Red Panda wildlife holiday

On arrival into Kolkata international airport you will be met and transferred 30 minutes right into the heart of the vibrant and colourful city of Kolkata where you will stay at our favourite historic hotel, the Lalit Great Eastern

Wildlife Trails are regular visitors to the North East of India and we always stay at the Lalit Great Eastern because it is right in the heart of the city. Depending on your interests, we can organise historical rickshaw/walking tours, foodie tours or early morning visits to amazing local flower and food markets (costs not included).

Today is a travel day, as we transfer you to Kolkata airport for the flight to Badogra. Here you will be met by our specialist Red Panda trekking crew who will do the meet and greet and transfer you to the Courtyard Marriot hotel in Siliguri for your overnight accommodation.

We will start our journey to Darjeeling (75km/3 hours drive), a lively heritage town located at the northern most top of West Bengal. As we climb up Darjeeling, we will gain an altitude of approximately 2000 metres by the end of the car journey, hence we will stay at Mayfair hotel in Darjeeling to get acclimatised to the altitude and climate

After the breakfast we will finally start our journey towards the Red Panda Kingdom, Singalila National Park. After reaching the park gate we need to transfer our baggage to 4×4 vehicle. It will take an hour to reach our camp from the entry gate to reach our camp at Tumling, It’s a village at Indo-Nepal border. Our homestay is run by local villagers.They ensure a pleasant stay and great food. We will take a quick break to freshen up and afterwards we enroute to the national park and join our tracking team. We will spend the rest of day on field

Everyday we start our field activity after breakfast and spend the day on field. We will focus on photographing birds and mammals around. Our team has fifteen well trained Red Panda trackers who will communicate with us once there’s a sighting of Red Panda. Every guest will be accompanied by a support staff/porter who will help to carry camera gears and accessories. Vehicles are used to minimise time and distance. Although we need to hike into the Himalayan forests as the Red Pandas prefer to live in dense bamboo forest. During our wait for the Panda , we will spend some time at a hide to photograph some perfect images of resident himalayan birds ( nearly 18-20 different species of birds visit to our hide regularly). Also, the Yellow-throated Marten is a regular guest at our hide.

Because we have such a large number of trackers who we are providing local employement for, we will receive news back from various locations in the Singalila National Park. In addition, weather conditions can easily change at altitude so we will work with our expert guides and plan our trekking in a calculated way. This type of trekking does require a medium level of fitness, even with the porters on hand to carry bags and the use of 4X4 vehicles where approriate to reach the nearest trails from where we can most easily reach the Red Pandas. You can ring and speak to Allan about the trip and get feedback about what will be involved and if it is suitable for you.

We will spend the first half of the day on field in search of the Red Panda for the last time. After our time on field we will head back to our homestay, pack our baggage and transgfer by road to the Courtyard Marriot hotel in Siliguri where we will overnight in relative luxury.

This is the final day of your Red Panda wildlife safari but that does not mean it needs to be the end of your time in India. Wildlife Trails can easily add a private extension to the nearby Kaziranga national park for the chance to see Indian Rhino, Wild Elephants, Tigers and India’s only Gibbon species, the Hoolock Gibbon. Or alternatively you could take a train to central India, for tigers, sloth bears and Indian wild dogs (Dhole).