The bhataktiatma : Travelogue of a wandering soul

Tiger expert Atul Dhamankar has organsied his annual kaziranga camp and we signed up for it isntantly. It was only wise that we visit as many places as we could of this faroff land  6 years back had a chance to be Meghalaya governments guest and visit shillong , however that was an official visit so was short on time.Only after few years hence i came to know of the living root bridges and was disappointed not to have visited such a wonder . So when we finalised Kaziranga , Cherrapunjee was default addition in to do list. Cherrapunjee  Sohra , as it is locally know is the worlds rainiest place with average annual rainfall of 11692mm , in 2007 it was close to 16000mm. Beauty of shohra strucks you instantly and there is lot still unexplored in this place. Cherapunjee is 180kms from Guhwahati , the nearest airport and just 70kms from shillong. Situated at height of about 1000 meters this place receivies rain 9 months of the year caused by heavy evaporates from bay of bengal in the ne

Natural calamities bring lot of destruction but the same cannot be said to be true for Kaziranga. This world heritage site is actually a flood plane of the brahmaputra river. Every year the heavy floods to this sea like river consume this land for few months , once the floods recedes what is left behind is fertile soil , over the year this land has transformed itself into marshy lands of Kaziranga. Every year when the floods arrive animals migrate to the higher grounds , this is the time when you can find rhinos blocking the national highway . This is the time when even tigers share territories with each other. Declared as the world heritage site for its unique biodiversity in 1985 , kaziranga is spread across 1050sqkms of brahmaputra flood planes and is home to a one horned rhino. Kaziranga has 70% of population of the one horned rhinoceroses rest is distributed marginally between manas wildlife sanctuary , probithora wild life sanctuary and few other smaller forest reserves in