Awesome Assam!!

Earlier, the only place I had visited in Assam was Guwahati – on my way to Shillong. And honestly, I did not have a very good impression of Guwahati – it’s not a very clean city, I felt very uncomfortable in the Kamakhya temple, many of the places we tried to see on a Monday were closed… And of course we had a “wonderful” evening cruise on Bramhaputra (that story, some other time… :-))

But Assam, as I found out in a week-long visit, is simply wonderful. And absolutely nothing like my first impression of the state based on its capital. Its beautiful and green, with abundant wildlife.  And tea gardens on either side of the roads… You also see a lot of open spaces and driving from one place to another is a very pleasant experience – well mostly, unless you come close to Guwahati – then it’s a big mess! I loved the small towns that we saw along the way and was just amazed at how many cows one comes across!!  And I just fell in love with the simple old type small houses that were everywhere…

We visited Tezpur, Nameri, Kaziranga, Shiv Sagar and Majuli. We landed in Guwahati and Assam started to weave its magic as soon as we left Guwahati and started towards Tezpur.  The most prominent color that we could see everywhere was green. And so many shades of it!! The trees, the fields, shrubs – everything lush green!!

Our formal “sightseeing” began in Tezpur with a visit to the Mahabhairav temple.

We then went to Chitralekha Udyan (for some reason we had thought this is a tea garden – we couldn’t have been more wrong…). But Chitralekha Udyan (or Cole Park) is a beautiful and tranquil plac. We also went to Agnigarh – as per the mythology, this is the place where Krishna’s grandson, Anirudh married Usha which was the cause for a bloody battle between Shiva & Krishna, and got Tezpur, which was earlier called Sonitpur,  its name (Teza in Sanskrit means blood). The view of Bramhaputra from the watch tower on Agnigarh was spectacular!

Road to Nameri  was pretty bad – that is to say, wherever there was road, it was bad… And so it took us longer to reach Nameri that what we had thought. But once we reached the Eco-camp, Nameri, we immediately forgot everything about the bad road etc. The place was wonderful. The tents were the most luxurious I have seen – ever!! Each tent had an attached bath AND a changing room!! And there were fans in the tents!! One felt really “relaxed”… But our experience with the activities done here with Eco-camp was not great.

We went for a hike/trek in the Jungle with a forest guard in the afternoon. We crossed the Jiabharoli river in a small boat and started our trek… This was a great walk in a deep forest, but it definitely would have been a lot more enriching, if the forest guard knew more about the flora and fauna. He was not interested in anything but walking as quickly as possible to the end point (which was a watch tower) and then on returning from the watch tower to the river bank.

Next day early morning (after it had rained cats and dogs in the night), we drove in a SUV towards Balukpong, thinking we were going white water rafting. But it just turned out to be a long boat ride on a raft. The boat ride was wonderfully relaxing. Moving gently with the river, watching birds and passing through small villages where odd fisherman (or woman) is fishing with the traditional fishing contraption is such a wonderful feeling… But it definitely was not rafting… :-)

After Nameri we made our way to Kaziranga. Drive to Kaziranga was good till we started seeing the national park on the left side of the road. From that point onwards it was simply great!!  We actually saw couple of rhinos in the park, at some distance even before we reached our hotel.

Kaziranga was awesomest part of the awesome Assam experience! We started our time in the national park with an elephant back safari at 5:00 AM in the western range – Jungle was still waking up and we managed to get really close to the rhinos and deer; also saw lots of birds… In Central and Eastern ranges we took jeep safaris instead. 20th April was a really beautiful day. On this day we saw many wild elephants and rhinos in Kaziranga.

From all the different safaris in Kaziranga, one vision that I just can’t get over is a tusker walking straight at us. He was in his own world, walking at a relaxed pace; walking so gracefully. But we had gotten scared. We had of course stopped the jeep and gone absolutely quiet– we were wondering if we need to reverse out; wondering if he will charge; and if he does what should we do…. And then we saw another elephant behind him! I can still remember that moment so clearly!!

It was mesmerizing and scary at the same time. The tusker in the front became aware of us when he was at about 50 meters distance; and there was a sudden change in his whole demeanor. It felt like he suddenly became more “formal”. He turned at a right angle and walked in away in the forest. The one behind, saw him turn and did the same…

We thought that nothing else would be really impressive after Kaziranga – but Majuli did impress us! Of course before Majuli we went to Shiv Sagar. The temples, pavilion and palace here were quite picturesque.  The desert pink stone temples and palace on the background of lush green fiends are really something!

And then we went to Majuli – it’s a completely different world. The satras there, their lifestyle and the way they are cultivating the arts – mask making, dramatics, music and dance…. It would be worth going to Assam to just visit Majuli! And the private performance of Gayan-Bayan that they put up for us, in the main hall of the North Kamalabari satra, was definitely an experience of a lifetime!

I left Assam after spending just a week there, but its definitely a place I have on my “to visit again” list. I also have added Assam to my list of most spectacular places I have visited in India!!