Rarities of the East

Arrive this morning in Kolkata, where you’ll be received at the airport & transfer to a rural location where a team of dedicated conservationists have worked tirelessly to support the population of rare small cats including the Fishing Cat and the Jungle Cat across the farmlands and wetlands in the region.

Check in to the accommodation. A while later, you’ll meet the members of the conservation team over a welcome drink and will be briefed on the nocturnal expedition by the expert naturalist.

After lunch, drive to the observation area in a village. On arrival, you’ll be provided evening snacks & tea.

Our excellent local trackers will help choose the most promising site for our stakeout, and help with spotting and photographing the species. Apart from the rare Fishing Cat and Jungle Cat, it is often possible to sight Golden Jackals, Palm Civet and Small Indian civets as well.

After a country style simple dinner, continue looking for the species.

Later at night, drive back to the hotel.

Enjoy a relaxed morning to catch up on sleep after the previous night’s adventures. Breakfast and lunch will be served at the hotel.

After lunch, you may wish to go for a serene boat ride on the local river.

Later, drive back to the observation area for another evening stakeout. The routine will be similar as on Day 1, but the location may change slightly depending on information from the trackers.

Did you know that Fishing cats have partially webbed front toes, making them adept swimmers?

After breakfast, drive south to Sundarbans National Park. At the Park gateway, catch the ferry and sail for 2 hours to arrive at the lodge.

The rest of the day is free to enjoy birding around your lodge or relax.

Spend two full days traversing the magnificent waterways of Sundarbans on your boat. Looking for the elusive Bengal Tiger in this strange tidal mangrove landscape is a totally different experience to Jeep safaris. No matter how many tigers one has seen on dry land, seeing a Tiger in the Sundarbans will be an exhilarating moment.

Apart from the tiger, Sundarbans is abundant in birdlife, aquatic and amphibious marvels, and animals like the Macaques and Spotted Deer who have adapted their life and diet to suit these saline mangrove forests.

An early morning drive (4 hrs) to Manas National Park. Enjoy the rest of the day at leisure.

Manas National Park is one of the most beautiful and unspoiled wildlife habitats in India, located at the foothills of the Bhutan-Himalayas in Assam. Within its 500 sq. kms area over 20 endangered species including the Tiger, Elephant and Rhino, and rare endemic wildlife like the Assam roofed turtle, hispid hare, golden langur and the wild water buffalo are thriving. The world’s last population of pygmy hogs survives in Manas.

After a morning safari at Manas National Park, drive to Orang National Park (5 hrs) to check in to your lodge.

Orang’s wildlife includes the Rhino, Elephant, wild water buffalo and the Tiger. It is the only stronghold of the rhino on the north bank of the Brahmaputra. The park is formed of alluvial flood plains of several small rivers and is a bio-diversity hotspot.

Explore Orang National Park on a morning and afternoon exclusive jeep safaris.

Due to its rich birdlife, including some endangered and rare species, the park is listed as one of Birdlife International’s “Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas” (IBAs); considered to be the most important bird wet-grassland site on the Indo-Gangetic plain, and one of three “outstanding” IBAs in Assam. It is home to a variety of migratory birds, water birds, predators, scavengers and game birds.

After breakfast, drive (3.5 hrs) to Kaziranga National Park.

Kaziranga is one of our favourite National Parks in the Indian sub-continent, with almost every single safari here yielding memorable moments.

This afternoon, enjoy your first jeep safari in Kaziranga.

Continue searching for the abundant wildlife and birdlife across the different zones of Kaziranga National Park.

Every day, you’ll enjoy a morning and evening jeep safaris.

Enjoy a day trip to the Hollong Gibbon Sanctuary to look for India’s only ape, the Hoolock Gibbon. It is the only sanctuary in India with seven primate species, including rare primates like Stump-tailed Macaque, Northern Pig-tailed Macaque, Slow Loris, Eastern Assamese Macaque along with the common Rhesus Macaque and Capped Langur.

The sanctuary also hosts Elephants, Leopards, Jungle Cats, Wild Boar, three types of civet, four types of squirrels and at least 219 species of birds and 211 species of butterflies.

The sanctuary is explored on foot, with the sanctuary’s naturalist and armed guard leading all visitors through the dense forests.

The loud call of the Hoolock Gibbon is a memorable (if not exactly melodious) sound limited to very few forests of North-East India.

After breakfast drive to Guwahati (3.5 hrs).

The wildlife tour comes to end with a feelgood and heartwarming story in the most unlikely surrounds of a city garbage dump where you’ll meet one of the rarest birds of India, the Greater Adjutant, a huge scavenging stork.

Once widely distributed across India, but now classified as Endangered by the IUCN with a rapidly declining population of around 1,200 individuals, the majority of them live around Guwahati and rely on a single garbage dump for food and the nearby villages for nesting.

This is a huge community conservation success story, led by the efforts of a remarkable conservation leader, Dr. Purnima Devi Barman.