12/05/2024
THE SANCTUARY
A phone call, a couple of years since the last one, to long-time friend Sougata, who runs Wander Trails, ended up in a meeting at Maibong Eco Resort bordering Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary. And what an outing it turned out to be!
It was wonderful catching up with my friend and getting to know Nripen and his brother Homen, who own the resort, but much more than that was the lasting impression of the area’s quiet, quaint, and serene environment.
The mandatory jeep safari through the sanctuary’s forest and grassland presented an amazing sight: the pachyderms loitering, grazing, or simply standing and munching lazily. You can’t miss these heavies; they were everywhere. For the record, Pobitora boasts of having the highest concentration of one-horned rhinos on the planet.
We took short trips to popular spots to watch the beautiful drama in the sky as the sun went down, and drove down to the banks of the Brahmaputra and surveyed the expanse for a lucky sight of river dolphins. And yes, a lovely drive along a route flanked by green and golden paddy fields that spread to the horizon through localities with diverse communities and stretches where goats and kids exercised equal rights to the roadway. Finally, ending with a darshan at the Ganeshji Temple by the Kolong River in Boha.
Life at the resort is about birds, fresh air, great food, and meditative calmness. One can sit for hours in the dining area, which opens to a pond with bamboo and a variety of trees all around. On the two mornings that we had breakfast in this eco resort, we were entertained by a little cormorant whose only routine was to swim and dive for fish and then get onto a perch, spread its wings to dry, and then back into the water. Equally fastidious in its routine was a pair of white-throated kingfishers that flew in and out of a cavity in the dining hall’s wall, feeding their hungry chicks. So were the white-breasted waterhen couple, with two little ones in tow, scouring the pond’s shoreline for food.
And there were the black-hooded oriole, yellow-footed green pigeon, emerald dove, pied hornbill, lineated barbets, the stork-billed kingfisher, the pond heron, the starlings, and fork-tailed drongos doing the rounds of this peaceful space.
An early morning stroll along the embankment that demarcates the sanctuary’s boundary reminded me of how beautiful and healing Mother Nature is. The floodplains of the Brahmaputra were lush green with paddy, corn, and vegetables, and the water bodies were alive with flocks of storks, whistling ducks, and more.
Out there, you don’t hear the engines roar, only bird songs. There isn’t a crowd; there is no rush.
Visiting Pobitora and its surroundings is not just about the gentle giants but also about experiencing the soothing touch of Nature and the people living in harmony with it.
(Text by Kishore Seram | Photos by Shruti Sarma)
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