short forays

There is a game reserve very near Guwahati city called Papithora. Nobody other than guwahatians would have heard of this place. All of us pitch for Kaziranga whenever Assam tourism is mentioned.Actually Papithora has  a good population of one horned rhinos. We were short on free time away from home, so this was a very good option. Kaziranga was out of question, so the poor country cousin would have to do for now.

It is just a  couple of hours trip from the city.We stay another 25 kilometres away from the city to the north, so it made the trip slightly longer. There are two options as usual. Elephant ride at 5 am and 6 am and jeep rides from 7.30 am onwards. I was a little excited about elephant ride but the unearthly hour meant we needed to leave home by 4.30.It was just not possible on that biting cold winter night. Sorry morning, if you want to be technically correct. So reluctantly we settled for the jeep tour of the reserve.

It was an enjoyable one hour drive inside the reserve.One horned rhinos were quite a few and were happily grazing or staring at the distant horizon. We had believed one horned rhinos are rare in other parts of the country, and Assam is the only place which is home to this unique species.That it was so readily viewed in a small neighbourhood reserve made me quite surprised.There was a female rhino who was a nursing mother too.The tiny rhino was wagging its tail vigorously and trotting behind its mother at a brisk pace and gave us quite a good view. There was a huge rhino standing still and rock solid, willing to take on the world, as it were. Our guide told us that he is a fully grown 35 year old rhino.We saw few more rhinos quite easy to spot in the grassland. Rhinos are herbivorous by the way,one would never believe so, seeing  their size and strength. I had my fill and then we turned into the jungle and spotted some rare birds. We wound up by watching migratory birds from Siberia and Rajasthan nesting and creating quite a racket in the huge ponds in the reserve.

That's it. A no nonsense tour. We stopped by for  a bit of breakfast and tea in a nearby shop.They served wholesome roti and dhal at 9 am and we headed home.

That we got nicely stuck in a traffic jam is the usual story ending. So nothing new there.

But we had seen one horned rhinos at close quarters and a good number of them too as though in our backyard.  That experience will remain with us.