Monday, November 30, 2020

Black Baza in Bakkhali

 Yesterday, Sunday 29th November, 2020, I went to Bakkhali with my birding friends. A little past 5 am, when it was still quite dark all around, Partha, Suman Paul, Malay Mandal and Sanchita De came to my house in Suman's black Esteem. Camera bags were loaded in the boot of my Duster and off we went to Bakkhali. We were about half an hour late from my target time. Sujan was ahead of us in his car. We met at Bakkhali beach. 

We by passed Diamond Harbour and went via Sirakhol, Usthi and Hatuganj which is our usual route for going south of DH. This  road was in a terrible state of repair with huge craters right from Shirakhol to Hatuganj. In places trucks were stranded in the middle of the road with broken axles - obviously result of the deadly combination of illegally heavy loads and bad roads. On the way back we avoided this road and came straight through Diamond Harbour town. It was smooth sailing all through. 

On the way up to Bakkhali, we stopped at a place for coffee and sandwiches. Sanchita had brought them from home. They were delicious. We must have her in our team in future for her culinary skills alone.

In Bakkhali we parked in the official parking lot past the West Bengal tourism complex and immediately went to the beach. We moved to the left (east) and soon met up with Sujan and his team. He had come with Sandip Das, Bhaskar Banerjee and Tapasi Das. Except for knowing Sandip a little, I didn't know the other two at all.

Sujan told us there were a few Amur Falcons in the vicinity and we should watch out for them. We soon saw two of them. 

There was one channel about 50/60 feet wide, parallel to the shore that had about 2 feet water. This was low tide time and water was receding. In the distance we could see hundreds of gulls where the beach ends and the sea starts. Sujan and his friends waded across the water body and went to check out the gulls (mostly Pallas's and Brown headed etc).

We saw the gulls in the distance take flight as if they were disturbed. 



Monday, November 23, 2020

Sunderban With Friends

I have been to Sunderban a number of times. Normally we do a day trip. Go early in the morning to reach Gadkhali at around 7.30/8 am. Park the car there. Get into the boat right away. Travel the whole day. Come back to Gadkhali by night fall. Reach home by 10 pm. I had stayed there only on two occasions. This time when Suranjan organised it, he made it a point to make it a 2 nights and three days affair. 

We would start Friday morning (6th November, 2020). Reach Gadkhali as early as possible and travel the entire day in the tiger reserve. Come back to a hotel in Dayapur to spend the night there at a resort. We would travel the next day the whole day in the tiger reserve and again come back for the night to Dayapur. On Sunday also we travel the whole day but by evening we go back to Gadkhali from where we go back home. It is hectic but with friends it is doable. After all we need not walk or sit still in a vehicle.

The arrangements would be done by a guy called Surajit Sarkar (9007820752) who runs a nature travel and tour company called Ichhe Dana (we organise the day trips ourselves). So we need not bother about anything like driving our own car or hiring the boat, food, guide, organising the hotel etc. Despite my initial skepticism and cynicism, Surajit turned out to be a nice affable guy. He is fairly knowledgeable about birds and animals, being a photographer himself and he also seemed to know Sunderban fairly well. He charged us Rs 13,000 per head for the entire trip, which I think is quite reasonable. If I was planning a similar trip I would ask Surajit for help. I can quite endorse the guy. But he doesn't seem very business savvy, which might be bad for his business, in the long run.

The Innova picked us up one by one, starting with Suranjan. I was the second to get in followed by Sumit. Next to be picked up from Peerless hospital was Sujoy Bala. Partha meanwhile came to Metro Cash & Carry from where he got into our car. Shyamal dropped him there and drove back. This was my first trip with Sujoy. He turned out to be a very nice and friendly companion, though much junior to us. I was the only non-doctor in this group. But by now I have got quite used to the endless chats about Calcutta's medical malpractices, discussions about various wrong procedures and treatments done on hapless patients by other doctors, and of course the various CNMC student or professor stories. If I wanted I could easily bluff my way out of any situation where I needed to prove that I was a student of CNMC from mid-80s. The four of them were equally divided between CNMC and CMC.

We had one small tea break on the way to Gadkhali after Baruipur. The car did not have enough boot space for the luggage of all 5 of us. Each had a camera bag and a medium sized suitcase. But Sujoy was very accommodative. He sat on the last row with the rest of the seat stuffed with the suitcases. Partha was also very accommodative and took the hopeless middle seat without a grudge.  

We reached Gadkhali in good time, despite the terrible road conditions after Canning. After reaching Gadkhali we got into the boat right away and the journey started in right earnest. We all noticed that the boat had an unusually quiet engine. By Sunderban standards it was almost quiet.

Those who may not know about Sunderban - during the first hour or so from Gadkhali the launch travels through inhabited islands. This part of the journey is quite boring for us. There is no trace of any forest here. Gosaba island is on your left hand side and Bali island is on the right hand side. You might see some birds on the banks but no chance of any tiger or crocodiles here. We saw several Pacific Golden Plovers and a striated heron on this stretch. I tested my camera and realised that some error was being caused and the camera was asking me to switch off and on again. This was working for a short while and again the problem would crop up. This problem persisted for the entire duration of the trip. The camera was trying to get back at me for not using her for such a long time. The problem hasn't recurred since I came back. I think I will just have to shoot with it more often. Somewhere during this journey through the inhabited islands the two guides got into our boat. I had noted down the number of Himangshu Mandal because he stayed with us for all three days. 

If you are curious about village life in Sunderbans you might catch some glimpses of the villagers going about their daily life. Mostly you can see people walking or cyclings on the roads on either side of the river. You might even see a family getting into a boat to go to the other side. Fisherwomen can also be seen catching "min" with their nets. Life looks boring and dull. These are also the villages - you must know - from where a very large number of unsuspecting young girls are unfortunately trafficked to the red light districts of the country. But that's another story for another day. We will not talk about sad stories of human existence. We will talk about nature, birds and tigers.

We entered the reserve forest at around 11 or so. The reserve forest is on the other side of the huge river Bidyadhari. Here there is no question of any human habitation. This is a huge area of small delta islands criss-crossed by river channels. Some are wide while some are narrow. The reserve forest area has some rules. The launch as well as the passengers need to have permission from the forest department. This was done in advance for us. During the journey the engine of the launch cannot even be switched off and the launch cannot be kept stationary anywhere. The launch can only cover the wider rivers and not enter the smaller, narrower channels. 

What are the chances of tiger attacks on the launch? Extremely unlikely. There is no known history of any tiger attack on a tourist launch in Sunderban. Because tigers cannot jump out of water. Do the tigers come to the villages? No. The sides of the forest facing habited islands are all covered by strong nets. Tigers cannot cross these nets. Since this practice was started there have been very few tiger attacks in the villages. They have happened only when storms have destroyed the nets. 

Then how do so many humans get killed in Sunderban? 

The villagers enter the reserve forest in small hand pulled dinghy to collect crabs which have very high market value. A few successful trips can make you rich enough to afford your own house. This activity of entering the reserve in small manual boats is completely illegal. So they take the chance and enter the small rivulets and channels. These are so narrow that the tiger can jump from the land and grab at least one human. Some survive the fight (I once met a guy who survived a fight with cut marks all over his body) but most cannot fight back and are therefore killed.  

There is another legal way to enter the forest. That is to collect honey. I do not know how it can be legal but apparently it is. Groups of eight nine people are allowed in during certain seasons by the forest department. Tiger attacks on such teams is also quite common. 

The boatmen and the guides all told us that the urban conception that poverty drives the people of Sunderban to take such high risks with their lives is completely wrong. It is greed that drives these people to take such risks rather than poverty, they said. No one is so poor as to not have any other means of livelihood. I am quite ready to buy this theory because these people who go to catch crabs are not employed by anyone. They are all entrepreneurs. No one would take this risk for someone else driven by poverty. We love to believe that poverty is the root of all our miseries. I think lifestyle, greed and lack of proper education is the root problem of many of our miseries. Of course they are not a very affluent society but not so poor as to risk dying for food.

Our first day's safari yielded nothing much but the usual suspects. A few crocodiles (you get to see crocs only if there are less boats and this time due to covid there was hardly any tourist boat), a few black capped kingfishers, collared kingfishers, lesser adjutant storks etc. The big cat eluded us once again. We saw some waders also. Our wish list had white-bellied sea eagle, fishing or jungle cat (preferably both), brown winged kingfisher, peregrine falcon and of course Dakshin Ray - the other name for tiger (villagers don't normally take the name of dangerous animals - they say Dakshin Ray for tiger, or Lata for snakes etc). 

Actually seeing a tiger in Sunderban is a rare privilege and happens purely by chance. It should be on the radar of everyone. You cannot do anything special in Sunderban so that you are guaranteed to see the tiger. You just need to be in the right place at the right time. Lady luck has to smile on you. There is no guaranteed spot, there is no strategy, nothing. It just happens or does not happen. I know people, including very famous naturalists, who have been to Sunderban more than 40 times and have spent days on end yet haven't seen a tiger. Dhritiman Mukherjee, the famous internationally awarded wildlife photographer, hasn't seen one since 2006. 

Arrangements for food in Surajit's boat was grand. Breakfast was luchi, tarkari, boiled eggs and bananas. Lunch was rice, daal, prawn and fish curry. All cooked brilliantly well on board by a cook from Gosaba. 

By sun down we came back to Dayapur and anchored the boat near the hotel. Riverside Hotel. It is a large sprawling resort with two large buildings for rooms and a separate office building. We were allotted three rooms for the three of us. I chose to be alone. Partha and Sumit took one room (they work in the same hospital) and Sujoy and Suranjan took another room. My room was in a different building where I was the only occupant. There were few other guests but the resort was definitely not fully booked.

I thought the room was decently large with a nice bathroom. The geyser was good. The resort had good physical infrastructure but the people were very unfriendly it seemed. Untrained locals. I took a long hot shower and went to Partha's room for the evening party where we had an authentic Russian Vodka brought by Partha. Surajit had sent a large container full of chilly fish to go with the Vodka which like the morning breakfast and lunch was absolutely delicious.

We had our dinner cooked by Surajit's cook in the boat. We retired for the night at well past 10 pm to wake up early next morning so that we could go out by 5 am.




Friday, March 13, 2020

Ajanta Ellora Daulatabad


In March 2020 we went to Aurangabad to visit Ajanta, Ellora and Daulatabad. I didn't do much research on the places and had very vague ideas about them. I took advice from a friend - Supratim Pal - who lives in Pune. I will write down the travel tips for other potential tourists of future who I hope will be better equipped than me after reading this. 

Ajanta 

I will not give you any history of Ajanta here. That's very easily read if you google up. These are caves about thirty of them on a mountain wall. They have exquisite Buddha and other statues and paintings. The most famous painting of India - Padmapani (Monalisa of India - in the sense it is very famous and people go there to see it) - is housed here on a dark wall of a cave. Now how to go there. There is no hotel near Ajanta where you can stay and go to the caves over a few days. You have to stay in Aurangabad and make a day trip from there. Takes about 3/4 hours because the road is terrible. 

The usual thing to do, if you are not very adventure minded, is to go by car or tourist bus to the parking lot near Ajanta. You have to complete the last 7 kms through the forest in one of the shuttle buses that takes you from the parking lot to the caves. Private vehicles are not allowed here. What we did is, we got dropped near the View Point (this is the local name). It is a little off the highway before Ajanta. From View Point you have to walk down a steep hill through the jungle. Steps are made out and there is no way you could get lost.

Ajanta caves are basically dug out on the wall of a canyon formed by a small river. You climb down the opposite wall across the river. Cross the river over a small bridge and then climb up a little to go to the caves. The View Point is the place from where the caves were discovered by modern India (1819). If you take this route, you get a clear bird's eye view of the caves from the opposite side. You can understand the entire perspective of the place. More importantly this is a very tourist free part of the hills. 

On the way back, we took the shuttle bus and went to the parking lot where our car was waiting.