‘So we have fixed 7th January’ a call from Asif Da – The date was fixed, its 7th January, 2015 for a 4 (four) day trip to Kaziranga National Park, Assam ;  and so at around 7 a.m on 7th the journey began.

Day One began early on the morning of 8th January, 2015, when we stepped into our Maruti Gypsy and the driver took us to the Kohora Range, also known as the Central Range of Kaziranga National Park, where we were welcomed with the sight of elephants and deers. It was a good start, and it took quite a few hours to round up the trip at Kohora. Accompanied by Asif Ahmed, who himself has been the guide in the trip has travelled to Kaziranga for the last 10 years is well known to each and every locations out there. Lucky that my first trip to Kaziranga has started well. We have witnessed wildlife closer than ever. The Grey Headed Fish Eagle was making itself ready for the day. The Indian Roller was on the same course, and also the Monitor lizard in search of his prey.

We stayed at Gogoi da’s house. Gogoi da took us to the mastered field where we were surprised to see the huge amount of cultivation, done by two young boys of the local area,aged about 20 – 22 years. There at the field we stayed till 1’O clock at night sharing the experience of the cultivators and also were very excited to know about their encounters with the wild elephants, tigers, rhinos and many other wild animals that cross the small water bodies and comes to the eat the cultivation.

The next day i.e. on the 9th January, we choose to take the afternoon ride, and we were taken to the most famous Agoratoli Range, the timing for entry was at 2’O Clock, we generated the necessary passes for entry into the range.  Targeting in for the tigers, we made our start. We started our trip and had just moved some kilometers where suddenly Gogoi da stopped his car, signaling to us about the specific alarm calls made by the deer and sambars, it was a moment where we all were ready with our cameras to take a shot of the tiger. But unfortunately at that particular time the moment was very short, and the tiger has hidden himself in the elephant grasses that came along the way. We although waited for sometimes there gogoi da (who acted as the guide at that particular trip) signaled us that we should move ahead and come back soon. So we moved on to some other locations. Soon we returned at the particular spot where we earlier spotted the tiger. It was at around 4.00 p.m, we turned the engine off and waited for the tiger to come out, as the experts say – ‘it will soon come out and cross the road, look at the Rhino and deer’s they have fixed their eyes at that particular spot’. And yes soon enough, the mighty Royal Bengal appeared in front of us. The shutters goes on, the situation at that moment was the one which we had planned (spot the tiger today), and it came true at last. My first tiger sighting on my first visit to Kaziranga National Park, nothing else is special for me at that moment. The party followed.

The next day we moved again to the Agoratoli Range, there we have spotted a mother elephant, Bar Headed Goose, Crested Serpent Eagle, Kaleej pheasant and many others. Though the list continues, it was already dark and we moved back to our residence. And on 11th January, we moved back to Guwahati, ending the trip successfully.