Taxi?
Left Kaziranga very early in the morning. There was a little logistic tieup to be worked out as our land support vehicle which is courtesy Bodoland Territorial Council, had left yesterday and the new one was yet to arrive. So it needed a few phone calls to the BTC Tourism department and Mr. Kampa Borgyari, the BTC deputy chief and things smoothened out. We left behind our land support luggage for the vehicle to load and meet us at Guwahati.
The ride along the northern boundry of Kaziranga land mass was fascinating. The difference in forest landscape and cultivated/inhabited areas is very distinct. Park is a classic example of thick semi evergreen Assam valley forest and grass land, while the rest is sand islands, sparse vegetations, fields and village clusters.
From the river we were able to see some wild buffalos basking in the sun, and elephant and many water birds. Pied kingfishers hovering over river waters looking for fish breakfast was a common sight thoughout. We also saw river dolphins popping out of water almost half a dozen times today.
We took small break at Vishwanath Chairali. The atmosphere there was very interesting with giant trees, temples and roadside shops selling materials of worship. It reminded everyone of small towns all along the river ganges which some of the crew members ran last year. People at the Vishwanath ghat were curious and asked many questions about our journey but they were all pleasant and polite.
After the break we carried on towards Tejpur. On way the hills along the river had lovely forests and on the river dolphins kept making there appearance off and on. These creatures breach water surface with apparent notice and there is never a regular patter, making capturing them on camera a very difficult task. Having seen them dozens of time, so far we have not been able to grab a picture of them.
Reaching Tejpur was not a pleasant experience. River front was filthy and was clogged with refuge from immersed images of goddesses dumped in the water after last months Durga Puja.
We had a quick bite at a local restaurant, baught gasoline for boats and pushed out a few kms. back to camp on a sandy island away from the town. Since Tejpur also has a bridge over the river Brahmaputra we also decided to use this as an opportunity to take pictures of expedition boats from the high vintage point on the bridge.
The river was very kind today and throughout the day we never encountered any shallows. It was perhaps for the first time ever since we started running the Indian section that we reached our destination without having jumped in the shallows to push our boats.
