Day 7 - Experiencing Dehing Patkai

7th October 6am

We were originally to check out of Namdang in the morning, but the plan changed to an afternoon check out.  So it was a more relaxed morning start, meaning there was no need to pack and take our bags down.  We headed for the Suraipong range of this relatively newer National Park, I think from the Digboi Duliajan Road.

It was a beautiful morning, and the road was so picturesque, with lovely lily ponds and tall trees.

Before we reached the Park, Probinda brought the vehicles to a halt as he had spotted a family of Gibbons up on the kadamba tree, by the roadside.  What a lovely sighting.  And I remembered seeing them on the outskirts of Kaziranga as well.  We had also heard a couple of troops calling to each other on the Tiwarigaon road, in the Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary and also seen them brachiating at a distance.  Today, we saw them close enough to see their features, their eyebrows and their behaviour.  Their calls are a characteristic part of the NE forests.

The pictures taken of the Gibbons by Meera and Ramesh are in the main trip report.  We craned our necks as they were high in the canopy, hidden by the thick foliage.  The male was busy contemplating a Cadamba fruit in one hand, the female was keeping an eye on us.  Our excited murmurs and come here, go there caused one of them to brachiate upwards and inside.  Then someone saw the baby near the mother.

Probin had mentioned that the Gibbon males feed after the females and children finish.  Couples are monogamous, and they seem rather gentle and shy.

Photo by Ravi of the male gibbon contemplating the fruit.  Probin mentioned that they are very neat eaters, feeding gently and finishing off the fruit, rather than the messy eaters that Macaques generally are.

The forests and the land and the trees are their homes, and these sensitive creatures are under stress because of our activities.

This essay from Mongabay elaborates on their fragility.

"As an exclusively arboreal species that requires contiguous, closed-canopy forests for survival, the hoolock gibbon is particularly vulnerable to the massive ongoing deforestation across northeastern India.

“When a contiguous habitat is reduced to scattered smaller fragments, they become ‘habitat islands’ in an inhospitable sea of degraded habitat,” said Sharma. These conditions can lead to inbreeding, he adds. “The resultant offspring are often weak, sometimes sterile or may have little reproductive fitness.”

Hoolock gibbons rarely move between forest fragments; they may refuse to cross gaps even as small as 200 meters. On top of that, they’re extremely picky about their food, and a restricted home range means limited food options.

Wildlife biologist Kashmira Kakati, whose doctoral research at the University of Cambridge was on Assam’s hoolock gibbons, recalls a gibbon family she observed during her fieldwork. “An entire portion of their home range became inaccessible via the canopy because a single connecting tree was felled,” she says. “I witnessed severely emaciated juvenile gibbons — a phenomenon that occurs when they’ve to feed on leaves for prolonged periods in the absence of fruits.”"

The essay goes on to say that even the Mishmi Gibbons whom we encountered on our walks in Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary are under threat from "illegal logging, land encroachment and expansion of agriculture, notably oil palm cultivation."  Oil palm cultivation, in the NE!  How can planners be so visionless I wonder.

635 am and we see a board that says 6km to the entrance of the sanctuary - the Suraipong range.

However, there was still a roadblock, quite literally to cross. Efforts to move it failed and it was finally cut.  The drivers all banding together and taking turns with the "aruvaal".  

We walked on in the meanwhile - not that we went far - since every step led a discovery.  

Like this Crested Goshawk which I thought was a Kestrel.  Photo by Ravi

Anyways we meandered on and reached the entrance, and it was close to 8am already.  The original idea was to be in by 630, and do a short and quick walk, and return for breakfast to the entrance, and then head out again for a walk.

So, we started with breakfast then - sandwiches and boiled eggs and bananas - before moving on to our walk.

Photo by Gayathree.  Leech socks, water, binocs...and armed guards at the front and rear.  Supposedly there was an elephant that did not like humans much roaming these parts.  (I don't blame the elephant actually - not much to like about our species.)

Dehing Patkai, under threat from oil fires quite recently, was a name, a remote and wild place, and now here I was walking through it.  Yuvan had been a moving force in the #SaveDehingPatkai movement in Chennai, and it was a relief to note that the planned coal mining has been stalled, for the moment at least.

One of the few remaining rainforests and situated on the banks of the Dehing river, the forest also is in close proximity to the oil mining areas of Digboi.  In fact we saw some closed oil wells as well, as we walked by.  The condensation from oil pipes are subject to theft, and the leaks can lead to fires and flares.

As we walked through in humid and hot conditions, I was struck by the dipterocarps that broke though out of the canopy and formed the overstory.

Mushrooms of different shapes and sizes were everywhere.

A pair of great hornbills flew overhead.  The forest resounded with the temple bell sound of the green cicadas.  Soon, the MNS groups was strung across a wide swathe, despite the early admonitions to stay together.  Arun, Sekar, Ramesh and Arjun had marched ahead along with one armed guard - they were the leading pack.  I was in the middle examining the undergrowth and leaf litter, and exclaiming at every bloom and the beautiful dry leaves.

Dipterocarp seeds on the forest floor, 

as also Hingori, chestnut seeds, 

and were these wild balsam?

Bringing up the rear were Yuvan and co, as they photographed butterflies, herbs, fungi and tried to id the trees.

At some point the decision was made to turn back.  I was worried - no sign of Sekar, where had he reached?  (He usually marches along at a merry pace while I dawdle and malinger).  Anyways a guard was sent to call the leading pack back- the message being that we were returning and they were to turn back. 

We hung around and chatted, waiting for them to return.  Pralay of Help Tourism telling us about all the other spots from Siliguri which we definitely should visit.  

After a length of time, still no sign of the returning troops, Vijay gets restive and begins to mutter and pace.  Finally, Sekar, Arjun and Ramesh return, sans Arun.  Supposedly the message conveyed at the other end was that you guys are too old to make this trip, so let's return!  Chinese Whispers to the power of N!!

And so we dawdled back and into the cars, met up with the local children, and went back to Namdang for a rather nice lunch with excellent Baingan bharta filled with chillies and otenga curry.  The plan was to check out, land our luggage into the cars and then head back to Dehing, and then move on to Tinsukhia.

We headed back to Dehing and walked along the outer road where the guards were not required.

I gasped upon seeing the Sultan Tits - goodness what colours.  A lifer for me.  They were like flashes of sunshine in the canopy, flitting about here and there.  I could not get enough of them, and also it was a challenge to see the whole bird as they moved so quickly and the canopy was so thick.  

Probin then took us down a  path where the Trogon is usually sighted.  We were shushed and excited.  It was sighted through the canopy!  Shh - there's the head - can you see that long tail, wait wait come here, you can see the full bird.  We strained and peered and finally, all of us in that group managed to piece the bird together, bit by bit!

And then we went and excitedly told the others when Yuvan shared this picture.

Red headed Trogon - Pic by Yuvan.  The bird gave him a good Darshan, sitting on the branch out in the open.  How blessed he was!  Harpactes erythrocephalus - another lifer for me.

And he also saw the Khalij Pheasant as did several others, but not me.

Another group had wandered down a third path where they were accosted by what looked like some guards - not Forest - who wanted to know their precedents and antecedents.  And so they left from that road.

The sun was beginning to set, and we set out from Dehing to Tinsukhia.

The last rays of the day were catching the tops of the Dipterocarps

and there was this lovely glow on the bucolic scenery. Everything looked so idyllic, even as I realised that there are hardships and tensions aplenty. 

The legendary Margherita as well.

630 pm - we were checked in at the Aroma Residency, and welcomed with some hot tea and biscuits,

and a Rhino matchbox

to boot!

More rain, Maguri Beel and Dibru Saikhowa awaited us.

Day 6 - On to Digboi. The Oil Museum.

 6th October 4pm

October ' 22

And so we arrived at Namdang House, Digboi, after navigating hundreds of highway cows that assumed their job was reckless driving control, as they stood across the road, any way they pleased.

Our driver Shamim sombrely mentioned how so many families have lost their young men to insurgency, in this region.  ULFA and Surrendered ULFA - both sides to blame, both sides guilty of coercion and all the same sordid crimes.  Looking around it was hard to believe, that this green and now seemingly peaceful countryside was so wracked and troubled.

Once again, our large group size meant that we were split into two spaces - the hotel itself and some of us into the "service apartment" in the next building.  Sekar and I were told 3rd floor, and I confidently walked into one verandah, where a young hapless man told me rather gingerly, madam these are our Quarters, you see, we live here.  He sounded apologetic for causing this inconvenience to me.  I was impressed with myself, while Sekar had this nonplussed look, turns out we had to go around the building to the other side.  The apartments were new and so nice - Sekar and me in one room and the Tirunelveli Twins Suresh and Ravi in the other.  

We were here to explore Dehing Patkai, the next day.  The Dehing Patkai and the oil stories are very interconnected.  For the moment, I focus on the oil.

The Digboi rainbow

The Starlings that seemed to be curious about our arrival.  The Indian pied myna (Gracupica contra) - there is a NE subspecies that has reduced streaking on the shoulder and nape I believe.  Quite striking.

Raja in his stentorian voice announce that there was an oil museum and it closed at 4 and we should leave immediately.  So, drop bags in the room, enjoy the rainbow and the starlings on the wire and then off we went again.

And the lovely thing of small towns - everywhere you need to go is 5 minutes away, and people are quite willing to open up beyond hours.

We drove along the road we came in on, which seemed filled with many religious buildings.  There also seemed to be a prayer meeting of Srimant Shankardeva.  I came to learn that he has a lot of followers in the Assam region, and I guess could be called a spiritual reformer, breaking the caste barrier and living a simple life.

The sun was setting and the market lights were twinkling.  I was reminded of my geography teacher at school Ms Rohini.  She passed away just a fortnight ago, and I am sure she will be smiling at my delight at seeing my geography lesson come alive.  

We crossed the Digboi Club - it said Established 1922 on the wall, that made it a 100 years old this year, and possibly the "Oil company" area - lawns and flower beds.

 The museum is within the campus of the refinery, and when we alighted there was a strong whiff of the petroleum , like being in a petrol bunk, but a little different.  We were courteously told that we could not take our phones or cameras in.  I wonder why these rules - you would think you want more people to take pictures and spread the word, visit.  

Large models of how the first oil was discovered, and of course the legend of the "dig boy, dig" story was on the walls.  There were a bunch of exhibits which would have interested my father - engines and pumps of various vintages, and a whole bunch of memorabilia of life from decades ago- typewriters, calculators and even tea pots and oil measuring cans.  The story of oil, in the US was also up on the walls.  I scribbled some interesting trivia down about the history of oil exploration on an old boarding pass - since I had no other paper, and of course on return have thrown the said boarding pass away, and now do not remember what those tidbits were.  Something about Rockefeller and Standard Oil.  and Shell.  Oh well.

The Oil Well No 1 was on display outside, where we were allowed to take pictures, and this picture by Gayathree shows the details.

We wandered out, some others went on the WWII cemetery, we went back to Namdang.  Travelling in the car with Arjun led to many fascinating Assam stories that I did not know.  The Stillwell or Ledo Road was one such.  Names like Makum, Assam Oil, Margherita, Mr. Goodenough of McKillop, Stewart & Co. and many such others.  His sense of history of the region was truly remarkable and I learned much from him.  (More in the tea stories, later)

Oil - despite this natural treasure, Assam has remained economically poor.   

Whose Oil Is it in Assam – and Whose 'Development'?

Many regional forces have fought against the privatisation of oil fields, and their struggles represent yet another point where regional aspirations could stand together with the fight against neoliberalism.

Whose Oil Is it in Assam – and Whose 'Development'?

In 1867, in a newly occupied area of the colonial hinterland of British India, an important resource was accidentally discovered that would go on to animate numerous resistance movements in the years to come: oil.

Assam’s oil story is now a century old, but the implications of this resource – used globally and traded in American dollars – comes with issues that are extremely local.

The northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent has become a political frontier where an extraction economy has flourished by the destruction of local resources, tradition and economy. In independent India, the first oil field was discovered in Naharkatiya, in present-day Tinsukia district. The government expected it to yield 2.5 million tonnes of oil per year, meeting one-third of India’s demand. The government of India wanted to install a refinery where crude oil from Naharkatiya would be processed, first at Kolkata first and then at Barauni, Bihar.

But Assam boiled on the issue of wealth drain and demanded the refinery be in Assam itself. At the national level, those were the days of the Nehru-Mahalanobis model of planned economy. When Jawaharlal Nehru visited Assam on October 18, 1956, several hundreds of people demonstrated along his route, demanding the oil refinery be in Assam.

Assam Refinery Action Committee was formed under the leadership of Hareswar Goswami and Hem Barua, and the Assam assembly passed a unanimous resolution in support. Finally, the government established two refineries – one at Barauni and the other at Noonmati, Assam.

But the oil economy continued to have an overriding effect on the articulation of economic demands by various social movements in Assam, rooted in the struggle for indigenous rights. The slogans of the Assam movement (1979-85) were the tip of the nativist sentiment against a ‘drain of wealth’ from Assam, reflected in slogans like, “Tez dim tel nidiu (we shall give blood but not oil)”.

In August 1990, agitators of the Assam Movement prevented crude oil from leaving Assam and then demanded that natural resources must be processed within the state. Several insurgent groups, like the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), also accused the Centre of exploiting resources of ‘Bor Asom’ (Greater Assam, comprising some parts of the Northeast) and creating a ‘backwardness’ in the region. To justify its revolt, the front also demanded that oil and coal be primarily seen as helping improve the economic situation of the region’s people.

However, scholars like Arupjyoti Saikia see this as a form of internal colonialism that functions in the periphery. The politics of resource extraction at peripheries and regional aspiration for right over resources are located in an inherent contradiction of unitary federalism. However, the economic exploitation of the region despite increasing political dissent remains unchanged.

Oil is well!

The ongoing Baghjan inferno that has wreaked havoc in parts of eastern Assam since May 27 has prompted questions of how the politics of exploration of oil neglected the rights, resources and biodiverse rural ecology. The modern economy runs on oil. But while oil has improved travel times and communication of information, it has also created grounds for further oppression in many towns and rural areas. These areas often try hard to compete with their urban counterparts for development, including for jobs, expansion of the local economy, increased trade and better quality of life. But oil has also driven the same population towards disease, environmental devastation, poor healthcare, lack of governance and administrative opacity.

Also read: Javadekar Scuttles Bid to Extend Public Consultation on Controversial Environment Rules

Modern Indian political thought has often failed to address such huge lapses in economic policy, resulting in the further plunder of natural resources and destruction of local livelihoods. Oil is also a leading cause of militarisation in areas where establishing dominance to extract oil and other resources remains contested thanks to indigenous claims to land and resources.

The question of exploitation and economic disparity in the oil debates is located in a larger debate about how Assam has been denied an equitable distribution of profits and oil royalties from oil production. This has perpetuated a regional disparity in the course of capitalist development in India, which saw frontiers as the site of resource extraction only and ignored the demands of higher control over resources by the people, which saw resource extraction through the eyes of cost effectiveness instead of sustainability.

Such “profit before people” developmental policies on the state’s part allowed it to privatise natural resources once it adopted liberalisation policies and integrated itself into the global financial system. Between 1997 and 2012, under the New Exploration and Licensing Policy, the government has privatised 257 oil fields. The process took a break in 2012 for two years; from 2014, marginal oil field auctions allowed the open privatisation of oil fields. The open acreage licensing policy adopted in 2017 has one clause that says the companies that file tenders for auctions don’t require any past experience.

This way, the Baghjan oil field was auctioned to Gujarat-based John Energy, a company said to be a greenhorn vis-à-vis oil extraction, particularly in Assam’s topography. Privatisation is not only handing over natural resources to profit hungry corporates but also undermining the longstanding struggle of Assam’s people for rights over their resources.

Many regional forces have fought against the privatisation of oil fields, and as such, their struggles represent yet another point where regional aspirations could stand together with the fight against neoliberalism. However, privatisation has also continued, as if unstoppable. Not only have many oil fields been privatised but the state has also normalised the outsourcing of drilling and other tasks. Even after the blowout at Baghjan, India did not put together its own expert group but sought the expertise of a Singaporean firm to quench the fire.

The catch-up to ‘development’

The roots of a modernity brought about by the ‘oil regime’ needs to be interrogated continuously. The model of development by colonial powers finished shifting cultivation forever. The post-1947 model of development demonised jhum cultivation – widely practiced in the northeast – and destroyed local food sovereignty, and never understood the importance of the rural commons.

India’s northeast is one of the greenest parts of the country but forest cover has been depleting consistently in the last 18 years. In the last decade, deforestation has doubled, according to data mapped by Global Forest Watch. Net forest loss in the northeast from 2014 to 2018 was an alarming 6,229.25 sq. km, which is nearly the total area of Sikkim, and has only been increasing in the last three years.

The very notion of development, therefore, needs to be questioned and the state needs to invest in exiting the colonial ideas of fossil fuel energy, and find alternatives to oil as a fuel.

Anshuman is a PhD research scholar at Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Mrinal Borah is an MPhil research student at Special Centre for Study of North East India. The authors can be reached at angshumansarma13@mail.com and mrinal.borah123@gmail.com.

Assam Day 5 - Seeking the dolphins, encountering the Osprey - the gigantic Brahmaputra

 Continued from here.

15th Jan 2020

On to Kaziranga, from Mangaldoi, today.  But first, we were to stop at the Brahmaputra and take in a river cruise as we searched for the Gangetic dolphins.

We were headed west, staying north of the Bramhaputra, a 3 hour journey.

We stayed on NH15 for the most part, the highway was in good shape.  As we reached Tezpur, there was more military presence and large, walled military compounds.  I learnt that Tezpur is one of the old cities of Assam, and there is a lot to see here, but we were not stopping.  The British made it into an army Headquarters for the region.  

Aparna wrote this in our trip report:

The place Tezpur was named for the rivulets of blood that flowed there. Legend has it that this was the place where the war between Banasura, who was King of the area, and Krishna took place. Banasura’s daughter, Usha, dreamt of Anirudh, the grandson of Krishna. Her friend Chitralekha drew his portrait and through her magical powers brought him to Usha. Banasura refused to give his consent for the marriage. That is when Krishna went to war. The war was actually fought between Shiva and Krishna as Banasura was a devotee of Shiva. And much blood was shed.  It is said that Brahma had to intervene to stop the fight. However Shiva gave in to the reason of Krishna and relented.  

We drove on to the river bank, close to the Kalia Bhamora bridge that spans the river over here.  

We walked across the fine river sand to the boats with colourful canopies.  It was close to 11am and the sun was blazing through, but the river was a vast expanse of a still dull, muddy colour.  To me, at that moment it felt like this large, silent, somewhat sullen, sleeping beast.  The currents were strong but one wouldn't guess it, due to the vastness of the river.

As we chose our boats, there was a sudden commotion, with everyone telling Shuba not to move.  She was startled but complied to the urgent orders.  On her ghamsa-covered head was what looked like a little colourful brooch! 

The butterfly brooch - Delias descombesi, the redspot Jezebel

Chinese fishing nets.  I read somewhere that the river supports some 222 species of fish! Tezpur is one of the important fishing centres on the river.  But the fish population is greatly depleted, due to human activity (of course, what else).

I think Pranjal mentioned Grey throated Sand Martins flitting along the river banks - but I did not see them (as usual).  

On returning, I did some reading on the sedimentation and turbidity of the river.  A 2017 NDTV article mentioned that the turbidity measure at Tezpur was 195 NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Unit), as against a permissive level of NTU5!  Aparna, who collects river waters, dipped a bottle in, and I was quite surprised - the water was clear, not turgid as I expected. The heavy sedimentation adversely affects fish life as also the Gangetic Dolphin, that we were out looking for.

That's us - adding colour to the river.  Picture by R Shantharam

The Brahmaputra river system is one of those huge carriers of sediment, and this sediment forms sand banks and islands - chapori - which can support a lot of bird life.  

You could also get small grassy islands in the middle - so vast is the river.

The Gangetic Dolphin (Platanista gangetica)

Several of our group had already gone on this boat ride on their last trip to Arunachal and they asked us to keep our eyes peeled.  We were warned that it would not be like some NatGeo movie where it would gently, gracefully and in slow motion arc out of the water and show itself to you. It will be in and out in the blink of an eye. A grey shadow in the water. And that's exactly what it was. 

We had a lot of these fleeting 'darshans' of the greyish brown snouts of these endemic, poor eyesight river Dolphins, which are highly ecologically stressed. They are on the IUCN red list

We were in two boats with a canopy that shaded us from the sun.  The boat engines created a hell of a racket, and he would cut the engines every now and then, and we would drift. Those were the best moments. The river was a dull grey brown and placid.  The whole scene was tinged in grey and brown.

They spend an average 107.3 seconds under water and 1.26 seconds above water. Once, the most commonly sighted aquatic mega-fauna in the Brahmaputra river system, it now faces extirpation from most of the major tributaries of the Brahmaputra and restricted to a few pockets in the mainstream.

Unregulated rise in human activities is causing serious degradation in dolphin habitats in the Brahmaputra. Acoustic vision being the primary mode of perceiving the environment for these animals, increasing noise levels and industrial activities cause major disruption in their perception of biologically critical sounds.

Scientists find conservation efforts of river dolphins in the Brahmaputra have largely ignored the aspect of Acoustic Habitat Degradation.

2019 North East Now

I didnt realise - dams on the river have isolated dolphin populations.  There are supposedly more than 50(!!) dams of different sizes on the Brahmaputra, fragmenting these populations, making them in-breed, disturbing the availability of their food.  So, not only on land are forests being isolated, but even in the water.  

The Osprey encounter

What I managed to photograph...

Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) - have seen them before, but this was a thrilling experience to see this one so close, and then take off and glide lazily through the sky.  Pranjal had said that we would most probably see one of these fish eating raptors over the waters, and yes his prediction was right.  

.

Photo by Elumalai - as it sat, an emperor of all it surveyed, or a masked bandit?  The Osprey is supposed to be the only raptor with all toes being equal in size.  interesting, did not know this.  Does that make a difference in how it perches?

Photo by Elumalai - All set to take off, possibly disturbed by our outboard motor.  Rounded talons and a reversible outer toe means that it can catch those slippery fish with two toes in front and two behind.  

Photo by Venkatesh, as it took to the air, showing us the "fingers" on its wing feathers, and its spread out short tail.

Photo by Venkatesh - the white breast and the golden brown upper wings - what a magnificent sight it was!

Photo by Venkatesh - we gawked at the wingspan - a good 4-5 feet, as it flapped them in slow succession  and moved away from us.

This photo by Suresh - of the brown upper parts and those four long finger-like feathers, with the fifth being a bit shorter.  The drooping hands are a characteristic flight posture of this piscetarean.

We chugged along back now under the bridge and what seems like the new Brahmaputra bridge coming up alongside.

Mountains of concrete, as Man looks to overcome natural "obstacles"?

Add caption

Do we need another?

Off the boat, and we found little "loo huts".  

A group picture and some tea and potato biscuits, before we set off for lunch and then Kaziranga.

Very tasty!  A new discovery.  Potato "biscuits".  They were so yummy, I brought a couple of packets back home.

Tree sparrows

A reminder of what was going on in the country.

We were coming across to the southern bank of the mighty river, and turning east, to Kaziranga. 

Assam Day 4 - Orang!

May 2020

Trains are getting lost, flights are getting cancelled, locusts are swarming the plains of north India.  As expected, cases are doubling in states like Assam.

August 2020

Floods in Assam, and the sanctuaries and animals are in distress, with no access to highlands for them.  

COVID continues its merry spread across cities and states, though it does seem to have slowed in Chennai.  And I sill have not finished this post.

Here is another stab at it. 

15th August 2020 - 7 months to the day, oh my goodness this definitely is getting finished today!  What better way to mark our independence, than write about a visit to a remote corner of India early this year.  

14th January 2020

Continued from here.

Goodbye Manas

Today was the day we were moving to Orang, where we would have one afternoon safari, and spend the night at the town of Mangaldoi, which we would pass actually on our way to Orang.

All woollens packed into my large bag - I was relieved to have brought an outsized bag, as I could just throw stuff in any which way, and now it had an added item - the bamboo "vase" which is about 18 inches long!

We bundled into our cars, said a big thank you to the Florican staff  at Manas (I wondered if I would ever return there again), as set off for Orang/Mangaldoi.

A 10 am halt at Nalbari for tea, and we were exposed to the Bihu market wonders - all sorts of things.
 

 

A man held a fish as if it was the most normal thing to do - maybe it was for him.  Not for me.  I gawped, just like the poor fish.

The bamboo baskets all looked so inviting - but I followed a "Only look no buy" policy, and left without anything additional!  This was a fishing set.  

When I returned back to Chennai, Kamini was scandalised that I had passed by on nolan gur - which was being sold by the tubfulls.  Venkatesh (or was it Aparna?)  bought some delicious pedas - it was good to be travelling with them - we were constantly eating!

We crossed Mangaldoi, and continued.  Mustard fields were in bloom.

At around lunch time - oneish - (yes, time is measured by mealtimes), we arrived at Orang! We were at the gate of the park,  a newish resort - Green Planet just at the gate, but it was not large enough to accommodate us all overnight, so sadly we were trekking back into Mangaldoi for the night.  But for now, a clean loo was most welcome.

Trying hard to make the boys who were helping us at lunch to understand that no we didn't need plastic bottles of water, but a jug would do nicely thank you.  They looked at me as if I had gone mad....I suppose there was a lot lost in translation!

Orang - the first I heard of the place was in 2008, from Chithra,  as this back of nowhere place - and now I was there/here, never mind!

We met Najib, another young naturalist, and now, along with Pranjal and Yuvan, we had a trio of young naturalists!  Najib worked with Wild Wings, a local NGO in the area of wildlife conservation, and he was going to accompany us on our drive through Orang.

After lunch, we saw some jeeps, and all of us hopped into them, and waited.  and waited.  I was with Suresh and Pritam and Shuba.  After a bit of time, we heard a lot of Assamese exchanged between Pranjal and Najib and the drivers.  It seems that there was a standoff between the drivers and the forest rangers over manhandling of a tourist, and the park was actually closed that day!  

After much cajoling and explaining by Hiranya  that we had come all the way from Chennai, some kind of compromise was reached and we had to shift to some other jeeps (I guess these were the ones of the forest department and not the ones of the resort), and then we were let in.   

I was with cousin Kumar and Usha in the rearranging, and it was all in the family in our jeep.

Orang is a little park - 78 sqkm - on the north banks of the Bramhaputra, and if I'm not mistaken I recall Najib mentioning that it belonged to a Raja of the region.  The vegetation was very much like Manas - grasslands, and silk cotton.  

Bird community of Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park, Assam

The entire protected area was a human habitation till the last decade of 19th century (Talukdar and Sharma 1995). The area was inhabited by different ethnic groups. The villages were abandoned during the latter part of the 19th century, and in course of time, the area became covered by vegetation where animals took shelter. In 1915, it was declared a Game Reserve. The area was declared Wildlife Sanctuary in 1985 and upgraded to a National Park in 8th April, 1999. Entire area of the RGONP is the core part of recently declared Orang Tiger Reserve in December, 2016.

Sitting quietly in the shade was an Asian barred Owlet, looking on seriously at us.  Soon it turned its back on us, but Suresh captured it sneaking a peek at us!

The undergrowth was beautiful as was the canopy above...where to look?

A fairy bluebird sat high on an exposed branch

We stopped at a watchtower and took in the landscape 

The Eurasian Wryneck

Then there was some scurrying in the undergrowth just below the watchtower, and Najib said it was a Eurasian Wryneck.  Now me and my myopia took ages to spot it, but  it kept everyone busy for a while as it scuttled among foliage, now you see it now you don't, the shutterbugs getting more and more frantic! 

Finally, even I saw it!  And even got some hopeless pictures of it.  

The Eurasian Wryneck - Jynx torquilla - a lifer for me.  It is a woodpecker, but what is it doing on the ground.  Strange bird!

It had these jerky movements and was always on the move.  I learned that it is a ground feeder and has a long tongue that it uses to probe for ants.  

I saw the characteristic "namam" down its back, but it was really well camouflaged, and busy!

There are videos on YT of this bird doing some interesting things with its rather supple neck.

A beautiful capture by Sudar of said Wryneck

And then we arrived at the forest bungalow from Chithra's account!  If only we could have stayed here.  What an idyllic location!  But everything looked totally rundown.  But why oh why does it have to be like this? Why do we find forest bungalows go into disrepair, and then new ones get built?

I could imagine staying at this guest house and looking out on the vast grasslands below

If you click on the picture and enlarge the panorama, you see, the view from the rundown guest house - the vast grasslands, in height order it seemed - the pasture and then medium height grass and then really tall elephant grass.

The tall grass, with the trees beyond

We just sat on the wood stumps, soaking it all in, as the sun slowly dipped and the light faded.  As the sun lowered, the birds were returning to their roosts.

It was a herbivore bonanza. Swamp deer, hog deer, boar, francolins, rhinos....all grazing peacably. No carnivore in sight. Egrets and kingfishers, drongos and bee eaters.

About 10% of the area of the ONP is wetlands and water - the Bramhaputra river, with its tributaries Pachnoi and Dhanisiri, flow through these areas, and there are also many "bheels" or lakes.

The Indian hog deer (Hyelaphus porcinus)

Another first for me was seeing these small deer, which are supposedly found across northern Indian plains.  Their body shape seemed a bit different, with downward  slopy shoulders.  The white on their tail was more evident when they flicked their tails, which was very often.

Assam seems to be their last refuge these days, as their numbers in areas like Corbett have dwindled.  I learnt that these are grassland deer, and were once much more abundant than chital, but as more and more grassland came under fire/degradation, these deer had nowhere to go.  

Now under the IUCN endangered list, I hoped that they continue to thrive here in Orang.

As with all of the creatures of the Bramhaputra region, the annual floods mean they have to move to highlands, but with more roads and development cutting off access to highlands, there is huge loss of hog deer every monsoon.  

They needs grasslands to fawn, so their successful  breeding is under threat with dwindling grasslands.

It was only 430 in the evening, but the sky ws darkening, and it was soon time to leave the park, but we had one last encounter, almost missed.  A lone elephant to the left of the road watched us go by.  The jeep driver was a little skittish and didn't want to linger - discretion around lone male elephants was what he muttered.

Beautiful sunset views as we bounced along the jungle roads to exit the parks, accompanied by the screeching of parakeets on their way back "home", wherever that was.

We exited the park and stopped for tea, and a tete a tee with Najib and his work. The tea was not worth writing about, but there was much banter as we waited in the chilly darkening evening air.

It was a couple of hours ride to Siddharth Palace, which was named more in hope and wish than in fact, but rather interesting.  Steep steps and up and up.  Rooms with glamorous velvet curtains behind which were plain brick walls, hmm.  And the steps (I kid you not). were not flat but seemed like out of that nursery rhyme - there was a crooked house. All those days at Manas we were served hot simple meals and it was fine.  Somehow this veneer of poshness and floating oil always makes me suspicious. So I ate sparingly (yes I can do that, believe me). The waiters were obsequious and supposedly the owner had a Madras connection - he had come to Chennai to do his engineering!!  It was Bihu night, and we were in for all night singing and dancing we were warned, and yes they partied all night long to a mixture of Bollywood and Assamese music.

We did not see the pygmy hogs - another species under threat because of lost grasslands.  ONP is a site of some pygmy hog restoration programme.  

 

 Day 5 - on to the river!

We of course were up with the lark, but the staff were all hungover and asleep and Pritam came down to find that we were locked in hahahaha. Some Hotel California like situation.  After some hollering, we were let out by some sleepy waiters. I went for a stroll and found some interesting things.

An Apollo Chennai outreach!

A doggie with offal

And this rather stern notice for employees of the hotel

which I noticed while having breakfast

I had packed up and come for breakfast leaving Devika in the room to finish and join us downstairs. Cars were getting loaded. She wandered down and told me  that she thought I had left my soap behind. So I went on up again on those crooked stairs to our room with the satin curtains, and retrieved my soap, and there I saw rubber chappals, green, near the bathroom door.  I muttered to myself that Devika has forgotten her slippers, picked them up with a flourish and went off downstairs after a final look around to ensure nothing else was abandoned. 

I marched purposefully to Devika calling out to her and waving the slippers, as she was loading her bag and I very helpfully wanted her to put it in before the bag got put away in the car boot. The waiter from the hotel was following me in a strange fashion.  At this point Devika told me, in her usual unhurried and calm voice, it's not mine Ambika, and .....I looked from slipper to her to the following waiter to all the other MNS members standing around looking on. The waiter sheepishly said, woh hamara hotel ka chappals hain (actually I should've been the sheepish one you would think). There was much tittering and guffawing as I hastily handed it back to him and ran off to wash my hands.  "What else are you smuggling away Ambika?" was the refrain, and Suresh was sure I had watched the movie If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium!  

And then we were off, to our next experience on the river itself.

Assam Day 5 - Seeking the dolphins, encountering the Osprey - the gigantic Brahmaputra