INDIA: KAZIRANGA NATIONAL PARK, DAY 4

 December 20, 2024

On our last day at Kaziranga National Park, Chris, Stan, and I needed a break from driving around in the Jeep and elected to take a boat ride on the Brahmaputra River while Bob went on a morning birding drive with Bablu.

I'm not sure it was the right decision.

It took us almost an hour to drive to the river and appropriate dock, and then there really wasn't much to see.  

We walked out onto the very fine white sand and gazed out at what looked more like a lake than a river. The water didn't seem to be moving, and the expanse was very broad. The Brahmaputra River is the 15th longest river in the world and the 9th largest by output.

We three passengers boarded our luxury yacht with our guide and two people running the boat.

We motored away from shore and upriver for a while.

INDIA: KAZIRANGA NATIONAL PARK, DAY 2

 December 18, 2024

We got off early in the morning and were welcomed to the Jeep by hot water bottles for our laps/feet and a nice warm blanket. There were also hot water bottles in our beds at night. Luxurious.

We didn't get very far before Bob saw a bird, or our guide saw a bird, and we had to stop for a look-see.

For those of us who stayed in the Jeep, there was plenty of entertainment on the road. We saw dozens of these large cargo trucks that were painted in bright colors with interesting designs. This seemed to be unique to the State of Assam (where Kaziranga is) as we didn't see them elsewhere. Or maybe they just stood out more in Assam because it wasn't wall-to-wall traffic.

We also got a kick out of all the animal warning signs. 

INDIA: KAZIRANGA NATIONAL PARK, DAY 1

 December 17, 2024

As I see it, there are five reasons to visit Kaziranga National Park: 1) It has two-thirds of the WORLD'S POPULATION of one-horned rhinos, a vulnerable species; 2) It is a Tiger Reserve; 3) It is an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA); 4) It is a UNESCO World Heritage site; 5) It has elephants. I'll go anywhere that has elephants.

Another reason is that although it isn't a huge park--just 25 miles by 8 miles--it also isn't crowded like some of the bigger parks in Africa. 

We left on our first safari drive at around 2:00 PM after having lunch shortly after we arrived in the park. We would have two more safari drives the next day, then two more on the day after that. Typically the morning drive was 7:00 AM - 12:30 PM, and the afternoon drive was 2:00-5:30 PM. Those times include the driving time from our lodgings to one of the entrances to the park, which ranged from 20 minutes to an hour. In between the two drives we returned to the lodge for a delicious lunch.

It's hard to blog about a safari because it's not a linear experience. We typically saw many of the same sites/animals over and over again, and sometimes we drove in loops. After a while, one area begins to look like another, at least to me. 

However, one thing that continued to surprise us was the use of elephants as transportation on the highway and at other places. These photos were taken through the car windshield, so they aren't the best, but you still get the idea, right?

There are several entrances into the reserve, and this is the first one we took. The little white sign under the unreadable green sign says "Kaziranga: 70% of India's wild rhinos call it home."  That is impressive.

They provide a nice photo window where you can pose above seven scary men with big guns who are probably watching for poachers.

Here we go!

INDIA, DECEMBER 2025: LAX TO GUWAHATI

December 14-16, 2024    

We've been wanting to go to India for a while, but the timing never worked out. A few years ago it was not our year to have everyone home for Christmas, and I made the casual comment to Bob that next time it wasn't our year, I wanted to be traveling instead of sitting around at home. He took that as a green light for India and began planning. Once Bob starts planning, well . . . 

We drove to LAX on Saturday, December 14. We were trying out a new parking structure--105 Airport Parking--and couldn't find it. It turns out it had changed names to South Bay Parking, but no notice had been sent informing us of that change. It turned out to be a bit of a dump, and not a place we would recommend. There was only ONE available parking spot in the whole place, and it was on Level 6, the top floor. Of course, the elevator was broken, so Bob dropped me off and unloaded our luggage before going up (and then taking the stairs down after he parked).  We waited and waited and waited in a decrepit waiting room for a shuttle.  After at least a half hour, we gave up and called an Uber, which cost $18. 

Luckily, we always leave ourselves lots of time when we take international flights out of LAX as we never know what kind of traffic we will be facing on the LA freeways. We had time for a pizza at Wolfgang Puck's before flying to San Francisco Airport, where we again had plenty of time and enjoyed some clam chowder in a sour dough bread bowl. 

The plan was to meet up in India with my sister Chris and her husband Stan, who live in Billings, Montana. While we were in the San Francisco Airport, we got a text from Stan telling us they had missed their first flight from Billings→Seattle, which meant they might be behind 24 hours or more. Later we heard that they found a Billings→Portland→Seattle flight and made it in time to make their Seattle→London flight before their London→Delhi flight. Whew.

When we boarded our Air India flight from San Francisco→Delhi, we were struck by how Indian the plane seemed. Its seats were a yellowish-orange and red, and it smelled like an Indian restaurant. 

INDONESIA - SUMATRA: TANGKAHAN PART I, ELEPHANTS

 July 1, 2023

What Sumatra lacks in highways it more than makes up for in unusual sites alongside the road. There is a never-ending stream of motorcycles being driven and ridden by interesting folks.

This little roadside stand with laundry on the line behind it was selling ice tea for 20¢ for a "jumbo."

We saw our first Indomaret, a chain of convenience stores much like Circle K or 7-Eleven.

PORTUGAL, LISBON: MUSEO GULBENKIAN, IGREJA MUSEO SAO ROCQUE

 June 24, 2022

After our morning at the Belém Tower and Jerónimos Monastery, we got an Uber to take us to the Gulbenkian Art Museum.  A word here about Uber in Portugal: CHEAP. We rarely paid more than $7 for a ride, including a tip. We had planned to take the Lisbon metro everywhere, but why? This was faster and didn't break the bank, and somehow we were still getting in 10,000+ steps/day.

Established in 1957, the Gulbenkian Art Museum houses one of the most important private art collections in the world. It includes many pieces sold off by Leningrad's Hermitage Museum in 1930 and 1931, as well as works by the likes of Renoir, Rubens, Rembrandt, Rodin, Monet, Manet, Gainsborough, Ghirlandaio, Degas, Turner, and others.

Calouste Gulbenkian was born in what is now Turkey in 1869 and died in Lisbon in 1955. He made a fortune in petroleum and gave a lot of that fortune to philanthropic organizations. He also collected over 6,400 pieces of art during his lifetime, and a good portion of it is held by the museum that bears his name in Lisbon. Of the roughly 6,000 items held by the museum, about 1,000 are on display at any given time.

I was kind of hoping this gentleman in the lobby was Mr. Gulbenkian, but the plaque on the wall says he is Jean-D'Aire, the Burgher of Calais, and he was sculpted by Auguste Rodin in 1913.

The collection covers a wide swath of history and culture. The bas relief on the left is from Assyria in the 9th century BC, and the chimney tiles on the right are from 17th century Turkey.

SRI LANKA: BUNDALA NATIONAL PARK

After multiple trips into Yala National Park (three for Bob, two for me), it was time to move on. We returned to the hotel and had lunch, then packed up for our final safari at Bundala National Park, a one-hour drive away.

Honestly, by this time I was pretty tired of driving along dusty, bumpy roads looking at/for the same animals we'd already seen everywhere else. This was to be our sixth half-day safari drive (although I skipped #4), and wasn't too thrilled with the thought of another.

Bob, on the other hand, could have keep going for days.

And so on we went to Bundala National Park, situated on the Indian Ocean and the smallest of the four national parks we visited--just 13 square miles.

In 2005, UNESCO declared these wetlands to be a Man & Biosphere Reserve.  The focus of the park is definitely on birds, although we saw other animals, including one lonely elephant.

It was very different from the other national parks we had visited--flat and open and marshy:

SRI LANKA: YALA NATIONAL PARK

The third national park we visited in Sri Lanka was Yala National Park, the most visited national park in the country. Covering 378 square miles, the area was designated a national park in 1938.

Bob went on an early morning drive while I slept in, but I joined him and Sanjay for the afternoon drive and a drive the following morning.

It was nice to have this instructive diagram at the entrance, and I'm glad I didn't bring my trumpet along on this trip. If I can't play it in Yala, what's the point of packing it?

I love this logo:

The first thing Sanjay pointed out to us was this weird rock in the mud:

SRI LANKA: UDAWALAWE NATIONAL PARK

There are 26 national parks in Sri Lanka, a country the size of Virginia. During our 8 days in the country, we visited 4 of the parks. We started with Minneriya National Park, and our second park was Udawalawe National Park, established in 1972 and covering 119 square miles. 

You never know what you are gong to find on the road into a national park in Sri Lanka--maybe an enormous, ponderous land monitor :

. . . or maybe a Buddhist shrine:

. . . or maybe a sign with a name you can't pronounce. (We learned that it's pronounced "Ooo-duh-vah-lah-vay"):

We climbed into a safari vehicle waiting for us in the parking lot and headed into the park, wehre we spent the next five hours rocking and bouncing along uneven dirt roads, which is really not my thing. However, we had all kinds of sightings, including 15 more elephants, which is my thing.

One of the first things we noticed once we were inside the park was not the elephants, however, but wide swaths of cleared ground. Sanjay told us that lantana, a ground cover common in California and other warm climates but not in Sri Lanka, had been introduced in the country and was invading many of the parks and other areas, choking out much of the native vegetation:

SRI LANKA: RAVANA FALLS AND THE UDAWALAWE ELEPHANT TRANSIT HOME

RAVANA FALLS:

After leaving our hilltop hotel in Ella, we headed down to lower (and hotter) elevations. Our first stop was at 85-foot-tall Ravana Falls just outside of Ella. We were visiting during the dry season, so they were somewhat reduced from their peak but still quite impressive:

Two tourists were swimming in the pool at the base of the main falls, even though a sign warned "Avoid Bathing" and "Do Not Climb The Rock":

Looking back towards the main road from the falls:

A tourist shopping spot occupies a wide spot in the road near the falls parking area. Note the Pepsi billboard on the right. I think Pepsi is running ahead of Coke in Sri Lanka:

SRI LANKA: FROM KANDY TO ELLA--HOTELS, A POST OFFICE, A FARMERS MARKET, AND A HINDU TEMPLE

All of the hotels we stayed in were Sri Lankan hotels--not American chains. Lanka Trackers (our guide Sanjay's company) selected them for us, and we had a very positive experience in all of them. None of them were typical urban tourist hotels. They were each set back from the road and had an "ecotourism" feel.

For example, we stayed in the four-star Hotel Tree of Life about 9 miles from Kandy. The price included dinner and breakfast, and we had a completely detached "cottage" for our room (on the left below). Our cottage was a few minutes walk from the main building where we checked in and ate our meals, and it was a lovely walk:

Our large room backed up to the forest that surrounds the grounds. The pictures below are the views through the back door and then from the balcony:

The check-in/restaurant building doesn't look that glamorous . . . 

. . . but I loved the decor:

SRI LANKA: MINNERIYA NATIONAL PARK

Our perceptive guide Sanjay picked up on the fact that I have a thing for elephants and quickly arranged an extemporaneous trip to Minneriya National Park, the best place in Sri Lanka to see elephants. In fact, it is supposed to be the largest known gathering place of Asian elephants in the world.

Late afternoon is a good time to see elephants in the park because they come to the lake to drink. Apparently we weren't the only ones who wanted to watch the elephants imbibe. Luckily, a limited number of vehicles is allowed in the park. Unluckily, many of them were in front of us:

There were things to look at while we waited for the gates to open, such as this tree with really long pods--too long to be vanilla beans, but I'm not sure what else they would be:

I like this termite mound, the Frank Gehry version as compared to the ones we saw in southern Africa:

Then there was this fun sign. First of all, don't you love their writing? Everything is based on a circle. I like the advice "Do Not Fire" (you would expect a gun in the picture), "Do Not Shout" with the trumpet, and "Do Not Alight the Vehicle," something they are very, very, VERY strict about: