On the 2nd it rained all morning in Kohora, with heavy rain at times. There is no bus station in that little village, so you have to stand on the highway and wait for a bus to stop, not so pleasant in the rain. I finally got one about 11 heading east to Bokakhat and then another further east to Jorhat, arriving about 1. It rained all the way. We passed tea estates on the way, with some of the workers wearing big bamboo hats for protection against the rain. Others had colorful umbrellas attached to their backs.
The rain stopped in Jorhat and I took a small vehicle a few miles north to Nimatighat on the very wide, very fast flowing Brahmaputra, arriving at the port about 2. The sky was cloudy, with the sun trying and failing to break through. A chilly wind blew. I boarded a low lying wooden ferry and watched as it filled up with people, cars, and motorcycles. It left shortly after 3, heading northwest, downriver. The Brahmaputra here is a maze of islands and the ferry was heading to one of them, Majuli, said to be the largest river island in the world at about 160 square miles, but in fact smaller than the big island at the mouth of the Amazon. The island is eroding rapidly as the Brahmaputra reclaims it.
The ferry trip wasn't very scenic, with few other boats on the muddy gray river under gray skies. On the south bank grew some trees while to the north were mostly sand banks. The ferry took less than an hour to reach Kamalabarighat on a sand bank. There I boarded a waiting open-windowed vehicle taking ferry passengers across the sand (and past a beached boat) for about ten minutes before climbing the bank to the village of Kamalabari, and then continuing on to the village of Garamur, three miles further, where I got off.
I had a little difficulty finding the little bamboo hotel on stilts, rather elegantly named La Maison da Ananda, but I found it by about 5. It has only four or five rooms, with bamboo floors and walls, except for the bathrooms, and a long bamboo veranda running in front of all the rooms. The beds have mosquito nets and the floors creak. Rain started again just as I got there. I ordered a dinner, which I ate in the kitchen of the manager's house next door. It was delicious: fish, small potatoes, olives, and eggplant, all (except the olives) cooked over an open fire. The manager and his wife were very hospitable. The electricity was out so I took a hot water bucket bath by flashlight in my bathroom. Two tourists I had seen in Nongriat were also staying there. Some rain fell during the night.
I was up about 6:30 the next morning. The sky was still cloudy, but the sun came out later. I was bought tea to drink on the bamboo veranda. About 8:30 I walked to the village center for breakfast and then walked to a nearby satra about 10. Majuli has 22 Hindu satras, which are monasteries for Majuli's distinctive brand of Vishnu worship. The center of a satra is a big hall with a roof said to resemble an overturned boat. Inside the hall were interesting wooden carvings, particularly of Vishnu and Garuda, and drums. About 30 white clad women showed up when I was there. They gathered for a short puja with a priest in the inner sanctum at the end of the hall opposite the entrance. Later, five men sat in the main hall, with one of them reciting from the Bhagavad Gita. The people on Majuli are predominately Mising, who arrived centuries ago from Arunachal Pradesh to the north. One local guy told me they are called Mising because so much of Majuli has been eroded and is "missing," but that seems unlikely. I walked back to my guesthouse about 11:30 and took a nap until 1:30.
About 3 I walked to a nearby village and then beyond it towards the river. I walked along rutted dirt roads, seeing lots of bamboo, dogs, pigs, and cows. The island is very green. People were friendly. One guy had a bike loaded with grass for feeding his cow. I watched two young women, maybe waist deep in the river, carrying big, almost flat baskets and searching for something in the vegetation. Small fish, maybe, or even frogs?
I came across a couple of kids with wet brown sugar on slices on banana trunks, the banana trunk slices used as a sort of plate. Nearby in a field I saw people standing around two large and flat vats on the ground, with fire below, where the sugar was being made. I walked over to watch and the friendly group of men working gave me a lump of warm, dark, smoky sugar. In one vat the sugar was done and they were scooping it out and packing it into metal containers and plastic jugs. The little kids around the vats had big dollops of sugar on slices of bamboo trunk, and the men gave me one, too. I ate about a third of the warm but cooling sugar and then put the bamboo slice on the ground, where a dog ate the rest of it. More kids gathered to eat sugar and watch me. A man continued stirring the second vat, with the watery liquid slowly thickening. Nearby cows were munching the remains of the cane husks, which were also used for the fire pits under the vats. I watched until the second vat was finished and the men started scooping it out, and then headed back to the guesthouse. I was back by dark and had another great dinner, this time chicken.
It rained hard that night, which help muffle the loud snoring of an Indian man who had checked into the room next door. Bamboo walls are certainly not soundproof. He and his noisy family were up at 5:30 the next morning, and I was glad to hear them go. I got up at 8. The morning was cool, dark, and rainy. The rain stopped eventually and the sky brightened, but there was no sun. I had tea, sat on the veranda, and talked with the other two foreigners, one from Israel and one from Greece. About 1 we went to lunch in the village center. After lunch I sat on the veranda and read and then went for about an hour and a half walk before dark. I ate another excellent fish dinner in the kitchen next door.
The night was again rainy, but it was sunny in the morning. About 9:30 I rented a rickety old bike and pedaled three miles on a paved road to the Uttar Kamalabari Satra. About 90 or 100 white-robbed monks, of all ages, reside there, in quarters ranged around the central hall. When I arrived about 20 women were sitting and eating inside the central hall, near the entrance. They were friendly, as I wandered around inside, looking at the wooden statues, Garuda being prominent. Above the entrance door were paintings of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. I wandered around outside, too, and the monks were friendly. I kept hoping to see a ceremony at one of these satras with the dancing and play-acting they are famous for, but never saw one.
I ate lunch in the nearby village of Kamalabari and then biked east on a raised paved road, with fields and houses on my left and a few houses and then the river, or the sandy bottom of what had been the river in the wet season, on my right. I saw lots of bamboo and rice, and many women at handlooms. I also saw some women pounding with pestles. The sky clouded up and I made a brief stop at a satra full of monks, with one reading the Bhagavad Gita. I biked further along the road through green and pretty countryside, with lots of trees.
Rain began to fall just as I reached Chamugari Satra about 1. It was quiet, but I was able to escape the rain while looking over the fantastic masks on display in a building next door. The son of the renowned mask maker showed me the 20 or 30 masks on display in the house. They are made of bamboo frames covered with clay, brightly painted, and often with tufts of hair. One mask was of a god or demon with no head, just a face in his chest, with ears near the shoulders. I saw one mask in the process of being made and that was interesting. After seeing the masks, I sheltered from the rain under the gateway arch of the satra with two guys also on bikes. One was a salesman with piles of fabric loaded onto his bike. The other had several very small goats in bags, only their heads sticking out, fastened to his bike.
The rain stopped about 2 and I headed back towards Kamalabari, maybe five miles away. The sun came out on the way. I stopped to watch two girls at handlooms, with lots of little children around them. At Kamalabari I turned north towards Garamur, passing a Sunday afternoon cricket match and stopping to watch a young woman waist deep in a pond and carrying one of those big, almost flat baskets while searching for something in the vegetation. I got back to the guest house about 4:30, glad to get off that slow, rickety bike. Taking a walk just before dark, I spotted bats flying off from trees just south of the guest house.
I heard no rain during the night, but there was rain the next morning. The rain stopped, the sky cleared, and the sun came out. From Majuli I wanted to head to Arunachal Pradesh, the only remaining state in the northeast for which foreigners need a permit to visit, allegedly because it sits on the border with Tibet and the Chinese claim it. The Chinese did invade it in 1962, but then withdrew. In fact, the permits are not too difficult to obtain and seem more of a subsidy to travel agents and bureaucrats.
I had been given the phone number of a guy who could get me a permit, and had met others who had used him to get permits. A permit needs at least two names on it (though the two persons need not travel together or even enter the state together), so sometimes it takes some time to get at least two people for a permit. I had talked to the agent on the phone the night before and this morning had to email him details and wire him 4340 rupees ($70) for the 30 day permit. I had trouble finding an internet café, but finally was able to send him the information. The very small village State Bank of India office was packed, but I asked to see the manager, and no doubt because I was a foreigner I got expedited service and only had to spend about an hour getting the money wired.
I went back to the guesthouse, had lunch in the village, and spent the afternoon on the veranda. Late in the afternoon the agent called and said the starting date of the permit, which he could email me, would not be the next day or the day after, as he had promised me, but four days later, on April 10. I should have taken it at that, but I was unhappy he had misled me and thought I could get a permit in the city of Tezpur on the way to Arunachal Pradesh, so I asked for my money back and he had the lodge manager, a friend of his, give me the 4340 rupees. Frustrated, I took a short walk before dark, spotting macaques in clumps of bamboo and watching the bats take off at nightfall. I should have stuck with that permit. I wouldn't get to Arunachal Pradesh until April 13.
The rain stopped in Jorhat and I took a small vehicle a few miles north to Nimatighat on the very wide, very fast flowing Brahmaputra, arriving at the port about 2. The sky was cloudy, with the sun trying and failing to break through. A chilly wind blew. I boarded a low lying wooden ferry and watched as it filled up with people, cars, and motorcycles. It left shortly after 3, heading northwest, downriver. The Brahmaputra here is a maze of islands and the ferry was heading to one of them, Majuli, said to be the largest river island in the world at about 160 square miles, but in fact smaller than the big island at the mouth of the Amazon. The island is eroding rapidly as the Brahmaputra reclaims it.
The ferry trip wasn't very scenic, with few other boats on the muddy gray river under gray skies. On the south bank grew some trees while to the north were mostly sand banks. The ferry took less than an hour to reach Kamalabarighat on a sand bank. There I boarded a waiting open-windowed vehicle taking ferry passengers across the sand (and past a beached boat) for about ten minutes before climbing the bank to the village of Kamalabari, and then continuing on to the village of Garamur, three miles further, where I got off.
I had a little difficulty finding the little bamboo hotel on stilts, rather elegantly named La Maison da Ananda, but I found it by about 5. It has only four or five rooms, with bamboo floors and walls, except for the bathrooms, and a long bamboo veranda running in front of all the rooms. The beds have mosquito nets and the floors creak. Rain started again just as I got there. I ordered a dinner, which I ate in the kitchen of the manager's house next door. It was delicious: fish, small potatoes, olives, and eggplant, all (except the olives) cooked over an open fire. The manager and his wife were very hospitable. The electricity was out so I took a hot water bucket bath by flashlight in my bathroom. Two tourists I had seen in Nongriat were also staying there. Some rain fell during the night.
I was up about 6:30 the next morning. The sky was still cloudy, but the sun came out later. I was bought tea to drink on the bamboo veranda. About 8:30 I walked to the village center for breakfast and then walked to a nearby satra about 10. Majuli has 22 Hindu satras, which are monasteries for Majuli's distinctive brand of Vishnu worship. The center of a satra is a big hall with a roof said to resemble an overturned boat. Inside the hall were interesting wooden carvings, particularly of Vishnu and Garuda, and drums. About 30 white clad women showed up when I was there. They gathered for a short puja with a priest in the inner sanctum at the end of the hall opposite the entrance. Later, five men sat in the main hall, with one of them reciting from the Bhagavad Gita. The people on Majuli are predominately Mising, who arrived centuries ago from Arunachal Pradesh to the north. One local guy told me they are called Mising because so much of Majuli has been eroded and is "missing," but that seems unlikely. I walked back to my guesthouse about 11:30 and took a nap until 1:30.
About 3 I walked to a nearby village and then beyond it towards the river. I walked along rutted dirt roads, seeing lots of bamboo, dogs, pigs, and cows. The island is very green. People were friendly. One guy had a bike loaded with grass for feeding his cow. I watched two young women, maybe waist deep in the river, carrying big, almost flat baskets and searching for something in the vegetation. Small fish, maybe, or even frogs?
I came across a couple of kids with wet brown sugar on slices on banana trunks, the banana trunk slices used as a sort of plate. Nearby in a field I saw people standing around two large and flat vats on the ground, with fire below, where the sugar was being made. I walked over to watch and the friendly group of men working gave me a lump of warm, dark, smoky sugar. In one vat the sugar was done and they were scooping it out and packing it into metal containers and plastic jugs. The little kids around the vats had big dollops of sugar on slices of bamboo trunk, and the men gave me one, too. I ate about a third of the warm but cooling sugar and then put the bamboo slice on the ground, where a dog ate the rest of it. More kids gathered to eat sugar and watch me. A man continued stirring the second vat, with the watery liquid slowly thickening. Nearby cows were munching the remains of the cane husks, which were also used for the fire pits under the vats. I watched until the second vat was finished and the men started scooping it out, and then headed back to the guesthouse. I was back by dark and had another great dinner, this time chicken.
It rained hard that night, which help muffle the loud snoring of an Indian man who had checked into the room next door. Bamboo walls are certainly not soundproof. He and his noisy family were up at 5:30 the next morning, and I was glad to hear them go. I got up at 8. The morning was cool, dark, and rainy. The rain stopped eventually and the sky brightened, but there was no sun. I had tea, sat on the veranda, and talked with the other two foreigners, one from Israel and one from Greece. About 1 we went to lunch in the village center. After lunch I sat on the veranda and read and then went for about an hour and a half walk before dark. I ate another excellent fish dinner in the kitchen next door.
The night was again rainy, but it was sunny in the morning. About 9:30 I rented a rickety old bike and pedaled three miles on a paved road to the Uttar Kamalabari Satra. About 90 or 100 white-robbed monks, of all ages, reside there, in quarters ranged around the central hall. When I arrived about 20 women were sitting and eating inside the central hall, near the entrance. They were friendly, as I wandered around inside, looking at the wooden statues, Garuda being prominent. Above the entrance door were paintings of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. I wandered around outside, too, and the monks were friendly. I kept hoping to see a ceremony at one of these satras with the dancing and play-acting they are famous for, but never saw one.
I ate lunch in the nearby village of Kamalabari and then biked east on a raised paved road, with fields and houses on my left and a few houses and then the river, or the sandy bottom of what had been the river in the wet season, on my right. I saw lots of bamboo and rice, and many women at handlooms. I also saw some women pounding with pestles. The sky clouded up and I made a brief stop at a satra full of monks, with one reading the Bhagavad Gita. I biked further along the road through green and pretty countryside, with lots of trees.
Rain began to fall just as I reached Chamugari Satra about 1. It was quiet, but I was able to escape the rain while looking over the fantastic masks on display in a building next door. The son of the renowned mask maker showed me the 20 or 30 masks on display in the house. They are made of bamboo frames covered with clay, brightly painted, and often with tufts of hair. One mask was of a god or demon with no head, just a face in his chest, with ears near the shoulders. I saw one mask in the process of being made and that was interesting. After seeing the masks, I sheltered from the rain under the gateway arch of the satra with two guys also on bikes. One was a salesman with piles of fabric loaded onto his bike. The other had several very small goats in bags, only their heads sticking out, fastened to his bike.
The rain stopped about 2 and I headed back towards Kamalabari, maybe five miles away. The sun came out on the way. I stopped to watch two girls at handlooms, with lots of little children around them. At Kamalabari I turned north towards Garamur, passing a Sunday afternoon cricket match and stopping to watch a young woman waist deep in a pond and carrying one of those big, almost flat baskets while searching for something in the vegetation. I got back to the guest house about 4:30, glad to get off that slow, rickety bike. Taking a walk just before dark, I spotted bats flying off from trees just south of the guest house.
I heard no rain during the night, but there was rain the next morning. The rain stopped, the sky cleared, and the sun came out. From Majuli I wanted to head to Arunachal Pradesh, the only remaining state in the northeast for which foreigners need a permit to visit, allegedly because it sits on the border with Tibet and the Chinese claim it. The Chinese did invade it in 1962, but then withdrew. In fact, the permits are not too difficult to obtain and seem more of a subsidy to travel agents and bureaucrats.
I had been given the phone number of a guy who could get me a permit, and had met others who had used him to get permits. A permit needs at least two names on it (though the two persons need not travel together or even enter the state together), so sometimes it takes some time to get at least two people for a permit. I had talked to the agent on the phone the night before and this morning had to email him details and wire him 4340 rupees ($70) for the 30 day permit. I had trouble finding an internet café, but finally was able to send him the information. The very small village State Bank of India office was packed, but I asked to see the manager, and no doubt because I was a foreigner I got expedited service and only had to spend about an hour getting the money wired.
I went back to the guesthouse, had lunch in the village, and spent the afternoon on the veranda. Late in the afternoon the agent called and said the starting date of the permit, which he could email me, would not be the next day or the day after, as he had promised me, but four days later, on April 10. I should have taken it at that, but I was unhappy he had misled me and thought I could get a permit in the city of Tezpur on the way to Arunachal Pradesh, so I asked for my money back and he had the lodge manager, a friend of his, give me the 4340 rupees. Frustrated, I took a short walk before dark, spotting macaques in clumps of bamboo and watching the bats take off at nightfall. I should have stuck with that permit. I wouldn't get to Arunachal Pradesh until April 13.
No comments:
Post a Comment