The Land of One Horned Rhino-Kaziranga

No one in the world needs a Rhino horn but a Rhino.

Sad but the bitter truth about these magnificent animals been killed by the poachers for trading their horns, the same horn which is made of the protein - Keratin ,the key component of our nails.It is like getting killed for your fingernails. So those that think Rhino Horn has medicinal powers, should eat their own fingernails.All five species of Rhinos are in danger of being hunted to extinction for their horns for something which is not clear nor proved to have any medicinal purpose.

We had to take 2 buses to reach kaziranga National park from Dimapur.

Dimapur to RangaJaan and RangaJaan to Kaziranga.

There was a direct bus from Dimapur to Kaziranga, but we missed it.
Cost per person from Dimapur to kaziranga would be around Re 150/-

Since this part of the world gets darker soon, by the time we reached kaziranga though 5 PM it was already dark.

While in Nagaland we met a driver at our homestay who suggested us Namdang Guest House in Kaziranga.
Address :Namdang House, Kaziranga, Kohora, Dist- Golaghat (Assam)
Decent Guest house,looks like an old bungalow and the room was pretty good, big and well maintained.Guest house also has an attached restaurant and served tasty food.

Entrance of the Guest House and the Dining Area

Elephant Safari happens only twice a day in the mornings.5.30-6.30 and 6.30-7.30.The guy incharge of the Guest house helped us in booking elephant safari from the hotel itself.
Elephant Safari cost 600/- Per Person.(Including the Camera Fee)
Since our hotel was 25kms away from the Elephant Safari point, we had to book a cab to reach that place early morning.(5 AM)
Cab charges for pick up and drop back at the hotel -Re 500/-

Finally our moment of truth when we saw "The Greater One Horned Rhino" in the wild, in middle of tall grass. There were in-fact two of these huge magnificent animals eating grass as the Mahout rides the elephant through the thick mist which has filled the entire forest.

Back from the safari, we had lots of time to explore the place till our next gypsy safari.

Magpie Robin

Purple Rumped Sunbird

For booking gypsy(jeep) Safari, we had to go the National Park office which was probably a kilometer or little less from our stay. We planned to take the central range safari which costs around Re 2100/- for the whole gypsy.We met a solo traveler there who shared the gypsy with us and thus our cost divided among three of us.
Had some fun taking pictures around the National Park ,which had a sprawling tea estates on one side.

Jeep Safari was for a longer time(more than 2 hours).While going in the evening safari i realized how easy it was for a poacher to hide in those tall grass.But Poachers are sometimes killed inside these grass by snake bites and wild animals, Kaziranga national park also has Tigers ,elephants and the Wild Asian Water Buffalo.
We hear the stories of poaching as well as the poachers getting killed by the forest guards regularly.Security has been increased a lot inside the forest due to awareness programs , NGOs fighting to save these animals.We saw an NGO performing a street place near the national forest to educate the locals over there to help save the Rhino.

Big cat in the wild is still a dream to me.We waited near the watch tower for 30 minutes but the Royal Bengal Tiger eluded us that day. Managed to see the Smaller one though.

Jungle Cat@ Kaziranga National Park

The Great Indian Rhinoceros

Best time to visit Kaziranga national park is during the months of November - April. As per our forest guide, March would be the best time to visit this park. Kaziranga National park is closed during the months of  June -September due to rains.