India Nov - Dec 09
An epic, longer in the making than Apocalypse Now
Kolkata airport - not quite the throbbing epicenter of inbound and outbound traffic I had imagined.
I’d conjured up in my minds eye a heaving mass of people, a sea thicker than an Exxon oil spill and just as dark. I imagined a cacophony of Indian voices interspersed with clipped British tones or at least everyone breaking in to a Bollywood style song and dance extravaganza, combined with the heady smells of humanity and spices clashing with the pungent stench of jet fuel. I thought touts would pounce upon us like slathering dogs offering dubious digs, dodgy city tours and all manner of exciting or sordid adventures. I had the suspicion that the first person we’d meet would be a suave & swarthy type who’d indulge us with tales of tourist mishaps. We could utilize his services, provided of course at a very modest price. He’d waggle his head saying something along the lines of, “Let me be begging your pardon but let us not dilly dally sa’ar.”
But none of this happened. It seemed as though ours was the only flight to touch down and Kolkata International Airport was more of a ghost town from the Wild West with only a smattering of Indians ambling around. It was like everyone had got the hell of Dodge.
Kolkata, in earlier times was known as Calcutta, and the airport was formerly known as Dum Dum Airport but unfortunately no longer, which is somewhat of a tragedy in my opinion. The Japanese could help build a better transport infrastructure with a direct superfast train to and from the airport and they could have called it the Dum Dum Bullet.
But on that point it is apparently where the Dum Dum bullet was invented.
Logistical travel guru Karen Davies and myself, international playboy philanthropist Adam Martin recovered our gear and meandered our way over to the Domestic Terminal to jump on a “Jet” flight to a place called Bagdoghra an hour or so north. Things couldn’t have been easier or smoother and before we knew it we were being jetted over the brown hordes and gulping down a fine hurry curry, what in-flight meals should be called on an Indian jet but not to be confused with Samurai ritual suicide hari kari of course, something that would be most unpleasant on any flight and nigh impossible to do with a plastic knife.
An uneventful flight is a good flight indeed and this flight was memorable only because the food was delicious, the service excellent and we didn’t die in a flaming wreck. On arrival Karen sorted out a vehicle to get us three hours further up the trail to our destination, Darjeeling. Whilst Kaz was doing the serious stuff I was investigating the possibility of going by helicopter somewhere in to the mountains having spied a big old heli sitting off the main tarmac. It was possible, affordable and very do-able. Not such a dumb idea so I got all the details worked out the plan and we decided that we would fly back from the mountains in a chopper. How cool is that?
In the meantime Karen had managed to hook up with a couple also heading in the same direction to Darjeeling, so the four us piled into the waiting Tata 4WD and off we went. Before we jumped aboard I’d noticed the tyres were retreads or more realistically slicks but being one of great faith I kept this to myself. Within minutes of leaving the Bagdoghra Airport we were in “India” the road crowded with all the people that weren’t at Kolkata Airport. We fought for space with motorbikes, motorized rickshaws, cars, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians and cows our driver relentlessly belting through like a man possessed, hammering the horn often enough to make any Vietnamese proud.
One of our new travel companions then proceeded to drive me insane and I manufactured visions of leaning across on a high-speed bend opening the door on their side and pushing them out. He was bearable, but she deemed it necessary to exclaim at everything.
“A chicken!” she’d squeal. “Wow, a person on a bicycle!”
Between shrieks she hummed a amazingly annoying tune constantly for hours only stopping to reach over and grab the driver by the shoulder and ask him questions whilst he clung ferociously to the steering wheel at Tata warp speed distracting him and therefore nearly killing us all in a collision with an overloaded lorry. Before we’d gone half an hour we came across a mob gathered to gawk at something, which it turned out was a truck t-boned by a bus. This time, a particularly loud scream made us all edgy as the reality of the traffic system/chaos became apparent.
I kept telling myself that we, Karen and myself, are old hands at this style of kamikaze, hell for leather driving, having experienced as bad if not worse in Vietnam and the mad banshee was nothing more than nervously excited about her trip to India. However, by this stage her husband was moving further away from her and that meant the only place to go was my side. I think he too may have been contemplating murder.
Up we climbed twisting our way up from the plains and 28-degree heat to the mountains bedecked in tea plantations and villages. I had my first cup of chai on the way and not being a fan of tea I was surprised how good it tasted. That may have been because I was cold and the chai was hot. We arrived in Darjeeling in what seemed like very late afternoon but in actual fact it was only mid afternoon. Night fell so early, about 4.00 pm and with it came the cold. We said farewell to our new “buddies” all sweetness and light and I prayed that our paths would never cross again or I might do something I’d later regret.
We then had to re-negotiate to get the driver to take us to our accommodation the expansively named Dekeeling Resort at a place called Hawks Nest situated out of town on the way to the Japanese Peace Pagoda. We were deposited at the base of the driveway, a driveway so steep the family of the Mt Everest summiteer, Tenzing Norgay live. I concluded this is so the family can keep their mountaineering skills finally honed. It was quite possibly harder to scale than “The Big One.” Oxygen stashes were scarce, no acclimatization, no fixed ropes, no Sherpas to lug our gear and frozen comrades lay rigid in the gloom not having reached the guest house. But we forged forth onwards & upwards until finally we arrived exhausted at a beautiful timber house perched on high with views across the valley all the way to Kanchenjunga in the far distance, India’s mightiest peak some 6000 plus metres higher than Darjeeling.
By this time it was getting seriously cold and I had donned all I had. Fires were lit in the rooms and a couple of Kingfisher beers were consumed to celebrate our arrival. An early dinner was cooked by the family who manage the place, a delicious meal of curry, rice, dhal and chapattis.
The nearby country of Bhutan is said to have a Policy of Happiness, a government initiative. Darjeeling has no official policy but must be the friendliest place on earth. I was afraid India was going to be all-consuming and that space would be hard to come by but up in the hills nobody pestered or harassed us other than to have their photo taken. Random people would spy my camera and beckon me over to take their photograph. This would then multiply into a throng of happy smiley faces eager to see what they looked like on the small screen. Once they’d done that they would thank me and be on their way.
Thank me? How about that!
I thought there would be a plethora of white faces swanning around India on some kind of “find yourself, lose yourself only to re discover yourself and find out you were exactly who you thought you were” pilgrimage from the UK. Enlightened types bearing yoga mats, sporting filthy dreads and tattoos of Sanskrit mantras philosophizing peace on earth, poncing around with names like Rainbow Autumnal Sunshine. But in actual fact during our few days in Darjeeling we saw about 10 white folk in total. And none answered to Rainbow Autumnal Sunshine or Swami Gita Muterjee either for that manner.
We spent our days roving around town, through markets and back streets. We clambered through the Himalayan Mountain Centre and we visited the zoo in search of the rare and elusive snow leopard but it had obviously escaped or melted. At the Japanese Peace Pagoda we sat crossed legged and banged drums with a chanting monk therefore shattering the peace to pieces, we visited the Darjeeling Railway and checked out the real Toy train and we even awoke at the unholy hour of 3.30 am to stumble down the dreaded driveway, board our waiting motorized shoebox and journeyed 12 kms to Tiger Hill to watch the sun come up over the Himalaya.
Hundreds of people of all nationalities but predominantly Indians turn up to see this spectacle. At 4.00 am the sky was punctured with stars and the crowds started arriving en masse.
However, I suggest you don’t go for the tranquility. Hawkers yell out their sales pitch in the pitch dark.
“Gloves, hats, postcards.” They screeched.
“Tea and coffee get ‘em while they’re hot. Pants are down, trousers are slashed, we’re throwing them out.” They’d call out in that amusing Indian lilt at the same time doing some smart marketing for their brother’s tailor shop.
At 5.30 am the sky was no longer crystal clear it was more like trying to see through a gauze flyscreen, virtually a complete whiteout, so suffice to say we never saw the sun rise lighting up the majestic, awe inspiring Himalaya from Tiger Hill.
Darjeeling is a very interesting and beautiful place populated by lovely friendly people. People that are pushing hard to separate and rename the place, Gorkaland as most inhabitants seem to be of Gurkha origin.
Before too long we left the cool of the mountains and jetted back to Kolkata a different ball game indeed. Unfortunately the plan of the helicopter flight came unstuck as we forgot to make the booking and left it too late to fit in with our schedule.
Once we touched down in the big smog we climbed aboard the most dilapidated yellow Ambassador cab available. We grumbled our way in through what suddenly became an apocalyptic clash of every kind of known pedalled, pushed, pulled and powered transport circa 1955 screaming headlong into town at breakneck speed. But then suddenly all this chaos comes to a grinding, squealing halt in a monumental traffic jam. Nearly everybody shuts off their vehicle’s engine and waits patiently for the traffic to move once more and the unexpected quiet is amazing.
But once they do drop the clutch it’s like the start of a dirt bike scramble and everybody wants to be first. Black smoke billowing out of a thousand exhausts clogs the already choked atmosphere and it all begins again until the next intersection a few minutes later.
The only way to get clean air in your lungs is to have a cigarette. Of course pollution is not all bad, it does create the most amazing sunsets all tangerine orange.
Kolkata is a relatively easy city to walk around as long as you don’t mind the cloying smog and the cacophony of noise as well as having to stop and chat about the merits of Ricky Ponting every couple of hundred metres. The Queen Victoria Memorial commemorating her demise is an impressive structure to say the least. Imposing, massive and completely out of place it stands facing the Moidan, the large park hosting on any day of the week about 43675 cricket matches. We dissolved into a cab at one stage and ventured across the Hooghly River to the Howrah Train Station also built during colonial times. Perched by the river the station is a massive piece of red brickwork crammed full of thousands of people coming and going, some just waiting, others frantically trying to accomplish some task as more stream in and out bearing massive loads, usually on their heads.
Out the front of the station Ambassadors await, bright yellow vintage cars crammed bumper to bumper, commuters heading home dressed in business attire, beggars in various forms of distress smattered amongst, bright sari clad women who flit through the pandemonium like exotic tropical fish. The thing that really captured the scene for me was the giant flashing red Howrah Station neon sign, buzzing in the tawdriest possible Bollywood way, perched high above the station.
The Howrah Bridge is said to be one of the busiest in the world and there was no shortage of vehicles crossing however, even more impressive is the amount of pedestrians with some kind of produce perched upon their noggins crossing like a massive ant colony moving their eggs. “No Photography” signs are posted along the bridge but the kind folk of Kolkata formed a scrum around me to shield me from the authorities.
On the opposite bank of the river from the station was how I imagined in my minds eye India to look. On the bank of the Hooghly a glorious building in a serious state of decay with steps (ghats) down to the river’s edge was the theatre for all manner of late afternoon activities. Here people were bathing and washing clothes in its caramel coloured water. Surly youth were playing a game called Carambol, a cross between pool and air hockey and others were just hanging out to watch the sun disappear behind the skyline filling the evening with a saffron glow. This was our destination but first we had to squeeze through the flower market, and it was a jungle down there, petal.
Bustling in the late afternoon sunshine the ground was a mess of mud and crushed garlands. Sales were in earnest as the shadows lengthened but again what a fantastic, friendly, frenzied mass of people. My face was hurting from smiling.
That night however things turned nasty in India as Mumbai was attacked by ruffians and hooligans and though we were a very long way from the action, fireworks at a wedding held at the hotel had me gathering passports and valuables and looking at fleeing in terror with my hands waving above my head in an impersonation of the consummate panicked person. I checked exits, passageways and all manner of sleuthy escapes before I realised that nothing was happening except another noisy Indian betrothal.
However with stuff happening in Mumbai and Bangkok airport closed due to protests against the government we were kind of stuck in India. I was due to run a trip but had no chance of getting back to do so and Karen couldn’t get her flights back to Saigon as she had to travel via Bangkok. So a plan was hatched and we made arrangements to head down to the Sunderbans on the edge of Bangladesh, home of the man-eating Bengal tigers.
The thing about the Sunderbans is that it is mainly a mangrove flood delta, islands get inundated, sandbars move and get washed away in the monsoons yet man in his infinite wisdom decided to live there, virtually in the kitty’s dinner bowl.
All the information you glean about the local tigers is fascinating, macabre and quite apt to freak you out.
The tigers in this area are mad.
Angry?
Maybe.
Hungry?
Most definitely.
Insane though?
Well, that’s the preconception of the folk who have studied these big cats. The tigers are known as man eaters because they kill humans as part of their natural diet these days and it’s thought that this form of madness may have been caused by the lack of fresh water for them to drink so they have to drink salty water to survive.
For the locals trying to exist in this region making a living from fishing and crops, tigers play a real threat on a daily basis. As virtually no one sees the tiger that attacks, the inhabitants at one stage thought wearing a painted face mask on the back of the head would make the tigers think they were being watched. Unfortunately, this was not effective in any way shape or form. The number of people killed in this region from attacks is in the hundreds per year.
We cruised the waterways early in the morning spying monitor lizards solar energizing themselves between the breather roots, monkeys doing monkey business and a couple of spotted deer spotted us through the mangroves whilst the heat of the day began to burn off the mist.
Suddenly the “Tiger” Guide yelled to the skipper and the boat was being heeled around, something had been spotted on the bank so the skipper drove the boat straight in to it wedging the snout firmly in to the mud. The excitement aboard was at fever pitch. Had he just seen a tiger? Could he still see one? Or were we just stopping to have a look at more Commonly Spotted Discarded Detritus?
Moments before the guide had been telling all on board that tigers swim from island to island and one of the usual forms of attack is from the tree line, pouncing upon unwary fisher folk in their boats. He made mention that these tigers are lean and hungry and will attack without a moments hesitation and they can leap approximately 5 metres. Then moments later...
“Look!” He announced with unabashed delight. “A fresh pug mark.”
“He must have swum across moments before we rounded the bend.”
“What?” Was my first thought.
“We missed seeing a real live wild tiger swimming between two islands?”
Then all the stuff I heard and read came flooding back like a tidal wave and the thing that pounced out at me were the facts such as; tree lines, chomped on fisher folk, hundreds killed and the distance of 5 metres.
Again I found myself on the retreat moving swiftly to the back of the boat as others moved forward. But I did this for purely professional reasons. This was going to be the photo that gets me noticed globally.
I could see the headlines.
“Tiger terrorizes tourists. But who cares? Look at the photo!”
“Photograph of the Year. Bangladeshi man eater mauls British tourist Karen Davies.”
“Adam Martin - you’ve earnt your stripes.”
The footprint was HUGE! And fresh. I know. I was looking at it through my long lens from at least seven metres away. I was prepared for what was destined even ordained to happen next. I framed the scene, adjusted the aperture and set the focus. I then braced myself against a stanchion and waited impatiently for the carnage to begin.
But nothing happened. Everyone took excited photos of the paw print the skipper slammed us in to reverse dragging us out of the bow sucking mud and within minutes we were plying the waterways once again.
“But wait!” I screamed at the captain and crew. “This could be the moment. This could be the ultimate wildlife meets man photo and you want to go? This is why we are all here you bunch of clowns. Everyone on this pathetic tub has paid bloody good money to hopefully see a tiger and you want to just nick off when there’s a killer lurking and we have great bait?”
I was incredulous. Had no one thought about me? Surely, a mauling or two is nothing more than collateral damage in the quest for real life drama? In these days of reality TV surely fair dinkum animal action was worth a bit of a sacrifice? But no, as all aboard stood staring at me mouths agape, horrified by my outburst we continued on down the estuary everyone but me satisfied by our tiger “spotting” but unnerved by my reaction.
From there on the journey just became slow, mundane and hot. Most dozed on their deck chairs, slumped in a way that is indicative of a tourist in the tropics. Cameras slung limply around their necks like loosened nooses. Binoculars dangling from the chair arm, occasionally smacking into the frame, drool pouring forth like a pyroclastic flow and the head bobbing away on neck muscle that has the consistency of hot blu tac. This was proof to me we should have waited for the tiger to attack. The passengers/tourists/clients/survivors now would be so wired with adrenaline they’d be bouncing off the decks. This would have been their moment too. They’d carry the story of the Tiger Attack forever, bending ears for the rest of their born days, feeling lucky to be alive and somewhat confused they survived.
Tourism would boom in the area. New light would be thrown on the local inhabitants and their plight to live amongst the tigers would be world known instead of some minor headline about a tiger mauling in the Sunderbans.
Researchers would embark on the study of these creatures. Documentary teams would come from far and wide to catch a glimpse of the Bengali Monsters. A new international airport would have to be built employing thousands. Hotels would spring forth from the reclaimed mud. Backpackers looking for an alternative to the expense of African safaris would be there in their droves hoping to catch a happy snap of the infamous tigers.
Internet cafes would email themselves in to local existence and an Irish Pub would be created from the interior of knock down hut decked out with a toy leprechaun, a shamrock on the wall and Guinness (produced in Asia) available on tap. It would however, often be showing cricket due to it’s location.
Tubing along a tidal estuary would be set up by enterprising Kiwi tapping in to the fact that India’s insurance for “ludicrous activities” is incredibly low to non-existent. This, of course will come unstuck when everyone got what they quietly wished for when a drunken traveller with filthy dreadlocks, piercings and tattoos of Sanskrit mantras was eaten in what is known as the “backpacker snack pack attack.”
Steve Irwin types would be a dime a dozen roaming through the swamps dressed in the obligatory two-tone khaki two piece as sported by any serious wild life “expert.” They’d be dragging poor unsuspecting animals of all kinds violently from their slumber, all of them of course the most “deadly on earth” filling in the allotted 45 minutes of actual TV time whilst keeping the viewing public on tenterhooks wondering if a tiger will leap forth and gorge itself on the presenters head, bush hat and all.
Hollywood stars would stay at the exclusive Sunderbans Tiger Den for thousands per night getting the chance to go for the ultimate package where a fully grown live tiger is yours for the duration of your stay. But these are no ordinary tigers of course these ones can take the adopted children for rides around your private garden.
The AFL (Australian Football League) would be right on to it. Struggling Richmond Tigers football club would send as part of their pre season training recruits to the Sunderbans to survive off the land for 10 days. Those that made it back would be lean, mean and slightly disturbed, surely top qualities for a footballer.
The Singaporeans would be there too. The biggest selling beer in the Sunderbans would no longer be Kingfisher but Tiger. The blue clad promotions girls promoting a “guaranteed’ Tiger sighting packaged up with a free key ring and bottle opener. They would wear the facemasks on the backs of their heads as their catchy gimmick.
And then there would be me. The photograph of the attack would circle the globe in hours. It will be shown on all the news channels and repeated and downloaded thousands of times from the internet. I would be plucked from obscurity to the world stage doing interviews with all the big names David Frost, Oprah and Bert Newton. Attenborough and I would become mates working together on his latest incredible documentary. I’d be having photographic exhibitions in Melbourne, Tokyo and New York.
Fame and fortune would be mine. But what would I do with it? Go travelling? Probably, just with a bigger heavier camera and some more spending money but in reality it would probably just end me back to where I started.
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