Adventure Weekend #3 - Kaziranga, Jorhat and Tezpur

On Friday we (The McPerhouses plus Becky, Kuldip and Jordan) all piled into the Sumo and headed out on adventure weekend number three. Our first destination was Kaziranga National Park. Our second and furthest stop was a city called Jorhat and on our return we stopped in Tezpur. Kaziranga is about 220 km from Guwahati. A good four drive.

This is a group shot looking out over the Kaziranga National Park. We stopped here on our way to our hotel. You can't see but behind Ray's head there is a wild Rhinoceros, a pretty cool welcome if you ask me.

When we checked into out hotel we were greeted with a traditional Hindu blessing painted on our foreheads and served a salty tasting lemonade. It was an interesting experience. Before having supper we were treated to a performance of traditional Bihu music and dancing. I was very impressed with both the music and the dancing. The mekhla chadar outfits that the women wear are beautiful!

One of the young Assamese dancers.

Us "young folk" got up at the crack of dawn on Saturday, 4:15am to be exact, to go on an elephant safari. Probably the coolest tourist thing I've done in India so far. I love elephants! I think they are the coolest thing ever so getting to ride one was pretty stinking fun! While we were riding around on the elephants we saw various types of dear, a wild boar and her two piglets, about 9 or 10 wild rhino and some interesting birds. Very memorable!

Autumn, Becky and Raysha on their trusty "steed".

Beautiful Kaziranga in the EARLY morning.

This was a mother and her not-so-little baby. So cool to be up so close! Kaziranga is home to two thirds of the world's population of One Horned Rhinoceros.

This picture shows just how close we were able to get.

After the safari the baby elephant that had been following it's mamma around while she was working came over to check us out. Her name was Buttercup. Very, very cool to play with her!

This one posed ever so nicely for our picture to be taken.

After our elephant back safari we went back to the hotel for breakfast. Soon we were on our way back to Kaziranga National Park for a driving safari in our Sumo. It was maybe not as thrilling as riding on the elephants but it gave us the opportunity to see a lot more wild life which was pretty cool.

Andrew, checking out some elephant skulls at the entrance of the area where we went on our driving safari.

Our first wild elephant sighting. We saw 19 in total.

We saw lots of these wild buffalo too. They are larger than this picture makes them look!

I lost count of how many rhino we saw. This one seemed pretty curious about us and was getting kinda close.

Didn't see any tigers but according to our guides they are there. They said that Kaziranga has the highest density of tigers among protected areas in the world and that is had been declared a Tiger Reserve in 2006.

Not a sign you will see in Saskatchewan!

When Ellen was in Kaziranga two years ago she met this lady and so before we left we went and found her again. She served us tea and we shared a nice visit. We also met her husband who happens to work at the hotel where we stayed. He was also one of the Bihu dancers who performed for us the previous night.

After arriving in Jorhat we met up with Dr. Mohanta. We first met him in January when he attended a retreat here in Guwahati. Unfortunately his wife was travelling and so we did not have the opportunity to meet her on this trip. Dr. Mohanta took us on a tour of the mission hospital where he works. He also took us to a tea garden village where he has set up a dispensary. He provides basic treatment for the tea garden workers and their families. There seems to be some problems within the tea market and so many of the workers are not fairing well. I will never drink a cup of tea again without thinking about the women I saw in the tea gardens picking the leaves. Very tedious work that does not pay very well at all.

Here I am during a walk through one of the lovely tea gardens. They really are a sight to see.

Saying good-bye Dr. Mohanta.

We left Jorhat on Monday morning and started heading back towards Guwahati. We took a bit of a detour so that we could stop in Tezpur where our driver, Kuldip, is from. We went to his parents house and had a good visit with them. Kuldip took us to see some sights of Tezpur. We spent a couple of hours in a lovely park where we enjoyed a paddle boat ride. It was very refreshing to walk around the park, especially after so many hours spent sitting in the Sumo. We returned to Kuldip's house where we were served a very tasty meal and shared in more visiting and of course tea.

In keeping with Assamese tradition there was the presentation of gamosas and here is Ray sporting his in true Assamese style.

A group shot with Kuldip and his family outside their house.

We left Tezpur much later than we had originally intended and so we were still on the road to Guwahati after dark. The trip was extended even more by the overheating of the engine which resulted in a new water pump once we got home. Driving in India is always an adventure but I personally think that driving on the highways after dark could be considered an extreme sport. There was a lot of adrenaline pumping through my system, even more so when it started to rain. Not an experience I would choose to repeat if I had an alternative!