Blogs from Sunderbans, West Bengal, India, Asia
December 29th 2010
The Sunderbans Creeks and a Village The visit to Sunderbans started with a 3 hr drive from Kolkata and then another 3 hr boat ride to Jamespur village, where we stayed at Mangrove Resort of ADPL company. The Sunderbans are amazingly unspoilt - they retain their authenticity and charm. There are tricks to escape the "Xmas holiday noisy crowd from Kolkata" - for e.g. start your boat ride at 6:30 am instead of 10 am etc. Avoid anything the local tour operators will tell you - watch towers and canopy walks, interpretation centres, and other stuff like that. We stuck to a simple plan - Day 1- reach the resort, and go for a boat ride, visit the market, check out the drinks shop, buy as many masala peanuts and Lays chips as possible. Watched a ... read more
September 24th 2010
Um aus dem Moloch Kolkata herauszukommen buchte ich einen Trip in das Sunderban Tigereservat. Die Sunderbans ("schöner Wald") sind ein riesiger Mangrovenwald, der sich im Gangesdelta auf hunderten von Inseln über das Grenzgebiet von Indien und Bangladesh erstreckt. Das Gebiet zeichnet sich durch eine besonders hohe Tigerpopulation aus. Hier leben noch knapp 300 Exemplare des stark bedrohten Bengalischen Tigers. Es kommt hier des öfteren auch zu Angriffen auf Menschen. Wir haben unter anderem einen Mann getroffen, der einen Tiger getötet hat, der ihn angriff. Er hatte mehrere Narben auf den Armen. Wegen des Töten einer bedrohten Art wurde er übrigens angeklagt. Zwar argumentierte er, dass der Tiger ihn töten wollte, aber daraufhin wurde ihm erwidert: "Woher wollen Sie das wissen? Sie sind doch noch am Leben!". Die Dörfer liegen dicht am Wasser und die Menschen müssen ... read more
March 6th 2010
Wasser, Wasser, Wasser und ein paar Inseln zwischen drin. So hab ich mir die Sunderbans vorgestellt. Mangrovenwälder in denen Tiger wohnen. Flüße in denen Delfine springen und Krokodile ihre Beute suchen. Ein kleines Umweltparadies eben. Der Bus bringt uns von Kolkata nach drei Stunden Fahrt zu dem kleinen Hafen in Gosaba und das Schiff nach einer weiteren Stunde zu unserem JungleCamp. Wie wird es werden, den ganzen Tag auf einem Schiff zu sitzen und nach Tieren, welcher Gattung auch immer, mit einem Fernglas Ausschau zu halten? Nichts erwarten, nehmen wie es kommt! Trotzdem formt der Kopf immer wieder so komische Fragen und bastelt an Erwartungen. Erstmal gibt es was zu essen. Leckers bengalisches Essen mit Reis, Dal, verschiedenes Gemüse und Hühnchen. Im Rahmen dessen, dass ich die Projekte von Helptourism beschreiben soll, wurde ich in eine ... read more
October 13th 2008
The Sunderbans is a strange place and quite unique really. We decided to visit the protected forrestry because of its location to Kolkata and because of the high concentration of Bengal tigers. The Sunderbans are made up of mangrove forest that are separated by a large network of channels and rivers that make up part of the worlds largest river delta. The reserve also crosses over into Bangladesh and is said to be home to over 270 tigers. Due to the vast amounts of water that ebbs and flows with the tides the tigers are well adapt to swimming, much more so than their inland relatives. They have been known to swim great distances and even board fisherman's boats in search of a tasty snack. Typically Tigers are shy creatures who would rather steer clear of ... read more
Mysterisous Sundarban: Royal Bengal Tigers' Kingom
Published: July 18th 2008Asia » India » West Bengal » Sunderbans
July 18th 2008
Sundarban National Park: Unique Biosphere of Home of the Royal Bengal Tiger Partha De Sarkar Book this trip with GlobalHop Travel piyush_agrawal@hotmail.com for USA and North America parthad@globalhoptravels.com Late at night the tiger had started growling. Muktar Hussein our guide had told us that it was a male tiger giving mating call. We woke up early and it was still growling intermittently. We had hoped to see it at light break but we could see sandhead and mangrove beyond, not the tiger. Last night we had moored our launch off the Kalas Island after coming back from the Kalas Eco camp. We had disembarked at the Kalas Island along with fishermen who had come fishing there in their powerboat. Near the sweet water pond constructed by the Forest Department, we had seen hoof marks of deer ... read more
If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.
Published: March 22nd 2008Asia » India » West Bengal » Sunderbans
February 29th 2008
From Kolkatta, we travelled on through remote life in West Bengal to reach the Sunderbans: one of the biggest plains of mangroves. As far as the eye could see were salt water rivers, stretching over 1km wide only to be met with more mangrove greenery. For our last part of the journey, we took a canal boat 6 hours south to reach the lodge. Before we set sail, the locals did a ritual to ensure a safe journey through the Sunderbans. They placed flowers over the bow of the boat and poured coconut oil over them, before lighting incenses. The first thing that hit me was the lack of civilization: all you can see are trees and water with the occasional crocodile sunning on the muddy banks and that's it. Yet it’s still so mind bogglingly ... read more
February 3rd 2008
Wow, this was a very long day! As one of our group commented as we ate dinner, we traveled longer today than we did to get from Dulles to London! None of it anywhere near so comfortably but much more interestingly. I almost entitled this "And VDOT thinks they have something to worry about" but didn't know how many folks would get that inference. We started off as near to 7 a.m. as we could, traveling SSE into the State of West Bengal. We needed two vehicles today as most of our exchange partners were with us, as well as a number of students and the Dean of Students (who coordinated the NSS effort that is described next for some time). There is a program called the National Service Scheme (NSS--another vocabulary discrepancy--scheme here means 'program', ... read more
The land of the Royal bengal tigers
Published: November 23rd 2005Asia » India » West Bengal » Sunderbans
November 17th 2005
Please excuse the bad quality of pictures put up. The scanner is pretty bad. I will put up good pictures in a couple of days. I vaguely knew about the Sunderban area as the home of the royal bengal tigers. But only when i read 'The Hungry Tide' by Amitaav Ghosh, did i actually learn about this fascinating place. I was drawn to the place while reading the book and started doing research online to plan a trip. Some facts about the sunderbans that i learned were: It is the largest mangrove forest in the world; Part of the worlds largest delta formed by the Ganges, Bhramaputra & Meghna; 3. It is the largest national park in India (40% of the Sunderbans is in India the rest is in Bangladesh); It is home to somewhere between ... read more
