Trip to Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India

We have wanted to visit Kaziranga National Park a UNESCO World Heritage site since a long time and finally it materialized in 2012.

The National Park which is locate in Assam, India(districts of Nagaon and Golaghat) boasts of the Great One-horned Rhinoceros apart from a good population of Tiger, the rare Gibbon, Otters, Wild Water Buffaloes and herds of Elephants. Kaziranga also attracts a lot of migratory birds during the winter season and it is a bird watcher’s paradise. The Park has a very diverse land conditions of alluvial soils, swamps/wetlands, grass lands(elephant grass) and it crisscrossed by many rivers including the mighty Brahmaputra and the lesser know Diphlu. The park has three ranges – Central range(most popular) called the Kohora, Eastern Range called Agartoli, Western Ranges –Burra Pahad and Baghori.

We checked into the Diphlu River Lodge, which lies near the Baghori gate and on the banks of the river Diphlu. You can make both Elephant and Jeep Safaris, however the elephant safaris are operated in the Central Range by the Forest department and in the Western (Baghori) by Private operators.

We made trips to all the four ranges and each one of them was quite diverse –

 a. Central Range(Kohora) most popular, has most resorts close to the gate boasts of the elephant safari which is majestic. You can take an one hour ride on elephant back into the tall grasslands and bound to see Rhinos, Swamp and Hog Deer, water buffalo and other animals. The only drawback of this range is that due to its popularity, lots of vehicles are inside and the day we went there were 100+ gypsies inside. The popular Iora Retreat Resort is in this range.

b. Eastern Range(Agartoli) – quite far from the Central spot and has an Assam Tourism resort at the entrance of the gate. We enjoyed this range a lot as it has a 30 + kms drive and if you are bird watcher it is definitely a paradise. Huge expanse of water bodies dot the landscape and it was enjoyable.
c. Western Range(Baghori) – similar to the central range in all aspects and the jeep safari drive is a smaller one. Resorts like United 21 Grasslands, Wild Grass and Diphlu river lodge are closer to this.
d. Western Range(Burra Pahad) – We enjoyed this quite a lot with the landscape changing to tall trees in addition to other grass lands etc. You can get a chance to see the Gibbon and also the Malayan Giant Squirrel in this range apart from other things. Resorts like the GL resorts, Grasslands etc are near this range.

One interesting this compared to any other national parks we visited was that you needed a gunman as escort in your vehicle to help ward of the dangerous herbivores….Rhino, Elephants and Wild Water Buffaloes.

Overall, it was worth spending three days at Kaziranga