Seeking the Unicorn

The next morning, Dean took us into town and helped us arrange a driver to take us to Kaziranga National park in Assam.  Our driver was cool, stopping for daab just outside of town (basically as soon as it was available) and good-naturedly letting us fill up every extra available square inch of the car with coconuts “for the ride” and the rest of the time in Kaziranga.  The daab wallah cut them all down for us so they would be almost open, but not quite.  I have a small leatherman tool that we can use to get them open the rest of the way.

We arrived in Kaziranga, after dark, without having made any sort of hotel reservation for that night.  We hadn’t had wi-fi, much less phone service over the last few days, but we had managed to get a couple snapshots with phone numbers of local hotels.  We called a couple when we arrived in town and found some that had availability.  Our driver took us to one and we got a room and were settled in time to get dinner at a nearby restaurant just before they closed.  We also got information about booking an elephant ride for the morning.

Kaziranga is one of the only places in the world where you can still find the one-horned rhinoceros, or rhinoceros unicorneus.  The “Unicorn” in its scientific name is appropriate now, sadly, not only because of its one horn, but because of its rarity.  There are only a few thousand left in the world.  They can be found in Nepal and a couple places in India.  Here, you are able to go out into the park and often are lucky enough to see the rhinos, especially at dawn and dusk, when they come to the watering holes.  This still being the dry season, those watering holes are smaller than normal, and so we had a better chance than usual of seeing all the animals in the park.

The best way to see them, we had learned, was on an elephant safari at dawn.  We’d also heard (from Dean, fount of all knowledge) that a Gypsy tour was not to be missed.  I originally thought he was saying a Jeep-See tour, but turns out the Jeeps you go out in are a model called Gypsy!  It’s necessary to purchase a day-pass to enter the park, and as it happens, the afternoons are a pretty good time for the Gypsy tours, as the sun goes down kind of early here since we’re rather far north, so we were able to do both in one day.

Interestingly, we also had to pay for the company of an armed guard on the elephant safari.  And sure enough, when we were on the elephants, there was one guy on one of the elephants in the group with us who had a gun – although the elephants were really spread out a lot of the time and I’m not sure what good he would have done in the event of an actual problem….

We got up the next morning before dawn, having arranged for someone to pick us up and drive us out to the elephant safari.  When we arrived, we found a group of mahouts preparing the elephants to take us out for our ride.  With our pack of elephants were two babies, who accompanied their mothers.  It was great to watch them frolic and play as we headed out into the dawn.  I felt like I was watching a Babar book come to life!

As the mahouts got the elephants saddled and ready, we saw a rhino across a field, maybe a quarter of a kilometer away.  Our taxi driver the night before had pointed one out right at twilight the night before as we were coming into town, but it had been really difficult to see.  We were super-excited to see a rhino, either way, snapping photos both times.  Little did we know….

Jayanthi and I were put on an elephant with one mahout and then Alec was put on with another.  The mahouts themselves were interesting to watch, their interactions with one another and with the elephants.  The saddles looked very uncomfortable – for the elephants!

We set out, a pack of grown elephants, and a couple of babies, with a couple of dozen humans, nearly silent on their backs in the predawn.   First, we saw a bunch of local deer, gazelle-like in shape, and birds.  Many are white, crane-type birds, but there are a wide variety.  Shortly, however, we came upon a rhino, grazing in the bush, and were able to get extremely close!  I was amazed.  The rhino weighed at least a ton, and was plated, so it looked like it had grey, steel armor all over its body.

When the elephants began to get close, they (the rhinos and elephants) began making noises to one another.  You can see a video here. It was fascinating.  Then, a little further in, we saw another rhino, and another!

One pair we came upon was a mother and a baby, which was really neat to see as well.  And I must say, a baby rhino is no small thing!  We saw so many rhinos that morning, I lost count.  The elephant safari was a roaring success.

We went back to the hotel for breakfast and officially scheduled our Gypsy tour for that afternoon.  Our driver, when we got assigned to a jeep, was named Babloo.  He was a cool Assamese guy who has been working as a driver in the park for the last nine years.  He’d picked up information over the years from knowledgeable tourists, other guides, etc, and was pretty well-informed about the park and its inhabitants.  He was also packing a pair of binoculars and had a keen eye for spotting wildlife! This, to our great amazement and luck, even included a tiger!   We stopped at one of the observation towers and went up to have a look.  After doing a perusal of the area, Babloo told me there was a tiger about a half a kilometer away.  I had to look very carefully, but I could see him!

He was just a dot of color, but with the binoculars or with Alec’s telephoto lens, we could see him, and it was clear when he changed positions on the bank where he was sunning himself.  It is very rare to see a tiger in the wild (and not die!) so we were thrilled.  And we weren’t even in the Sundarbans Tiger Preserve I was planning to visit with my sister, (where apparently no one ever sees a tiger anyway)!

India has minimal rules, Babloo was super chill, and the jeeps are open with two rows behind the driver, so on the way into the park, we were standing up on the seats of the jeep.  It felt a bit like flying.  (Soon, all the other people in the nearby jeeps were doing the same.  I don’t blame them, the copycats…)  On the way back, Alec convinced Babloo to let him drive the jeep.  The jeep has few – if any – shocks…  Babloo also knows the road a bit better and where to go to miss the potholes as the majority of the road wasn’t paved, so the drive back was a bit bumpy, but it was an adventure!

Jayanthi rode up front with Alec, so Babloo and I sat in the back and I got him to tell me stories about the time he saw a rhino charge (and completely tip over) a jeep that was right in front of him (and full of tourists)!  According to him, the park loses one ranger or driver each year to elephant or rhino accidents!  Crazy!

On the way back into town, Babloo took us by his home and showed us where he lived, which was super-cool of him.  When we arrived, he first rounded up his cows, and then gave us a tour.  While in the kitchen, we saw another enormous spider!  And he also had a giant machete (like for opening daab).  Babloo was a great Gypsy tour driver! He also went above and beyond and helped us arrange a driver for the next day to get us back to Guwahati for our flight back to Kolkata.

A smooth ending to a fantastic trip!