Rajaji National Park is distinct for its pristine scenic beauty and rich biodiversity. A paradise for nature lovers and wildlife enthusiasts. This park is a magnificent ecosystem nestled in the Shivalik ranges and the beginning of the vast Indo–Gangetic plains.

Although the Rajaji National Park is a sanctuary of Asian elephants, it is also a home to the tiger, leopard, Himalayan bear, cheetal, hog deer, barking deer, sambar deer, wild boar, antelopes such as the nilgai, goral , jackal, hyena, jungle cat, Himalayan yellow-throated marten, sloth bears, pythons, king cobra, common krait, Indian cobra, and the monitor lizard.

Named after the famous freedom fighter Late Sri C. Rajgopalachari, popularly known as Rajaji, and spread over an area of 820.42 square kilometers, Rajaji National Park is situated near Haridwar in Uttarakhand state of India. Haridwar is a well-known place for Hindus world over and is approximately 250 km from Delhi.

Hotels are easily available at comparatively lower prices at Haridwar, only 9 km from Rajaji National Park.

I have always been fascinated by the beauty of forests and their inhabitants. Whenever I get a chance to visit a place which is far from maddening traffic, crowd and concrete jungle, I don’t want to lose it.

My family and I started from Delhi in the morning of 7th March and reached at Haridwar in afternoon. We easily got the accommodation at one hotel on Haridwar-Rishikesh road.

In the evening after witnessing the Aarti (the worship of river Ganges) at Har Ki Pauri (at Haridwar where Temple of Ganges is located), we returned to our hotel.

The next day at 5:30 a.m. we started for Chilla, which is the entry point for Rajaji National Park. The short route we had to cover to reach Chilla comes under Chilla range of Rajaji National Park. At several points along the road we could see the hoardings warning visitors about the abundance of wild elephant in this area. It was still dark in the morning and the route was hilly with sharp turns at places. We drove very slowly and at times feared the sudden arrival of a wild elephant on the road, but luckily no such thing happened.

Although we did not see any elephant on our route to Chilla, we could see herds of other wild animals especially the beautiful spotted deer and wild boars at different places along our short route.

At 6:00 a.m. we reached at Chilla. We had our morning tea there at a small tea shop and bought the entry ticket. We hired a jeep for the jungle safari.

At about 6:45 a.m. our safari began. We covered a stretch of 37 km, consisting of rainy river beds, dense forest of different types of trees, and hilly roads and sharp bends at places.

We enjoyed being in a dense forest where one can hear the sounds of birds and animals. The sound of our vehicle’s engine disturbed the calmness and beauty of forest, but we were helpless as we could not move in that forest without the jeep.

Apart from many varieties of deer we saw wild boars, wild dogs, peacock, mongoose, fox and of course the pugmarks of leopard and tiger. We had yet to face the herd of elephants as we slowly moved in the forest and enjoyed the fragrance of plants and herbs. We started wondering whether we would be able to sight the elephant in its natural habitat or not.

We had covered about 80 percent of our safari and not sighted an elephant, when we heard the loud crack of breaking wood on the left side of the forest road. We all turned our heads in the direction of the sound and we saw a huge form moving slowly among the trees. It was an elephant. Then we noticed another one. We asked the driver to switch off the engine so that we can hear more sounds coming from that direction. The sound of breaking trees and branches was coming frequently. We realized that a herd of elephant was feeding.

We waited for a while for them to come in open so that we could take some photographs, but we did not get the chance as they did not come out in the open. We tried anyway to take A few pictures.

A few minutes later we reached our starting point, where our jungle safari was to end.

We left the vehicle and boarded our own car and drove towards Rishikesh.

The route from Chilla to Rishikesh is an absolute beauty. We were moving along the bank of the canal with no traffic on the road, which is beyond the imagination for a person who lives in Delhi.

I enjoyed every bit of the trip and hope to go on many such jungle safaris in future.

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