My travels

Monday, May 3, 2010

Day 19, 20 (Apr-30 and May-1) The Original forest

Our guide Mr.Mandal

Sunderbans.

The original, the most beautiful, wild, rich with the culture and the home of the only habitual man-eater – Sunderban. Forget any sort of sighting in this place, think you to be very lucky on seeing a deer. You should come here mainly to experience the mangrove forests and enjoy the leisurely boat ride on lonely channels! Relax, let the mangroves pass by your, listen to the interesting and terrible stories of the people here. The threat to the life here, and the guts of the people amazes all minds. Still, the love of their jungle stops them from waging war against the real ruler of the jungle. Sighting the tiger here is very tough indeed! One tiger is seen at an average every month by tourists. However it is different for local fishermen, prawn collectors and honey gatherers. Last year there were 80 incidents of tiger attack!!

As we were passing by the mangroves, another group from Durgash Travels joined us in our cruise. Any sort of sighting seemed impossible. Other than the egrets, no animal could be seen. We turned to beauty of the forest instead.

Hurrah!! The other boat waves the flag a tiger is spotted. The first this month!. Steer the boat, fast! fast! fast! But where is the tiger. I was lying on the slanting deck of the boat. I had forgotten my camera. As I scan the area, the guy besides me says something to me in Bengali. I follow his finger, and there it is. The Royal Bengal tiger! Fully grown male, approx 9-feet long! I start my camera, as the tiger glares at my eyes! The white manes making the creature look wild and ferocious. I try to focus my camera onto its huge body, but alas, before I focused, I saw the huge mask suddenly stand up and get lost into the dense tiger palm (Hental) forest. There it walks in the forest, no picture can be taken, the lord returns to his throne in the jungle.

An amazing sighting I must say, I cannot express my joy. Probably Bono-Bibi, the tiger goddess made the creature come to us. This was the biggest tiger I had ever seen, alas, no pictures. I cannot write all the stories of the jungle in this place, but one of our guide is a must tell..... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

One of our guides, Mr Niranjan Raptan, was local person, in a family of honey collectors. He was 16 years old, when he went to the forest with his uncle. As he was collecting honey the sight of the tiger scared him. His uncle threw himself onto Mr. Niranjan as the tiger pounced on him. The uncle got deeply wounded, but he did not budge. Mr. Niranjan was under the four legs of the tiger! He put his finger into the tiger’s eyes. In a reaction, the tiger scratched his hand. Mr. Niranjan lived but the uncle succumbed to his wounds.

In night a tribal dance group from local villages entertained with song and dance.

I will surely visit this place again, not as a tourist, but as a researcher.

Dobanki watchtower

Spotted doves

The islands during low tide

More than 60% of the land area gets submerged daily during high tides!

Stilt roots of Garjam tree, a variety of Mangrove trees

One more mangrove tree

Gliding along the water channels

Spotted owlets in front of our room

The star of the "Tribal Dance Show". The flute player

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Day 14 to 18 (Apr-25 to 29) : Kolkata and Raichak

We reached Raichak on 25-May in night after leaving Chandbali.

The last four days have been typical resort days. We spent lots of time loitering around Hugli (a distributary of Ganga) seeing the big ships, playing chess and swimming aimlessly. All said and done, the place is beautiful and service is very good. If you are planning to visit Kolkata, and want to live in a good RCI resort, Ffort raichak is your destination.

The resort Holiday Club, Ffort Raichak is really good. It is supposed to be the biggest resort in Eastern part of India. Not only is the location and building very good but the service is excellent. We checked in night and the next morning the resort manager, Mrs Bose visited us in the morning to check if we were comfortable! One of the facilities persons, Mr Phillip had the biggest smile I have ever seen.

Well, we did go to Kolkata. Ate some really good sweets in a place called Garia Hat, which reminds me of Pune's Laxmi road. We would have been completely lost had it not been for Shubhojit uncle, a person in my dads badminton group. The sweets in this place are too good. The sinful Rosogola, Malai Chop and Kheer-kadam is a must. Mishti dohi is also an excellent sweet.

Eating apart, we also saw the Queen Victoria memorial. It reminded me of the TajMahal. Its main beauty is not in its geometry, but in the intense carvings on its walls.

The Birla planetarium however was everything but impressive.

Fort like structure of hotel Ffort Raichak

Clock Tower at our hotel

Sunset at Ganga behind the hotel

Commuting to villages near Kolkata

Improvised auto rickshaw

I had never seen this many ambassador cars before!

Who is sitting below my horse and troubling it?

Victoria Memorial

Another view of Victoria Memorial

A tram in Kolkata

Sunset over Ganga

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Day 13 (Apr-24) : Bhittarkanika

I had decided not to take my camera in this place. What a forest!! No words can describe it! I cannot explain what a magnificent place this is. The entire lush green mangroves pass besides the lonely river. Millions of birds chirp to show their existence however only a few are seen. A naturalists's paradise with strangler figs, eight types of colourful and majestic kingfishers. We had a great start for this trip due to the good chance of sighting the salt water crocodile. On one train, we nearly walked for around 2 hours. It was worth it. We actually saw the water monitor lizard in the place! We were hearing some rustling near a natural pond. Mom and dad thought it was a waste of time and went ahead. I decided to stay behind. Guess what! Out comes a water monitor lizard on a tree. I called out to dad to take a photo. By the time he came, the lizard was entering the pond. He did take a good shot of the lizard using his huge lens. We saw 5 out of 8 species of kingfishers. However, we could take pictures on only three of them. The picture of the common kingfisher is pretty shaken though.

We ate in a place inside the forest. There was a crocodile hatchery there. We got a nice picture of the little things. The other adult crocs were huge. They passed close to the boat. So, due to the fixed zoom DSLR of my dad, all the photos of the bigger crocs have gone out of the frame. We got an extremely good photo of the rare brown winged kingfisher. I repeat again, the beauty of the place can only be understood visiting it!

Water Monitor Lizard

Brown winged kingfisher

Greater Egret

That's me!!

Lesser Adjutant stork

Monkeys on the trail

Pied Kingfisher

White throated kingfisher

Strangler fig with host tree dead and gone!

Eagle

Baby saltwater crocodiles in hatchery

Greater Egret in flight

Day 12 (Apr-23) : The craters filled road to Chandbali

We left for Bhittarkannika, the first national park on our way. It is basically a mangrove forest. Next only o the Sunderbans. The road to place was initially pretty good. But later on, it turned out to be the worst road in our trip until now. Reminding me of the Kunjum pass (see my older blog). I am planning to take a photo of the road on our journey back to the place. The rural area by the road had thatched roofs, children were playing cricket in the dry fields. On child (a very happy creature) was completely naked and was playing cricket with his friends. Neither him nor his friends seemed to mind his state!

We saw parts of really large trucks being carried by other trucks that were large themselves!

We are presently living in a very rundown Orissa tourism hotel in a place called Chandbali just outside the forest. The room is a non-A/C one. The fan has little power and everything it seems is in a state of disrepair. Let’s have the taste of this part of India also.

Tyres of really large mining trucks being carried by other trucks.

Village scene on the way to Chandbali.

Day 11 (Apr-22) : Konark and Bhubneswar

We left Puri and went directly to Konark. The temple was a superb building. The older, bigger temple was said to have a magnet. It would hold the temple together and also allow the iron idol of the sun god to levitate in the air. This magnet however would distract the ships from its original path. Hence, the British not realizing the value of the magnet, removed it. The temple tumbled down soon afterwards. The inside of the smaller temple to has been closed due to the problem of falling stones. The intricate designs on the temple are unparalleled. The clear beauty, geometry and astrology of the temple amazed me. Just imagine, in the 16^th century, when the magnet was still there, how the temple would look. In a dark hallway of many intricate carvings, right in the centre is an idol suspended in air, the rays of the sun falling directly on the idol. The sun’s light falls on one idol in the morning on another in the evening and on a third during sunset. The wheels of the temple are sundials using which we can tell the time with accuracy of three minutes. Our guide was also an interesting fellow, he was aged 84 years.

We then visited the Lingaraja temple. It too had the characteristics of a Orison temple. However, it was much better preserved than the Konark temple as it was further away from the sea.

I have been a complete fool! In my hurry, I deleted all my photos from Konark. It included an angle experiment, and the photo of our 84 year old guide. Papa has a photo of the guide from the back. A pity.

We then went to Bhubaneshwar. We went straight to the Nandankanan Zoological Park. We saw tigers, leopards and all the big cats. The typical big striped house cats you see in a zoo. The real things in the wild have a completely different atmosphere. However, I dragged my parents to that place to see if they had any new animal I didn’t know. To help my G.K :)