Blogs from Assam, India, Asia

COHUE STORIES LA FABULEUSE EPOPEE DE L’AMBASSADOR : Les taxis de Calcutta, c’est quelque chose, un étourdissant ballet. Ce sont toutes de vieilles Ambassador jaunes pour la plupart, blanches pour certaines (plus récentes dirait-on). Elles sont toutes à peu près cabossées, de l’intérieur comme de l’extérieur, mais le taximan en prend soin. Levez-vous tôt le matin, arpentez les rues, les bords des avenues sont les stationnements de ces véhicules qu’on arrose et nettoie comme le bichonnage du dimanche de Monsieur Jean-Claude avant Michel Drucker. Le dimanche matin, lorsque la circulation est encore très éparse, le passage d’une Ambassador renvoie à l’image typique de l’Inde, mythique même, l’engin émerge d’une brume de pollution. Le modèle inamovible a été construit sans discontinuer de 1957 à 2014. Le constructeur a fait faillite, il aurait fallu se renouveler. Aujourd’hui, il ... read more

Die erste Aufgabe des Tages war der Grenzübertritt Bhutan Indien. bhutan war sehr einfach, weil das Karma, unser Guide am Vorabend für uns erledigt hat's. Und das sogar ohne unsere Anwesenheit. Dann durchführen wir das Drachentor und wäre schlagartig in Indien. Chaos, Tiere auf der Straße, Menschenmengen, Armut....... Die indischen Grenzgebäude sind besonders toll. Aber es ist ja auch eine kleine Grenze, die nicht viel benützt wird. Dementsprechend hatten die Beamten beim Zoll ind der Passkontrolle keine Ahnung, was die mit einem Carnet de Passage oder einem multiple entry visum tun sollten. So taktvoll wie möglich nahmen wir die Sache selbst in die Hand und liesen ihn am Schluss noch unterschreiben. 320 km sind in Indien sehr weit, aber heute war wunderbarer Weise etwa die Hälfte der Strecke Autobahn und ich genoss das. Natürlich waren da ... read more

The Indian part of this trip was great. I didn't think much of Kolkata but Assam was just like southeast Asia and therefore brilliant. I aim to return to cover some different parts of the subcontinent in the future. If I did the same Assam trip again, with the benefit of hindsight, I would probably give myself only half as long at each place. It is difficult knowing beforehand how long one needs anywhere, and I like to spend time and not just rush about helter-skelter like a mouse in a cheese factory, but really I didn't need as much time as I gave myself. I could have fitted into the month some of Gujarat like Gir and the Little Rann Of Kutch quite easily and still seen the Assamese parks well. Instead I was bound ... read more

After Nameri National Park I was headed for Manas National Park. My plan was to take buses from Nameri to Guwahati (the city I had flown into when I arrived in Assam) where I would stay overnight, and then the next day bus to Barpeta Road, which is the closest bus station to Manas (20km away). I had checked this when I got to Kaziranga in case there was a more direct route but was told that there was not. However at Nameri I found out that in fact there was a bus that went straight from Tezpur to Barpeta Road and it would take about seven hours. Even more conveniently I could catch that bus at Balipara before it reached Tezpur. At 8.45am one morning I hopped on that bus, the fare just 230 rupees ... read more

My next location after Kaziranga National Park was the Hollongapar Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary which is a small patch of remnant forest east of Kaziranga. The name has various spellings. I had been using Hoollongopar but at the sanctuary they use Hollongapar so that's what I'll stick with from now on. The area has been protected since 1881, originally as the Hollongapar Reserved Forest, mainly so the British colonialists could hunt leopards and elephants there. In 1997 it was re-designated as a Wildlife Sanctuary. Nowadays the forest only covers an area of 21 square kilometres and is hemmed in by tea plantations and farmland so there are no longer any dispersal routes in or out for most of the species inside. There are seven species of primates in the reserve, the main one people want to see ... read more