Published by The Telegraph, Travel Cruises, UK

The baby elephant that had been trailing its mother since the start of our safari began squealing, panic in its tone. Mum – on whose back I was riding – responded with loud trumpeting and headed into the long elephant grass after her baby.

“Tiger,” murmured the mahout.

I was on a river-cruise safari excursion to the Kaziranga National Park, a World Heritage Site in the floodplains that flank the banks of the Brahmaputra. The most prized inhabitant of Kaziranga is the greater one-horned Indian rhinoceros, but the park is home to as many as 180 different mammals, including wild elephants, deer, bison and tiger. At the mention of the word, mild panic ensued. Excited at the thought of seeing the big cat so close, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to do so while on the back of a mother elephant intent on protecting her baby.