Suggestions for northeastern India hotspots?
Hi, planning for a trip next year around beginning of April, I set my mind on spending about 10 days between Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya (to be weighted according to which places would be more fruitful to see more species).
I will be traveling with a friend, we both have quite some experience in bear territory in Europe and US.
While there are no set priorities, I would like to see these genera, even if I know some are incredibly rare:
- Ailurus
- Budorcas
- Hoolock
- Nictycebus
- Panthera tigris
- Panthera uncia
- Petaurista
- Platanista
- Rhinoceros
- Trachypithecus
- Ursus
Obviously everthing that appears (also non-mammals) will be more than welcome, and even if most will not show themselves to yet another human invader of their ever-shrinking habitat, I would still enjoy hiking thru old-growth forests, possibly with some exceptional trees still standing in situ, as opposed to isolated old specimens.
I did eye Manas National Park over Kaziranga (even if I know that Kaziranga might have more Rhinoceros) due to the supposed longer allowed visiting time (I think Kaziranga offers maximum 2 hours per safari and maximum 2 safaris per day).
Is jeep self-driving within Manas a possibility? I wouldn’t mind staying there dawn to dusk, possibly spotting from the watching towers.
To reduce the cost I plan to visit mostly my ourselves thru local transport and average accommodations, apart from like Tezpur boat trips to spot Platanista.
Is the water ever clear anywhere enough to get some underwater footage?
To see Ailurus, Budorcas, Petaurista I was thinking about Dihang-Dibang Biosphere Reserve or Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary, yet Tawang seems more confirmed for Ailurus on papers and inaturalist?
Thinking of skipping Pakke Tiger Reserve, unless worthier than other places around there.
Which areas would you recommend?
I am extremely flexible with accommodation so it won’t be a problem, but of course we won’t sleep outside to prevent human-wildlife conflict and give yet more excuses to blame wildlife.
Thank you
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10 Comments
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Evan
I thought you’d never ask! 😜
I spent four months backpacking around Northeast India in early 2023, largely just for exploring but with my secondary objective being low-budget mammal-watching. I visited all of the “Seven Sister” states in that time, though I didn’t get to see much of Manipur (and in Mizoram mostly only saw the capital city). It’s an extremely affordable region, and without most of the crime or tourist-gawking behavior more heavily-trodden parts of India are known for, but still with more than enough South Asian flavor. I was traveling very cheaply, by public transit (often very uncomfortable by European and US standards, but plentiful) and staying in $10-15 accommodations most nights (i.e. towards the low end). Unfortunately my notes are incomplete and most of my photos aren’t yet on iNaturalist, but I still remember quite a lot.
Several of your target genera are major challenges in this region, but several others will be easy, and either way you’ll see lots of mammals. Intact forest is a bit less common than you’re probably hoping, but you’ll find at least dense second-growth at many wildlife destinations, and birding in Assam is great regardless. You also mentioned experience in bear country, but as far as wildlife safety, everyone there is way ahead of you (perhaps too far): Though India sometimes seems like a place with no rules, they’re quite protective of tourists. The worst nightmare of every entrepreneur and official in the wildlife tourism industry is that one of their visitors will be killed by an elephant, rhino, or leopard and they’ll be ruined – not entirely an unjustified fear, since it happens to locals from time to time. The result is that, for better or worse, you generally won’t be allowed to wander nature reserves independently, or sometimes even apparently-public roads along their outer boundaries, especially at night. It might be different if you managed to find somewhere really off the beaten track, in which case, be careful!
Manas National Park has more impressive scenery than Kaziranga (a mix of forest and savanna with the mountains of Bhutan looming in the background), and offers a few different mammal opportunities (e.g. wild elephants and gaur are fairly reliable, and chances for leopard are higher), but be aware that the wildlife is less dense. You will see some mammals on the safari, especially if you communicate that that’s what you’re looking for, but they aren’t quite all over the place like in Kaziranga. I can’t recall how the lengths of the safaris compare between the two parks. You can’t go on a safari in Kaziranga without seeing several rhinos, but in Manas you can miss them completely (though they seem to be more commonly seen from certain spots along the road that runs along the park’s southern edge). When I was at Manas in 2023 you could not enter the park independently, there were no night safaris, and you were not even allowed to walk along the boundary road at night, despite many of the accommodations being located right across that road from the park (my guesthouse came worriedly looking for me when I took an hour past sunset walking back from the village). You are allowed to walk along that road during the day, which isn’t really possible in Kaziranga (where there isn’t quite a boundary road), but other than the chance of rhinos, it’s not especially fruitful unless you’re birdwatching. Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary is also supposed to have pretty reliable rhinos, but is generally talked about as an inferior alternative to Kaziranga overall. I didn’t get around to checking it out.
Be aware that Kaziranga is not where Google Maps thinks it is. If that matters for your planning/transport, look it up on OpenStreetMap instead (also used in most offline-maps apps).
STATES:
1. Assam is generally fantastic for mammal-watching, easily the best of the seven states, at least in terms of easily-accessible sites.
2. Meghalaya was largely devoid of visible, wild, terrestrial vertebrate fauna (even birds were sparse on the plateau, at least in dry season). I would avoid it if you’re trying to maximize your mammal list. All I saw there were a handful of squirrels, a Rhesus Macaque or two, and some unsatisfying glimpses of shrews and mice. There could be undiscovered opportunities in some less-accessible places such as Nokrek National Park, but be aware that proud locals will often say a place is rich with wildlife (perhaps correctly) even if they haven’t see any, based on official species lists etc. Some of the waterfalls and swimming holes here are truly impressive though.
3. Arunachal Pradesh: As you’ve probably figured out by now, there are lots of stories on this site of great mammal-watching in the off-the-beaten-path southwesternmost corner of Arunachal Pradesh (I forget the name of the reserve there), where you’ll likely need some local assistance, and I didn’t go (are you aware that entry to that state requires a separate permit, similar to a visa for visiting a country?). There appears to be an impressive amount of intact, mostly-unvisited subtropical forest in the rugged mountains you pass on the road between Tezpur and Bomdila, but I’m not sure anyone’s scouted it, or if there’s anywhere to stay. Beyond Bomdila there’s not an obvious lot of wildlife, but the scenery is gorgeous. The area around pass at SeLa is especially beautiful, and interesting for birding, but I wasn’t able to turn up any Bharal or Pika like other Mammalwatchers have, and couldn’t find much of anywhere to walk off of the main road (one of the side roads mentioned in the reports is now blocked by an army camp). My main wild mammal from Arunachal was the Arunachal Macaque, seen several times along the side of the road from SeLa to Tawang. If you have any interest in domestic mammals, that area is also good for Yak, and I think the Itanagar area is supposed to be good for Gayal (usually called “mit-hun” in this region). Unfortunately, I doubt you’ll be able to get a permit to enter the Dibang area without a guide (I don’t think it’s on the usual tourist circuit that the state government issues independent travel permits for), but it could be a really cool place if you can swing it.
Tripura is a lowland state similar to Assam, and is good for Phayre’s Leaf Monkey and possibly the Slow Loris (see below).4. Nagaland is culturally interesting but has very little intact habitat, at least within view of easily accessible areas.
5. I would have liked to explore some more remote areas of Mizoram, but from what I saw, it was largely populated/cultivated, though with extremely rugged topography that might hide some gems for more ambitious expeditions.
TAXA
1. Ailurus: Maybe someone here knows otherwise, or something has changed in the last two years, but I would think that to find Red Pandas in Arunachal you will probably need to engage a local expert, and I doubt it will be a low-budget endeavor. I didn’t find myself anywhere where it seemed likely I would see one (though of course I kept an eye out), and the areas you would probably want to look for them (remote areas outside of Tawang) are unusual places for tourists to go, which matters because Arunachal Pradesh keeps close tabs on visitors – besides having to provide an itinerary when you apply (in advance!) for your entry permit, which for independent travelers in that area is vaguely limited to the Tezpur-Tawang route, you (or your guide) will also be contacted by local police everywhere you go to make sure you’re okay. iNat makes it look like you might have better luck in Sikkim (the eighth state sometimes considered part of Northeast India, which I didn’t visit).
2. Budorcas: I never came close to anywhere I hoped to find Takin (I don’t think they’re typically seen on the western side of Arunachal Pradesh, where the most common tourist route goes). It looks like you’re correct that the Dibang area in the east of Arunachal Pradesh would be the place to try, if you can get in.
3. Hoolock: The go-to place for gibbons in Assam is Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary. Entry is by walking up to the office in the morning and purchasing/joining a guided walking tour, which is very reasonably-priced even with the foreigner fee and separately-paid armed guard (for elephants and leopards, though rarely seen). Earlier is supposed to be better, but I went in late morning and got good views (with binoculars). There is at least one rustic guesthouse within a short walk of the park entrance, where I stayed. You seem to be allowed to walk the boundary road in the daytime, and maybe be able to spot the gibbons from there, but I gave my hosts quite a fright doing it at night, and was told that was prohibited (wild elephants on the move, one of which I actually spotted at close range, thankfully without incident). For a less-controlled experience, I heard rumors that gibbons can be also seen in close contact with humans at Barekuri village near Tinsukia, but I didn’t get the chance to scout it out.
4. Nycticebus: Slow Loris sounded not so easy to find in Northeast India, and I ended up de-prioritizing them. I think the place to look for them might be Rowa Wildlife Sanctuary – in any case, somewhere around that Assam-Tripura-Bangladesh junction area, which I didn’t get the chance to visit. Another comment here mentioned you could look for them at Hollongapar, and I think it’s on the species list for that reserve, but I haven’t heard of recent sightings and I don’t know how you could manage to search for them at night there (see my comments for Hoolock). I would be interested if anyone has information indicating otherwise.
5. Panthera tigris: From what I gathered, the best place in the Northeast to look for Tigers was Kaziranga, where it seemed that about 1 in 10 safaris managed a sighting. However, I was told that the odds were much better in March or so when the long grass has been recently burned (I visited in January), so maybe your timing will coincide. My guide, the manager of Nature Hunt Eco Camp, made an effort to do a bit of tracking based on behavior of other wildlife, sounds, etc., but you’re of course still limited to the jeep roads. I can’t remember if I heard anything good or bad about the chances of seeing them at Pakke Tiger Reserve in Arunachal. My impression is that naming a place a “tiger reserve” is often a PR move to buy domestic support for preservation, since tigers are perhaps the most charismatic of India’s charismatic megafauna. Perhaps it also discourages regional vacationers from sneaking in for picnics, foraging, etc.
6. Panthera uncia: This is the first I’ve heard of trying to find Snow Leopard in the Northeast. I’m not aware of any sightings, though I now see iNaturalist has a single sighting of their tracks in the SeLa area of Arunachal, so I guess that’s proof it could happen. There’s supposed to be somewhere on the other end of India, in Ladakh I think, where they can be reliably spotted on cliffs with a spotting scope.
7. Petaurista: I don’t think I encountered any Giant Flying Squirrels in Northeast India. On iNat it looks like the best places are those off-the-beaten-path reserves in Arunachal that might be difficult to access independently, or (as with the Red Panda) the state of Sikkim.
8. Platanista: I made it a mission during my months of travel to find the Ganges River Dolphin, locally called Shishu or Hihu, without taking a boat tour. I was finally able to spot them by walking the bridge south of Jogighopa, where I got many decent good views of them briefly surfacing in the afternoon on the west side of the northern portion of the bridge (the last place I looked). You’ll want binoculars or a long lens at this spot, and they’re difficult to photograph because they emerge so briefly – I settled for grabbing screenshots from patiently-taken videos. And no, the water is not nearly clear enough for underwater photography anywhere on the Brahmaputra, at least anywhere I went. Roughly zero meters of visibility. The dolphins apparently navigate almost entirely by echolocation and are mostly blind. You’re correct that the standard go-to place to see them by boat tour is Tezpur, though I gathered they’re harder to find than they used to be. My skimming of scientific papers at the time suggested they might be more frequent around Sualkuchi, though I don’t know if anyone will take you out on the water there. In case you were thinking of trying, spending time on ferries wending the braids of arbitrary stretches of the Brahmaputra River generally doesn’t do it. There was once a reliable place to spot them by boat on a smaller tributary waterway (possibly with clearer water?), the Kolong River near Bhumuraguri, but as of 2023 reports were that they were no longer present there. A local claimed they can be spotted early in the morning on the waterfront of Guwahati, but I don’t know if that was based on recent experience or what the odds were.
9. Rhinoceros: This one, you’re really in the right place for. As covered above: Kaziranga, Pobitora, and the road along the southern boundary of Manas, in that order. I gather that it’s considered a bit of a crisis if they show up much of anywhere else, due to their potential danger to humans. If you do the elephant-back safari in Kaziranga (the park has a program to shift towards more humane methods of elephant training than the infamous tourist sites in Thailand, and using elephants as work animals is common in India whether tourists buy in or not), you’re likely to see the rhinos extremely close up. Though the views from the jeep tours are generally more than good enough too.
10. Trachypithecus: Langurs/Lutungs are another genus you’re in a great place for.
a) T. pileatus is probably the third-most common primate in Northeast India after humans and Rhesus Macaques. While it doesn’t often show up in highly disturbed habitats, you’ll likely find it incidentally in the process of looking for rarer species. I saw them at the Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary, on the jeep safari in Manas, I think Sepahijala (see T. phayrei below), and maybe somewhere else.
b) T. geei reportedly occurs in Manas, but is more easily found at two small reserves called Chakrashila and Kakoijana (or Kakaijana). Both were a bit challenging to get to by public transit, but I managed to reach the latter, where I stayed at a modest guesthouse called “Kakeya Resort”, where no one spoke any English, but I managed to more or less communicate by Google translate to Assamese (they probably also knew some Hindi). They took me on a guided daytime walking tour, and with a couple of hours of effort we found the troop and got fantastic, prolonged views. This also seemed like a good place to look for mammals at night, though they seemed reluctant to let me wander around alone, and when they volunteered to accompany me they wouldn’t be quiet, though miraculously we still got a brief but clear view of a Leopard Cat. Not having been explicitly forbidden from entering alone (as far as I know), I slipped out later in the night and managed to get brief glimpses of an East Asian Porcupine and a couple Red Muntjacs.
c) T. phayrei is easily findable by walking the main road into Sepahijala Wildife Sanctuary in Tripura state, which I was easily able to reach for an afternoon outing from Agartala. Don’t worry when you see that the place has “zoo” in the name. There is a zoo inside the park, but much of it as a forest, and there are wild monkeys. The bigger annoyance is every single car honking its horn as it passes, despite signs saying not to do so – they’re well meaning, as it’s considered a safety measure in the region, to give a “heads up” to people and livestock who are inevitably wandering in and out of the road. They’re also present in a neighboring area of Assam, I think maybe again at Rowa (based on iNat sleuthing).11. Ursa: I didn’t try for bears in Northeast India, and I don’t think they’re very commonly seen, but I now see there have been sightings of U. thibetanus at Pakke and Dibang parks in Arunachal, so I suppose you have a fighting chance.
Besides what’s already been mentioned, I would note that there are several deer species you’re likely to see at Kaziranga and (a bit less so) Manas; Kaziranga is known for Wild Water Buffalo (probably guaranteed); Hollongapar is good for Black Giant Squirrel (Ratufa bicolor); Indian Flying Fox is common some places such as Majuli; Stump-tailed Macaque is often findable at Hollongapur with some effort (on my second day I had a guide to myself and he happily dove into the challenge, with ultimate success); and Rhesus Macaque and Irrawaddy Squirrel are everywhere. Note that Assam Macaque is rare, and reports are unreliable, apparently due to wishful think that a macaque in Assam is an Assam Macaque (I even had a wildlife consultant who does gibbon surveys at Hollongapar tell me that he thinks the species was incorrectly included on the species list for that reserve) – I didn’t find any.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
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Evan
And Pam, I meant to add this warning about budget lodging in Northeast India (and likely all of India, but I haven’t traveled much in the rest): Be aware that online booking platforms such as Booking.com are unreliable here – some accommodations will charge you a different price than in your reservation, and some will not honor your online booking at all – ALWAYS confirm with a person before assuming you have an agreed reservation and price. I usually contacted them directly with Whatsapp using the phone numbers in their Google Maps listings, or just showed up to take a look (but you probably won’t want to waste time on that with such a relatively short itinerary). Also, never trust the ratings on Google Maps, and probably on Booking either – fake reviews appear to be rampant. You must actually read the reviews, trusting bad or mediocre reviews more than good ones.
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Asanoth
Hello Pamela,
greetings from Prague 🙂 . There is a recent discussion mostly on Assam here:
https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/tips-for-upcoming-trip-to-india/
You can find some of my experience from my low budget trip to Assam in 2018, even though it was not really a wildlife trip.
I do not think you can self-drive in any of the Indian reserves and most of them do have this 1-evening 1-morning limit. But I believe this depends on the state government, not federal, so I cannot really be sure with states I did not visit.To take advantage of the situation: I am planning a trip to Malá Fatra over Easter with the brown bear being the main target. I know the population was forcily decreased by a lot. Anyway, if you were willing to share some tips with me, I will be grateful if you contact me: asanoth@atlas.cz
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Flemming058
Hello Pamela,
I am currently in Assam, awaiting my plane home from about 2,5 weeks of mammalwatching in the state.A lot of the things have already been said but here is some short information about our trip (I will write a trip report later).
Kaziranga: Amazing place for wildlife watching, loads of mammals can be seen. Jeep safaris can take far longer than 2 hours if you have the right guides, and it really depends on the gate that you are going to. The most Eastern Range and most Western range are seldomly visited and the duration that you spend in the park there are not that strict. Our jeep safaris here lasted longer than 4 hours, with our guide jokingly telling us that they know him too well to punish him for that. We stayed at Nature Hunt ecocamp, which I highly recommend as they have their own Jeep and a private guide that can really get you mammals on demand and speaks proper English for 2000 rupees per safari.
Tigers are possible in Kaziranga and are frequently seen now, we saw one in 6 safaris but the sighting was a disappointment as the tiger was far away and created a traffic jam of jeeps, all fighting and shooting to get a better spot. Generally up close tiger sightings in Kaziranga are possible, but they only last 10-15 seconds, and you are waiting on a certain spot with 5 other jeeps for it to happen.
Kaziranga has sloth bears, we saw fresh tracks on the road multiple times, but they are rarely spotted.We saw river dolphins on the Brahmaputra near Tezpur from a boat, you don’t see them well, and multiple boats with loud engines were chasing the dolphins, which is probably very stressful for the animals.
If you like jungle walks through prestine forests than Nameri national park might be your place, though limited mammals can be spotted. We saw some hog deer, barking deer, giant squirrel, wild waterbuffalo, capped langurs (outside the park) en rhesus macaque. We also saw some Gaur tracks, elephant tracks and our guide recently had a sighting of a clouded leopard. Black Bears can also be found in the park but are rarely seen. Though we are told that there is slow Loris around, we were not allowed to go look for them outside the resort as there are loads of leopards and elephants active at night. During one sneak attempt, I spotted three large banded kraits which seem to be everywhere at night.
We stayed at gibbon Eco Camp and did two days of walking through Hollongapar Gibbon Reserve. Both the camp and the reserve I would highly recommend. You can get up close and personal with the gibbons (they let you go off the walking paths) and the animals seem undisturbed by human presence. We also saw gibbon at Kaziranga but it is just not the same as they are shy and next to a busy highway. In the park we also saw stump tailed macaques, capped langur, barking deer, giant squirrel and rhesus macaques. Again, you are not allowed to wander alone in the dark to look for slow Loris. I made two attempts, but people start panicking when they see you walking in the dark with your flashlight. Apparently a woman had been killed by a leopard recently at night and there is an unhappy male elephant that tends to be very unhappy.
During my attempts, I probably saw a leopard in one of the ditches in the Tea fields, which halted any further attempts for me.For the golden langur we went to Kakoijana with Jungle Travels, we hade a great guide and saw two groups of golden langurs, one in the village, which is great for photos and one in Kakoijana park. There is no slow Loris in Kakoijana park, but porcupine and pangolin are seen at night (we were told the next day), again my night trip was halted due to leopard concerns by locals.
Other tips I can give you:
The states of Meghalaya and Nagaland are states with problems of overhunting. Multiple people told us that locals still eat everything that they can shoot and that it is therefore not good for wildlife sightings. Conservation awareness is revolting (too) slowly for it to be worth a trip.-Manas is a prettier national park than Kaziranga, but in animal sightings it is not very good for mammals.
– Pakke tiger reserve is a lovely national park, but it only contains 11 tigers according to a recent census. In the neighbouring Nameri, only 9 tigers were counted. I have a contact that I can share for wildlife sightings in Aruchanal Pradesh if you are interested. He is a biologist that I met in Gibbon Eco Camp.-In Aruchanal Pradesh, snowleopard sightings are possible, but they have only very recently been discovered. The government is putting up a big camera trapping scheme to try and see how many there are around. Based on this information I don’t think that you will get to see the species.
-If you want to see flying foxes, then Guwahati is a pretty good place. Around the Brahmaputra river we saw multiple roosts of different species. I have yet to identify which ones. I can give more details if you are interested.
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Lenaryo
Hi, as far as I know Hoolock and Nictycebus should be possible at Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary. Panthera tigris and Rhinoceros can be seen at Kaziranga. There are also boat trips for Platanista nearby. Trachypithecus should be possible at Kaziranga, Manas and Hoolongapar Gibbon Sanctuary. We will spend 5 days at Kaziranga and Hoolongapar in November this year. So I might can get you more information about it after.
We will try to see Petaurista and Ailurus at Habre`s Nest next year in October.