Day 33

Distance covered: 202 km
Total distance 5739 km

5am and the faint light of dawn slowly repelled the darkness as we drove into the park for our elephant ride. The elephant ride though only an hour long takes you amidst the grass and so close to the animals you can hear them breathe. The elephants are mainly females with a couple of young calves. There was one tusker and we decided to ride on him. Not a very smart move, as we were soon to discover. The female of the species is much more gentle a ride. The journey rocks literally as you sway side to side and it is very difficult to get a good shot. Even when stationary the animal is not entirely still as you gently rise and fall with its heaving breaths. You can see the animals look up, ready to bolt as we come lumbering towards them but by instinct they are aware that the elephant is not a natural enemy so though wary they do not flee. You get close enough to see wild freedom burning in there eyes. It is uncontrollably exciting as you slowly come nearer and nearer the animals, watching them do their thing. Unfortunately we never spotted any elephants - I was very keen on seeing how they would react to a different and tame herd. Had another very interesting conversation with Mr. Dasgupta (came to know that he even features in Lonely Planet) over breakfast along with T.T., Dwain and Oscar, a filmmaker from London. We sat around talking for a good deal of time and I hope I was able to guide Oscar on his tour of Sikkim. Oscar is another dude who has traveled a bit and he had some cool stories about South Africa. Most important thing about the entire conversation was that Dwain also wants to see Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and since I am doing this leg alone we have decided to team up which I must say was quite an opportune occurrence. It will be nice to have company in Bihar, as I must confess I am apprehensive about the place. Saying goodbye to our new found friends we started off on what would be a very, very long and boring backtrack all the way to Kishanganj: The journey from Kanzanga to Gangtok is a vision in green and not coming across too many police we made it back to the guest house in relative ease. We were sorely tempted to visit Shillong, which is only a further 60 km from where we are staying but the prevailing political situation convinced us against it.