Kaziranga, Assam, India

The Iora, our stay for the next 3 nights. Lovely and clean with lots of birds in the grounds 

Kaziranga has many entry gates where tickets are purchased, and then checked again a few yards down the road. 

The Iora 

Indian One-horned Rhino 

Road block !  It totally filled the road. Just look at those plates, very prehistoric looking. 

Absolutely fantastic ! 

Asian elephants, grazing and bathing - doing what elephants love doing ! 

Eastern Swamp Deer 

Indian Hog Deer

Simon and the guide for our stay at the Iora, Kushal.  Lovely lad with a keen eye that we can recommend. He could spot a split second glance of a pitta in the blink of an eye !

We had a few trees in the Iora grounds that had orchids growing in them. How beautiful. 

Assam tea, we were surrounded by it and the tea plantation stretched for miles. Love Assam tea and since we have come home it has replaced our old favourite, Yorkshire Tea.  

The tea is picked by ladies, we were told it was because they had smaller hands and could pick the leaves quicker. Here they are having their lunch break at the side of the main road. They work as a large group and seem to just move through the plantation. We saw groups of them every day with the tea leaves on their backs in huge sacks. 

Ladies returning home in the evening after collecting firewood near our hotel. 

We are just back from a fantastic trip to India. Kaziranga was our first stay for 4 days, staying at the hotel Iora - The Retreat. It was a lovely start to our trip, warm, very relaxed, lots of birds in the grounds, a nice, clean hotel. A good friend, Srikanth, had organised the trip for us and booked the guides. He made good choices - they were both brilliant. 

Kaziranga National Park is a protected area in the northeast Indian state of Assam (better known for it's tea!). It is home to the world's largest population of Indian One-horned Rhinos, and that was one of the main reasons for our visit. We were certainly not disappointed, seeing them from the taxi before we had even ventured into the park. We knew we were in for a good trip !

We have hundreds of pics to show you, the birding was the best and we saw some good stuff, including a new pitta !  Looking forward to showing you, you will definately be booking a trip !  I will tell you all about it as we go along.