World Heritage Site

Kaziranga is the site I looked forward to the most on this India trip, and it certainly did not disappoint. I splurged on staying for 2 nights in the upmarket Diphlu River Lodge (335 EUR p/n all-in). They offer safari packages similar to the lodges in African national parks, including all meals and activities. Its location turned out to be a bit noisy (it lies close to the main road Jorhat-Guwahati) and the somewhat stiffish service didn’t quite reach the African Safari Lodge level, where understated elegance and convivial atmosphere often appear effortless. On the plus side: I had my private car and guide who took me on generously long (4-5 hour) game drives and steered away from the crowds. The food and the room were excellent as well.

The park is only open from November to April, as the rest of the year the area suffers from the effects of serious flooding covering up to 80% of its surface. Markings on park buildings show how high the water reached in certain years. Both man and animal flee to higher-lying areas such as man-made “islands” called chapories and the main road. This also means that the park has to redo all the (unpaved) roads every season, sometimes creating new roads and bridges as the old ones were swept away or the whole riverbank moved.

Included in my safari package were three game drives which brought me to different parts of the park. The first one was the Western Entrance. The first impression here is stunning: wide open fields along the Diphlu river bank, filled with many mammals and birds. We easily saw 50-60 Indian rhinos – and mind you, these are solitary animals, so they were all social distancing some 30m apart doing their own thing. Most sightings are quite far away, so your phone camera won’t be enough here. Other common animals to see are wild water buffalo and several species of deer. We also saw a smooth-coated otter walking on an island in the river. Wild elephants we saw only a few.

The next morning, we went to the Far Northwestern Entrance. Leaving the lodge at 7, we spent the first hour wildlife spotting along the main road. This was quite the “Indian experience”, as it is a busy road with loud and fast buses and trucks passing our safari jeep left and right, while the guide had his eyes focused on the treetops where groups of gibbons sometimes can be seen. We weren’t successful with the gibbons, but these tall trees produced a first capped langur, numerous flying foxes and a pair of great hornbills (for the latter we got into someone’s backyard to get the best view).  

At the park gate, an armed ranger joined our jeep to keep us safe during the tour. We met very few other cars in this part of the park, only a few from our lodge. The landscape of high trees continued after we entered the park. Quickly we found another group of capped langurs, who were very cooperative in displaying their behaviour and posing for photos. They had two young babies with them as well, very cute (see photo 2). Our forest drive ended at a ranger station on the banks of the Brahmaputra, one of the 200 all across Kaziranga that have to keep the poachers out. We stretched our legs for a bit and saw some very special Roofed turtles along the coastline. These creatures are tiny and it looks like they are carrying a conical roof! The guide identified them as the critically endangered Assam roofed turtles - rare but not as much as Wikipedia suggests ("known only from a few individuals"), they're even a subject of poaching as their flesh is a local delicacy. 

The last safari was in the Central Area. This is where the main park entrance is and thus it is the busiest of all. It also seemed to be the prime area to look for tigers. My guide was frantically phoning his colleagues to hear whether one had been spotted. We missed out on one probably by a minute: we raced towards a group of 20 jeeps strategically positioned near a small lake. We only saw the group of buffalo that jointly had scared the tiger away. For half an hour we waited to see whether the tiger would come out of the grass again, but it didn’t. 

The scenery in the Central Area was the least interesting of the three parts we visited (be aware that if you're considering visiting Kaziranga as a day trip, you'll probably end up here). The grass was so tall that even elephants' heads were barely visible. We didn’t find any “new” animals here but encountered a few rhinos close to the road.