Day 1 Glimpses of The Sunderbans

We had a car pick us up in the morning and drive us to our ferry point Godkhali. The boat was all ours and fuly equipped with beds, bathrooms, facility to cook and a very good six-cylinder engine. It was really smooth and that made photography easier. We had paid quite a price for all the luxury and was worth it. This was our next wild vacation after Kanha and Bandhavgarh and I was really looking forward to it.

We reached Bali island in the Indian part of the Sunderbans for lunch. Bali island is a project of Help Tourism to develop the village and give the villagers a means of livelihood. The Sunderbans known for their man-eating tigers has caused many a villager and their live-stock to be hunted as the tigers meal. The landscape of the Sunderbans is very hard to survive and this struggle is shared equally by man and animal. It was a really enlightening and emotimal experience for me. The spirit of the people and their hardships did not fail to move me.

We were accompanied by our friend B and his childhood friend S who are both passionate about wildlife and birds, reptiles and insects in particular. They have a group named "Nature Mates" and are constantly touring on some form of wild escapaes. They really have a keen eye for nature and due to this we noted so many different species of birds, reptiles and animals that it was just fascinating! What was even more different in this trip of mine is that everyone used my camera and we got some amazing pictures as B and S had great experinces shooting birds and reptiles. I was able to learn some techniques to shoot using the long zoom of my camera. My camera was appreciated greatly and I was happy to have made a good choice.

The sparrow in the top left was seen at our village-like accomodation in Bali village. It was an eco freindly set up and desgined not to stand out of the rest of the village. Using solar power and generator they managed to provide us with some basic electrical supplies. The Sunbird on the left bottom, was shot by S whose 18x zoom Panasonic camera was not workling properly as he had fallen into water with it. In the rest of the scenes you see a green bee-eater, a heron running, our resort in the village, a glimpse of the village. The frog was my first time experince of clickling a reptile, inspired by the company I had :) The boat with fishermen sleeping was an amazing sight to me, as they were sleeping as if nothing mattered when there was a fear of being attacked by the tiger. I was later told they these people think themselves to be a part of the forest just like the animals. This was a beautiful thought as that is the reality, man IS part of nature! The other shot ofcourse is my husband, our friends and our boat.