Holiday Diary May 2013 - Day 1

Trip to the Sundarbans: Day 1

This is my first trip to the Sundarbans in West Bengal. In fact, this is my first trip to West Bengal and East India. I am travelling with my family and had planned this whole trip as an adventure cum relaxing family holiday and was looking forward to visiting this part of India.We landed at Dum Dum Airport, what a name! The airport was like any other in India and we were picked up there by our transport that was to take us to the Sundarbans. This Sundarban trip was organised by a company called Sundarbanchalo run by Vivek Nayak and his brother Chottu and the latter was there to pick us up along with Ali the driver in a Scorpio SUV.

We were treated to a glimpse of this great city, while being driven through a highway that was having a metro line constructed along its middle. The buildings here were much taller than Chennai - 30 floors, 40 floors and perhaps even 50 floor apartment towers.

In an hour we found ourselves on a narrow road heading out to 24 Pargansas where the Sundarbans starts.

The landscape and the people are so different from what I've encountered before. The landscape was perhaps a little bit like Kerala, lots of water bodies and greenery. But in this place, most of the water bodies were man made. Every house has a water body in front of it. This pond is just a dugout in front of the house that collects water during monsoons where people wash clothes, bathe, drink and wash vessels. The same water body is shared with their ducks and other livestock too. This is our equivalent of a water tank, wash area, toilet, bath and more. It is such a mesmerising sight to see pond after pond after pond appear as we zipped along that road.

The equivalent of our water tanks, bath, vessel sink, washing machine, wash area,  and more.....

And yes, Ali was zipping along the road, in spite of the fact that we were sharing the road with  assorted other vehicles, animals and pedestrians. Everyone was driving as though they were the only ones on the road and I was glad to reach our destination without mishap.

The most common mode of transport just outside Kolkata

The whole area was green, the local women wore bright colours and the autorickshaws were painted with motifs and brilliant colours and packed to the hilt with people sticking out from every opening. It is a miracle that people are reaching their destination at all. And in the 4 hours it took us to reach the end of our road journey, we passed 5 ambulances tearing ahead with their sirens blaring.

En route Chotu was kind enough to get us some sandwiches and cookies from a bakery and when we reached the end of the road, we were told to get all our luggage and we would have to go by boat now.

Rickety floating dock made of rusted metal and floating plastic cans

This boat was a basic wooden craft that could have the been the same model used 1000s of years ago.

What have I gotten into in this holiday?

Once started the boat was smooth enough to take us across the river without any trouble. In about 25 mins we reached the opposite shore and disembarked shakily across on to firm land again.

Ok! It's not so bad after all,.... yeah, ok, it's fun!

Enjoying the sea breeze and the salty air...

Here we were transported from the dock to the resort by what they call a rickshaw and what my son Anand called a "kuppavandi". The drivers of these contraptions, handled these vehicles like sportscars on a race track and flew us to our destination in record time.

Bus, private taxi, private car, all rolled into one.

Can you believe that in a few places there were speed breakers to slow these fellows down. The road itself is just a strip 6' wide in most places and 8' in others. Bricks laid on flattened mud with a thin layer of tar that was peeling off in many places exposing the bricks and even the mud at some places. It rattled our bones and shook many things in us - our idea of travel, self-respect, our belief of how the world is and a hundred other emotions we didn't know we possessed.

These people lived in stark simplicity and connected with nature. Time was of no consequence. Survival meant getting fresh water and the next meal ready. Life was food, family, friends, the earth, water, and all those things we take for granted.

Typical house in this area, very eco-friendly....

The only signs of modernity was Airtel mobile and satellite TV. No powered vehicles, no petrol bunks, no electricity most of the times but there were brilliant smiles, shining eyes, perfect complexions and a joie-de-vivre that you don't often see in people who own Audis, Bentleys and myriad other material possessions.

Finally we reached our destination by around 5:00 pm, too late to take the evening boat ride into the mangroves. But we didn't care. We were safe in our concrete room, after this adventurous journey. Drinking in the greenery, the bird sounds, the fresh air and a hut cuppa tea.

We turned in early after this arduous trip - by car, plane, SUV, walk through rutted paths, ancient boat, rickety rickshaw, wondering what was in store for us the next day.