Off beaten track

The Indian One Horned Rhino   Kaziranga   National Park  is synonymous with the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros, the only place in the world where you can see such large numbers of this battle tank like behemoth.    The park is in  Assam  and covers an area of 430 Sq kms along the river  Brahmaputra  on the North and the Karbi Anglong hills on the South. The best way to get there would be via Guwahati and Tezpur.    The many places to stay around the park would suit most budgets and levels of luxury. I recommend staying as close to the park as possible to get in an early morning elephant safari.   There is a view point on the highway approaching the park from where one gets a magnificent preview of the wildlife one is about to experience. From here one sees an enormous expanse of wetland with myriad birds and varieties of animals peacefully coexisting; we saw rhino, wild buffalo, a variety of deer and even a fox all at the s...

An elephant feeds in a villu in Wilpattu, for me a timeless image of what once was and can be if we do everything we can to protect our natural heritage for future generations.

A wildlife photo from the days I spent most of my time above land. King Gemunu walks his terrain in Yala. Sadly Gemunu has been fed by 'pilgrims' visiting Situlpahuwa and now begs for food from visitors to the park. A king transformed to a pauper and an accident waiting to happen. So much for gaining 'merit!'

As announcing sightings goes, Suren�s was a bit of a mix of anticlimax and irony, as a he turned towards us with a thoughtful expression on his face and announced he could have sworn he had just seen a tusker approaching through the bush as we whizzed past. Sumudhu and the tracker seemed a bit nonplussed by this casual announcement but we nonetheless backed up quickly to investigate. The heat hadn�t gotten to Suren�s head as he had indeed spotted a rather magnificent tusker coming towards the road. Silently one of the Kings of Yala emerged from the brush onto the road. Along with the leopard and bear, the tuskers of Yala are another iconic animal for the wildlife enthusiast. I was brought up on pictures, stories and very occasional sightings of the famous tuskers of the park such as the now dead (mostly from being killed for their ivory) behomeths such as Kublai Kahn and the Podi and Loku Pootuwas (cross-tuskers). This particular tusker was Gemunu, not a tusker with the most impressi...

As some of the foreign elements of the family had come down for a flying visit to the homeland we did a rather hectic jaunt to the cultural triangle including Sigiriya, Ritigalla, etc and decided to get some wildlife in by visiting Minneriya. Notably I had never been to Minneriya to see the 'gathering' so I was quite excited. We rolled into Sigiriya village, rented a jeep from the hotel and headed out to the park in the early evening. As the jeep hurtled over the potholes, my aunt got progressively mystified, as in her experience, Minneriya had been a lot closer to the hotel than it seemed now. Talking to the jeep driver, the mystery was cleared up when it turned out that despite our request, we were heading to the nearby Kaudulla park instead of Minneriya. Apparently because given the time of year (July), Kaudulla was a better place to visit to see pachyderms as the gathering still hadn't taken place in Minneriya. Jeep entering the park Rolling into the park, we all stood ...

Back in February before diving fever took over.   Sugathe: Stay calm and don't get excited. I don't think he needed to tell us twice!