Northeast Indian adventure part one: Manas National Park, Assam
We were really keen to explore more of the northeast of India. Although Sikkim became part of Northeast India in the 90s, we wanted to venture further east to see some of the "Seven Sisters", in particular Assam and Meghalaya. With the monsoon rains approaching and a set date when we planned to fly to Kashmir, we decided to see if we could find someone who might be able to give us a helping hand with planning our trip. Our friends Steve and Sarah were keen to head in the same direction, so we had the opportunity to share the cost of a tour. Fortunately Piran over at Kipepeo Tours came to the rescue. Kipepeo came highly recommended to us by our friends at India Someday, as well as another friend who had been on one of their tours. The company also really appealed to us because of their emphasis on responsible tourism. Their philosophy is to ensure the livelihood of local communities through the conservation of their local environment, culture and traditional practices. Cheekily I sent Piran a very vague email explaining that we had 2 weeks and were keen to see x, y and z. Oh yea and that we were hoping to go in like 3 days! Amazingly, despite he himself being out in the mountains on a tour, he put together an itinerary which would enable us to see everything we hoped to see for a very reasonable price. And that was that...Getting from Darjeeling to Bagdogra airport was crazy. We left our homestay at 9am to catch our early afternoon flight. After fighting his way through the Darjeeling traffic, our driver decided to stop off and get some breakfast. Ah yes, we were on “India time”. This is something you get used to, but when there are flights involved, it can be disconcerting. Often when someone in India says “5 minutes”, it can easily mean 10, 15 or 20. It’s kind of not worth questioning it. After 15 minutes, our driver had finished his breakfast and we had both anxiously chewed off our nails. We set off again. Still loads of time. Then the traffic hit hard. There is only one road out of Darjeeling in the direction we wanted to travel and it was blocked. Stopped. Not moving.DAMN!2 hours passed, during which time we had crawled forward about half a mile. More importantly though, the wee-wee Gods were wreaking havoc and the situation was becoming difficult to bear. Unfortunately, baring was the only option....It was during this traffic jam that the driver nonchalantly mentioned that he had arrived to collect us an hour and a half before we left as he had suspected traffic. Unfortunately he hadn't had the foresight to mention this to us, nor had he taken this time to go for breakfast.Eventually, we started moving and our driver, bless him, decided we would catch our flight. This meant that we absolutely tore through tiny village streets, swerved around corners and raced through the middle of tea fields.Oh, what the brakes? No, they weren't working. No prob though, because the driver did the whole thing in first gear. Yah.It was tight, but we made it alive and had a whole 5 minutes to spare before we had to board our flight. Much of those minutes were spent weeing.We arrived in Guwahati around an hour later and were greeted by our driver “Demehndra" or as we liked to call him “Tums”. With a 6 hour drive to our first guesthouse ahead of us, we buckled up and set off.
Manas national park was the first destination on our itinerary.
We stayed in a wonderful place called Birina Eco Lodge, amongst a neverending sea of tea plants. It was close to the park and the room came complete with a little mouse that left tiny little poos on our bed in the morning. Yay! We stayed here for 2 nights.In the morning, we set out in a private jeep with a watcher, a driver, our Tums and a rifleman. Our rifleman was there for protection, in case we were stormed by wild elephants, tigers or some other similar threat. He fell asleep within 2 minutes of joining us.Here’s a photo of Sarah with a baby goat. No jokes, I think she would have been happy to skip the 6 hour safari and cuddle this little guy instead. Look how HAPPY they both are!
Manas National park is located so far north that you can actually see Bhutan. It resides in the foothills of the Himalayas and has been declared a UNESCO world heritage site. Even though we were there 'off-season' and it was technically Monsoon, the weather held out for us.
Assam is quite famous for having wild rhino. Sadly we didn’t see any while visiting Manas, but we were blessed with seeing some amazing birds, elephants, monkeys and water buffalo.
At the halfway point of our journey lay Manas River. The current was strong and the water was wide. It was a lovely place to sit and gaze at the magical landscape.
We also got the opportunity to hop over to Bhutan for a good 5 minutes, somewhere we ordinarily wouldn't have had a chance to visit (unless we had paid around $250 a day)! It was quite amazing to have one foot in India and the other in Bhutan.
On the way back we watched the sunset and met a baby elephant.
Back at the lodge, we were treated to some delicious food like this caramelised banana...
And these battered chips! What! Who knew that was a thing?
Our adventure had got off to an incredible start...more to come soon...