Pobitora is mainly famous for its great Indian one horned rhinoceros. Pobitora has exceeded its rhino-bearing capacity and is overpopulated. Besides rhinoceros, the other animals are leopard, wild boar, barking deer, wild buffaloes etc. Assam’s Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary is also home to more than 2000 migratory birds and various reptiles. It is located 30 km east of Guwahati.

We made a plan to go there a day before coming back to Kolkata in the end of our upper Assam trip. Pobitora Wild life Sanctuary is about one hour journey from Guwahati. So we started early in the morning.

There was a Ganapati temple on the way to Pabitora. We visited that place. We reached the sanctuary and had breakfast there. There were few hotels. In one of them we ordered our lunch, so that we could have it while coming back. They possessed their own ponds from which they took out live fish for their guests.

We hired a jeep for the jungle safari. There were many rhinos who were quite lazy even to look at us. Some were grazing in the field. There were many wild buffaloes also, with few types of migratory birds because it was not the proper season to visit Pobitora. I took some snaps there and came back.

We had our lunch with country chicken curry and fresh Ar ( a type of cat fish) curry and came back in the afternoon.

Sivasagar, formerly known as Rangpur, was the capital of the Ahom Kingdom from 1699 to 1788. It is a city in the Sivasagar District of Assam, about 360 kilometres northeast of Guwahati. It is the headquarter of the Sivsagsar District. This city is surrounded by the Dehing rain-forest.

We went there from Jorhat by bus. There were several places of interest in Sivasagar. We went to see the paces hiring a car. First we went to Shibvdol, the temple of Lord Shiva. Within that temple premises there were few other temples. Behind the temple there was a large lake called Shivasagar.

Rang Ghar, built by Pramatta Singha in Ahom kingdom’s capital Rongpur, is one of the earliest pavilions of outdoor stadium in the Indian subcontinent.

Talatal Ghar is a royal palace built by Rudra Sinha.

The kings dug sweet water lakes for the benefit of the subjects. One of them is Rudrasagar in the name of Rudra Singha. There is also a temple beside Rudrasagar called Devidol.

Kareng Ghar is a seven-storied royal palace built by Rajeswar Singha.

The kingdom became weaker with the rise of the Moamoria Rebellion, and subsequently fell by repeated Burmese invasion of Assam. With the defeat of the Burmese after the First Anglo Barmese war and the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826, control of the kingdom passed into East India Company’s hands.

Majuli is a large river island in Assam. The island is formed by the Brahmaputra river in the south and the Kherkutia Xuti, an anabranch of the Brahmaputra, joined by the Subansiri river in the north. It is accessible by ferries from the city of Jorhat. Majuli is currently listed as the world’s largest river island.

We started early in the morning from Jorhat to reach the jetty by auto rickshaw. The journey by steamer was beautiful with Brahmaputra river on both sides. There were small islands in the river due to sedimentation where one could see different types of birds. Mostly fishermen lived there. After 2 hours we reached Majuli. The land was full of white sand. There were several Vaishnava Satras or Monastaries in the island. We visited few of them like Aunati, Kamalabari ,Dakhinpath etc. Satras are famous for their different cultural activities.

On the way we saw the indigenous hand looms of Assam and traditional tribal houses of the island made of canes and bamboos. The island is full of greenery.The main industry is agriculture, with paddy being the chief crop.

Majuli is famous for its migratory birds. Though I did not go there in the proper season still I saw lots of birds. The natural beauty of the island is unique. There are wet lands and ponds, with ducks and goose. The island is almost pollution free owing to the lack of polluting industries and factories.