Rajaji Safari

About 11km outside of Haridwar is Rajaji National Park. Lucky for me, I ended up on the last tour of the year before everything closes for monsoon season.


This park is special (not just because there aren't any people or traffic- a definite rarity in India!) since you can spot such exotic animals like:

A rare sighting of the sacred Rajaji Park cow-

Definitely a hard one to spot, almost blends in with the trees. I can now cross the exotic "cow" off my Indian safari list.

Deer fraternizing with peacocks-

Rajaji tree-


The park also has tigers, but unfortunately, we didn't spot any among the grass. But we did come across a trio of elephants, a highlight of the afternoon even if they were a distance away.


The park also had "domesticated" elephants at the entrance to give rides to all the tourists. Little did I know getting close to an elephant while it's eating is kinda like grabbing a bowl from a dog... 'Course I had to learn this the hard way, the photos are pretty self-explanatory. I now know that "domesticated" only applies when an animal ISN'T eating.

Chowing down-

Eyeballing me-

The white of an elephant's eyes-