Manas national park in the northwestern borders of Assam and Bhutan is one of the national heritage sites. It’s a forest which has various fauna and flora, mainly being the elephants, leopards, king cobras, and the ever elusive tigers.
We were very lucky to have made our reservation in the Forest reserve guest house which is located 25 kilometers deep inside the forest.
Driving from Gauhati for around five hours we were at the entrance of this paradise. This drive itself was an experience, we drove through many non charted tea gardens and the river manas.
We were all elated; at last, we have reached Manas National Park, when one of us reminded us that we have 25 kilometers more to go to reach our guest house. We entered through the Mathanguri entrance. The road now was more of pebbles and gravels and hence the speed of our vehicle was not more than 20 km/hr. It was like another journey which we needed to traverse before we reach our destination. En-route I spotted a small herd of elephants.
We were barely 5 kilometers from the resort when we realized that we have a tire puncture. We all got down and the driver and some of us got busy with a tire change. I got some time to photograph some simple yet exquisite wildflowers. I was awestruck with the simplicity in the geometrical designs of the flowers and their colors. It took barely a few minutes to change the tire and we were back on the rustic track towards the forest reserve guest house.
The ripples of the Manas River and the landscape therein was spectacular. We were on the southern side of the river and the northern side of the river is Bhutan. The river demarcated the two countries. . The Manas river flows through the west of the park and is the main river within it. It is a major tributary of the Brahmaputra river and splits into two separate rivers, the Bwrsi and Bholkaduba as it reaches the plains. En-route to our guest house, we saw an occasional Bhutan registered vehicle traversing this difficult track. I asked the driver as to why they are traveling through the forest and he answered that to enter India otherwise they have to travel approximately 80 kilometers and through this, they make it to India by just driving 30 kilometers.
The Manas National Park was declared a sanctuary on 1 October 1928 with an area of 360 km2. Manas bioreserve was created in 1973. Prior to the declaration of the sanctuary it was a reserved forest called Manas R.F. and North Kamrup R.F ( Here R F stands for Reserve Forest ). It was used by the Cooch Behar royal family and Raja of Gauripur as a hunting reserve. In 1951 and 1955 the area was increased to 391 km2. It was declared a World Heritage site in December 1985 by UNESCO. Kahitama R.F. the Kokilabari R.F. and the Panbari R.F. were added in the year 1990 to form the Manas National Park. In 1992, UNESCO declared it as a world heritage site in danger due to heavy poaching and terrorist activities. On 25 February 2008 the area was increased to 950 km2. On 21 June 2011, it was removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger and was commended for its efforts in preservation.
The fauna of the sanctuary include Indian elephants, Indian rhinoceros, gaurs, Asian water buffaloes, barasingha, Indian tigers, Indian leopards, clouded leopards, Asian golden cats, dholes, capped langurs golden langur, Assamese macaques, slow loris, hoolock,gibbon, smooth-coated otters, sloth bear, barking deers, hog deers, black panthers, sambardeers and chitals.
I could only spot some elephants and took some shots of the behemoth. I also saw a King Cobra but it was fast enough for us to shoot. We also saw the giant Malayan squirrel.
wayfarer's blog 