are electrified running along the the edge of this manicured section, which runs parallel to the road back to town. And I don't see it stopping anything like a rhino or a tiger from jumping out and attacking anyone on the road. And this was literally outside the park gate and maybe 30 meters from the part of the road inside the park where I couldn't walk because it was too dangerous. I'm not disputing the danger. A tiger can easily kill and a charging rhino must be a formidable sight, that I hope never to see coming my way. But I was in absolutely no less danger in this spot as compared to the road inside the park. It did occur to me to wonder, though, how often a tiger goes out among the nearby villages and attacks anyone. It is apparently reasonably common in the Sundarban area. I wonder if there is no particular danger because of the large number of deer, and therefore other prey, that also inhabits the park.

After the elephant visit, I walked back to my guest house and figured out what to do. I got some laundry done. I took a little nap. I thought about how it had been explained to me that my park pass and camera fee were applicable for the whole day. And there were jeep safaris available as well, which were considerably cheaper (if done as part of a group). I decided to see if I could join a group for one in the afternoon. At 2 o'clock, I headed to booking center and asked if anyone was going in a group that could use another person. Right then there wasn't, but I was told I could wait and see if anyone came along. I did, as I had nothing else to do for the day. I had decided that that day belonged to visiting Kaziranga National Park. After a while a family came along and they accepted as a ride along on their jeep safari. It ended up costing about 500 rupees for that, but that was much better than the 1350 rupees it would cost to go alone.

We set back out on the road to the park shortly after 3. They had wanted to go on a different route when they talked about it, but they had taken a lot of time to find a place to stay, so there was no time for the other route. We went into the central area of the park, which is part of what I saw in the morning. It was all right though as we went much farther than the elephants went, so much of where we were I had not seen in the morning. The domesticated elephant-ride elephants were being bathed and put down for the day.

We headed down the road and the park is very beautiful with long views across the grasslands to the tree fringes. Initially we saw very little in the way of wildlife. By the time we reached the turnaround point we had seen only a few deer and a bunch of birds. This was okay with me as I had seen a lot of stuff in the morning. I really wanted to see more of the park.

But on the way back the sun was setting and that's when animals really start to come out. But the setting sun made a great scene at a waterhole along the way.

Then we got to a great open area and wetland. We stopped to watch the sun set and see the animals that had come out.

There were tons. In one small area alone, there were a couple of rhinos, a water buffalo, a few deer and a bunch of wild boars.

And from the viewing tower, to the other side and on the opposite side of the river there a group of wild elephants were bathing. This was where I really decided that I need to get that camera. I could have been able to get a good photo of them with it. As it is, you will hardly be able to tell there are any elephants there.

Then it was getting dark and there was not much left to be seen in the fading light. So we headed back along the road. The father in the family I was riding along with saw something in the bushes to the left of the road. We stopped and looked. It was two rhinos grazing and walking. Then they came up on the road and walked along in front of us for about 300 meters or so before charging off the right side of the road into the grasslands there. It was quite a sight. They were massive.

Then we reached the gates and headed back to the lodges. It had been a fantastic day of viewing wildlife. The elusive Bengal tiger remained an enigma, despite rumours of its presence in the park. But I did see some paw prints. Nevertheless, I saw a lot of other things in the national park, including the real purpose of my visit, the one-horned rhino.