There is a strange sound of silence in the forest — the sound of trees swaying in the wind, of rustling leaves and falling cones, the flutter of wings. And then, suddenly, the dense brush parts and a young doe and fawn come down to the waterhole as the morning dew settles over the grasslands.

This is Kaziranga, one of India’s finest wild life sanctuaries. Nestling in the lap of the Brahmaputra valley in Assam, Kaziranga symbolizes India’s determined effort to preserve what is left of one of the world’s most fascinating and variegated wildlife.

Elephant Point, where visitors enter the sanctuary, is only a mile from the National Highway. A few minutes' ride on the back of a trained elephant brings them in close proximity to wild buffaloes, large boars, wide-eyed hog deer and, for the more fortunate ones, a leopard disappearing into the undergrowth.

However, the most exciting sight is the great one-horned rhinoceros. Large, magnificent, untamed, it lumbers across the vast virgin expanse. When Kaziranga was declared a reserved forest in 1908, only a dozen rhinos roamed. Today, their number has increased to over 650.

The wild buffalo is authentically Indian and is the heaviest, most powerful and the most belligerent of the world’s wild oxen. An equally impressive sight is the gaur, which stands six feet high to the top of the great dorsal ridge and is magnificently muscled.

The reed-fringed swamps and marshes attract a variety of migratory waterfowl, including the bar-headed goose, common shelducks, ospreys and fishing eagles, which have nested in the sanctuary for many years.

Dawn is heralded with the chorus of drongos, the loud calls of the peafowl and the cheery chirps of the junglefowl, while at night the nightjars chirp in harmony with the hooting owls.

Kaziranga is one place where visitors can still see crocodiles, as well as the fascinating flying lizard hopping from branch to branch. But it is at the Manas National Park, where one can see tigers, gaurs, pygmy hogs and rare golden langurs.

Straddling the lush vistas of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, Nameri National Park is ideal for a leisurely angling vacation. The mahseer of this region is legendary, particularly the golden mahseer. About 150 kilometers from Guwahati, visitors can again come up close to the one-horned rhino.
All in all, the sanctuaries of Assam offer visitors a rich experience — places where trees, plants, birds and animals stir the deepest chords of the human spirit.

NOTEBOOK: Air services connect to Guwahati from a number of metropolitan cities. The Kaziranga sanctuary is 217 kilometers from Guwahati and covers an area of 430 square kilometers on the southern bank of the Brahamaputra river.