the mountainside at silver creek Only 40km from Guwahati, this small national park has the highest concentration of rhinoceros in the

Only 40km from Guwahati, the mountainside at silver creek this small national park has the highest concentration of rhinoceros in the world. Entrance fees are the same as Kaziranga National Park (see p 561 ). Getting into the park involves a boat ride over the river boundary to the elephant- mounting station. From there it s a one-hour trip atop an elephant lumbering through boggy grassland and stirring up petulant rhinos.

SATRAS A satra is a monastery for Vishnu worship, the mountainside at silver creek Assam s distinctive form of everyman Hinduism. Formulated by 15th-century Assamese philosopher Sankardev, the faith eschews the mountainside at silver creek the caste system and idol worship, focussing on Vishnu as God, especially in his Krishna incarnation. Much of the worship is based around dance and melodramatic play-acting of scenes from the holy Bhagavad Gita. The heart of any satra is its namghar, a large, simple, prayer hall usually open sided and shaped like an upside-down oil tanker. Beneath the eastern end, an inner sanctum hosts an eternal flame, the Gita and possibly a horde of instructive (but not divine) images.