... and From the Plains to the Mountains

Victoria Monument Kolkata

Indian Road Hazard

Crossing from Bangladesh back to India we were immediately back into the hustle and bustle of Indian roads. Kolkata was our first destination which was noticeably hotter than Dhaka. The western sector of Kolkata is being developed as a new town with sleek dual carriageways and interchanges, a very long elevated metro system under development and lots of new shiny offices, housing and shopping facilities. It could be anywhere in the western developed world. Central Kolkata has some very impressive colonial era buildings including the cathedral and the huge and over the top Victoria memorial. A very grand castle like building (now a museum) in the centre of some very large and beautifully maintained gardens. We spent a day strolling round the centre of town which is surprisingly clear of litter, visiting the impressive Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly River, as well as trying to visit some of the older buildings like the beautifully maintained Armenian and Catholic churches and the old synagogue. Sadly they were all closed. The old Parsi fire temple was hidden in the middle of a bazaar and very run down despite being listed as an important historical building.


Bodhgaya Temple

A couple of hundred kilometers north west of Kolkata are some interesting historical sites, the first we visited being the location of Buddah's enlightenment. Bodhgaya has developed into a huge pilgrimage site with a large temple built on the site of the peepul tree, and dozens of monasteries from all the major branches of Buddhism. All very organised, but to my mind lacking in any sense of awe.

Nalanda Temple ruin

Rural Bihar

North of Bodhgaya we passed through Rajgir, claimed to be the oldest continuously inhabited town in India and was the capital of the local area in 500BC. It is an important location for Buddhists, Jains and Hindus so attracts many pilgrims. A few kms north are the ruins of Nalanda, founded in the 5th Century it became one of the main places for Buddhist learning, with three large temples and 14 monasteries on the site and some 10,000 monks and students living there. A hugely impressive and peaceful location. After an interesting drive along minor roads through rural Bihar we managed to find Barabar Cave, claimed to be the oldest man made cave in India it is actually three caves carved by hand into a large granite outcrop resembling a crocodile.

Barabar Cave

Inside Barabar Cave

The interior surfaces of each of the caves are highly polished giving them fantastic acoustics.

Rural Bihar

After enjoying the countryside we headed to the hectic city of Varanasiand famed for its position on the Ganges with its ghats for cremations and bathing, and sacred to Hindus. Bustling with tourists we enjoyed an evening walk along the ghats where we saw the burning ghat, a remarkably efficient traditional system of cremating bodies on wood pyres. each cremation uses 200kgs of wood which has to be brought into the city on huge barges, and with 300 cremations per day (24 hours a day 7 days a week) requires a constant supply. Sunrise in Varanasi from a rowing boat was very peaceful, with the light illuminating the ghats and the city slowly waking, before we walked back through the tiny twisting lanes.

Varanasi Ghats

With temperatures rapidly rising we headed north to Nepal. The roads to the border at Birgunj were awful, no more than muddy tracks in places, but clearly plans for new roads had been started, with various part completed bridges and bulldozed carriageways, but apparently abandoned some years previously. Evening thunderstorms were now a regular feature with spectacular lightning, and occasionally torrential rain, but it did cool the air.

Grey Langur

Across the border in Nepal was a huge change, traffic became less insistent, and less dense, with people giving way and a much more relaxed approach to life. Driving through the Terai forests on the way to Janakpur on empty roads was lovely even catching sight of some grey langurs browsing in the roadside trees. A brief stop in Janakpur to see the extravagant 1912 Baroque Mughal Hindu temple on the location where Rama found Sita also brought home the severity of the 2015 earthquake, with several damaged houses in the town centre.

Himalaya Foothills near Paphlu

Earthquake damage at Janakpur

As we headed north we started to climb the foothills of the Himalaya, with some breathtaking views of the mountains as we crossed some passes. Wanting to try and see Everest from Nepal we headed north and east to try and get as close to Everest as possible by road. The roads are amazing, carved into mountainsides and twisting and turning up and down valley sides and running along some fine ridges to connect the villages. Sadly at Phaplu the road was blocked, so we turned round and camped on a ridge to the south, being rewarded with some fine views of mountains, but sadly not Everest the following morning.

Durbar Square Bhaktapur

Bustling Kathmandu street

With limited time before we need to be in Delhi we headed back towards Kathmandu, stopping at Bhakatpur, one of the best preserved traditional Kathmandu town centres. Here many of the temples were damaged by the earthquake, though most have been repaired. The amazing 55 window palace survived relatively unscathed. Durbar square in Kathmandu has not been so fortunate with several temples completely destroyed by the earthquake, and the many of the main buildings still not repaired. The lanes and alleyways of central Kathmandu are fascinating, and in places clogged with tourists. To the south of Durbar Square it is much more relaxed and we wandered through the old streets and squares with their numerous, temples stupas, water tanks and small shrines, most of which are still maintained and part of everyday life. We had managed to be in Kathmandu for the New year 2076 and passing back through the square we surprised to see animal sacrifices taking place at some of the temples.


Damage at Durbar Square Kathmandu

From Kathmandu we headed south to Chitwan National Park near the border with India where the weather was much hotter. We headed to the sunset river view in the afternoon and were surprised to find hundreds of people watching a wild rhino grazing on the river bank just 10 metres from the path. We were even more surprised, as were the rangers when it decided to walk up onto the road and through the town to find some fresh greenery in one of the gardens. We were rewarded with more rhino sightings on a safari into the park, where we got caught in an afternoon thunderstorm and spent an hour in the back of a jeep holding a tarpaulin over our heads while the driver negotiated the flooded tracks.
After a few days of heat we are heading back up to Pokhara in the hope of seeing Annapurna.             

Traditional house Kathmandu

         

 

 

Rhino in Chitwan NP

 

Gharial in Chitwan NP

 

 

India wedding car

 

 

 

 

 

Distant Himalaya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the mountains to the plains - Sikkim to Bangladesh

Kanchenjunga

Having trudged round Darjeeling to get the permit to enter Sikkim we headed north through the deep cut Teestra valley to Rangpo where we had to register our presence in Sikkim. Sikkim has borders with China, Bhutan and India, the northern Chinese border being particularly sensitive, so our permit did not allow us to visit the more remote northern and eastern areas. We headed first to Gangtok - the capital of Sikkim, which like Darjeeling is perched along the top of mountain ridges at around 2000m. On entering Sikkim it immediately felt more prosperous and ordered than West Bengal with little rubbish, clean pavements and much better control of traffic.

Landslip across road

Yukson Coronation seats

The state is set in the foothills of the Himalaya and contains India's highest mountain, and the third highest peak in the world - Kanchenjunga - which when the air is clear dominates the skyline. A huge amount of work is being carried out to improve the roads, both widening and resurfacing them and a lot of effort is being put into developing tourist sites and services. The roads are a real challenge, they cling to hillsides as they climb up to the towns on the ridges and drop through the valleys 2000m below. To keep easy gradients they inevitably twist up through numerous hairpin bends, and due to the steepness of the hillsides many are quite narrow. Passing through this dynamic landscape they inevitably suffer from landslides, which can sweep away even a newly laid road. It is incredible where they have managed to build roads but there are still communities with no vehicular access. We spent over a week just enjoying the spectacular scenery and visiting some of the Tibetan style monasteries which dot the landscape.

Ralong Monastery butter sculptures

Notable amongst these were Pemayangtsi Monastery located near Rabdentse, the second capital of Sikkim, and the Old and New Ralong Monasteries located with stunning views towards Kanchenjunga. The Ralong monasteries create sculptures from butter which they use to adorn their temples. These are exquisite detailed and decorated carvings from large blocks of butter - quite beautiful.

Kanchenjunga Waterfall

Ralong Monastery

Over the centuries the capital of Sikkim has moved progressively east as a result of invasions by both the Mongols and Nepalis and we managed to visit all four of the historical capitals, the oldest location being where the first ruler of Sikkim was crowned at Yuksom, which is also the closest we got to Kanchenjunga, though we could not see it due to cloud and haze.

Sikkim Landscape

One night at Ravangla we were treated to an evening of crashing thunderstorms and torrential rain, but the reward was clear air the following morning with spectacular views of Kanchenjunga, which we enjoyed to the full over breakfast. By mid morning the cloud had built and obscured the peak, and regularly by late afternoon it would start to rain.
Everywhere we went we were welcomed and people were very friendly wanting to chat and welcome us. One lady took us to visit the local residential school where for the brightest students the Government provides free boarding education.












Rock Crushing alongside road in Bangladesh

We reluctantly left Sikkim and dropped back down to the much hotter lowland. Wanting to visit Kolkata we decided we could head south through Bangladesh - a country we knew little about.

Kantanagar Temple

The first impression is that it is much poorer than India with far fewer cars on the roads. At the border there were hundreds of trucks carrying rock heading through the border, and all along the road south from the border were rock crushing plants. It dawned on us that Bangladesh occupies the flat fertile silty land round the Brahmaputra Delta and therefore has very little rock. From the road everywhere is green as far as the eye can see, with rice in all stages of maturity, and workers scattered through the fields. Interestingly as we passed through communities they we serviced by hundreds of electric powered cyclos and tuk tuks. As we headed south the tuk tuks were powered by electricity, or for the longer distance routes by Compressed Natural Gas.


Kantanagar Temple terracotta frieze

Nayabad Mosque

As we looked up what to see in Bangladesh it became apparent that it has a long and fascinating history. Our first find was the exquisite Hindu Kantanagar Temple, constructed in the early 1700's. It is notable for being completely covered in detailed terracotta tiles depicting life in the 1700's, all in fantastic condition. Just nearby in a very rural village is the tiny Nayabad Mosque, believed to have been built for the architects and builders of the temple.

Somapura Mahavihara

A defaced original terracotta tile

Somapura Mahavihara - was one of the five major Buddhist monasteries and was built between 781 and 821 AD. It is a huge site covering 27 acres and had a colonnaded perimeter with 177 cells for the resident monks surrounding the huge temple. We were able to stay in the grounds camping outside the "Rest House" so were able to spend the evening and following morning exploring the site. One of the archaeologists took us round the site where we could see some of the original terracotta tiles, still in excellent condition, apart from the faces being removed presumably by the invading muslims in 13th century. The temple was only discovered in the early 1900's as it was a jungle covered mound in the flat landscape.

Town walls of 4tc Century BC Mahasthan Garh

Evidence of much older habitation is found at Mahasthan Garh - ruins of a 4 century BC town. To date much of the town's brick defensive walls have been excavated and restored with ongoing excavations taking place at specific locations inside the walls to determine the layout.
As there is no available rock, all the old structures are built from fired bricks - and it interesting that as we travelled south brick kilns became ever more numerous. Bricks have been used for constructing the elevated roads - many only recently surfaced with tarmacadam, bricks are crushed to create aggregate and ground fill, so huge numbers are still produced.

Green Paddy fields with brick works

We eventually reached Dhaka - where the traffic is incredible and the congestion awful, but fortunately arrived on Independence Day, so were spared the worst of it. Dhaka is incredibly vibrant with very lively bazaars much more akin to those found in the Middle East, and hidden amongst the tawdry modern structures are some old gems, from the Mughal period and later colonial buildings. The old Mughal Lalbag Fort is one of the few open spaces in Dhaka. It was never complete but does retain boundary walls and a double layer drainage system as well as a small mosque and tomb of Bibir Mazar. 

Mhugal Lalbag Fort

Armenian Church

Dhaka had a thriving Armenian community until many of them departed at partition in 1947, and then another exodus during the war of independence in 1971. Around 150 families remain and support the beautiful Armenian church constructed in the 1740's.

Old Caravanseri Gateway now in bazaar

Hidden in the bazaar are the remains of two old and large caravanseri, but little remains apart from a couple of the gatehouses.
Bangladesh has been a real surprise, a lot of interesting history and very friendly and helpful people.

 

Dhaka Traffic jam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
    

India - the East

Shallow Loktak Lake where greenery makes fish breeding compounds 

Thousands demonstrate in Imphal

A couple of days driving from Bagan and we arrived at the border with India. What a contrast - the Myanmar border is two small roadside buildings where we exited the country after having our details captured onto a computer complete with a digital photo. The newly constructed Indian border post is large and clean and guarded by numerous armed military personnel. Here we had our details written into three ledgers before we even entered the country, then several more times at road checkpoints along the only road leading over the mountains. How the Indians love paperwork.

Roads in N E India

Ironically the ATM's were not working and the only place we could change currency was in Myanmar, so Sue just walked back past the border guards to Myanmar, then returned without any checks!
The Indian side of the border is immediately different, bustling tuk tuks, people, lorries and cars all jostling for position on the dusty streets, and it generally felt much poorer.
Having decided we would head to Lake Toktal 120kms inland we set off, but the badly potholed road, the frequent checkpoints, the very slow antique lorries, and a missing bridge all resulted in it taking 5 hours to complete the 120kms, consequently the last 20kms were completed in the dark - not a pleasant experience.

Commonwealth War Cemetery at Kohima

The North East states of India have only recently opened to tourists, and there is a strong move for independence from India so a large military presence is seen everywhere. It would also appear that there has been little investment in the area, with most people working in agriculture and the roads in appalling condition. Consequently there are many demonstrations as we discovered when we drove through Imphal.
Kohima on the mountain ridge hosts a Commonwealth War Cemetery where the critical battle of Kohima in WW2 saw the allies at last stop the Japanese advance into India. Several thousand graves of mainly British and Indian troops are laid out round the tennis court of the old Governor's residence as the opposing trenches were at each end of the court - the closest trenches of the second world war. These precipitous jungle clad mountain ranges must have been a terrible place to wage war.

Indian Wild Rhino

As we dropped down into Assam the road infrastructure improved, and were made aware of how scared locals are of elephants when we were told to turn back as some elephants were grazing the verge of the road. In the end we waited for 20 minutes until they wandered off into the forest. It has been a great surprise how many wild elephant there seem to be, not just in the National parks, but also in general forested areas adjoining agricultural land.

Another driving hazard

The main east west road through Assam is in significantly better condition, but it also means more traffic, with apparently suicidal overtaking by cars and lorries in the face of oncoming traffic - something you just have to get used to.
Kaziringa National Park beckoned as it has the largest population of wild Asian one horned Rhino. We camped just outside for a couple of nights and took a morning jeep safari into the park. We were rewarded with sightings of several rhino - quite different to the African Rhino as they appear to be wearing plates of armour. In addition to elephant there are a host of birds.
Assam is a surprisingly large  and varied state with huge areas of the flat land by the rivers devoted to tea plantations which run for miles beside the roads.

Assam tea plantation

Living root bridges

In the south of Assam the land climbs steeply to a range of mountains bordering Bangladesh where the natives have made bridges across the rivers from the roots of fig trees. The road crosses a plateau which appears much like parts of Scotland, except deep tree covered river valleys drop several thousand feet. Approaching the Bangladesh border the land suddenly drops almost vertically several thousand feet to the Bangladesh plains, and it is in these valleys that the root bridges have been constructed over generations. After descending a rocky road clinging to a near vertical cliff we parked and only had to descend (the climb back up) the 2500 steps into the valley where the bridges are. Hard work, but spare a thought for the porters who carry everything needed by the villagers living at the bottom of the valleys.

Black Capped Langu

Plateau Edge into Bangladesh

Travelling back north we reached the flood plains of the mighty Irawaddy River, which at this time of year is relatively small, only a couple of kms wide, before heading to the Manas National park bordering Bhutan. After a night camped in the police compound  we took a safari through the park, with more beautiful wildlife including black capped langurs, to the Bhutan border, even crossing a few metres into Bhutan.

Irawaddy River

Darjeeling

The last few days we have headed further west and north abruptly leaving the plains of northern West Bengal and climbing steeply into the foothills of the Himalaya to Darjeeling. A fantastic road across the ridges climbs the 2000 metres to Darjeeling, but sadly the continuing haze made for poor visibility of the stunning drops to either side. Darjeeling itself is built on the top of a mountain and has dark, narrow and very steep streets, filled with people including lots of tourists from all countries. It was almost continuously shrouded in mist and haze, and very polluted from all the vehicles. Amazingly we were able to camp, along with two French traditional camper vans, right in the centre by the Governors House  with permanent security guards on patrol. We took the opportunity to ride on the steam powered narrow gauge railway which was built in the 1880's and in 80kms climbs 7000 ft from Siliguri to Darjeeling. Our trip only went 8kms but was incredible as the small engine puffed its way up 1 in 18 inclines wheels spinning to get grip. With the railway sharing the road with cars and people it is quite chaotic and almost incessant whistling to warn of the trains approach.

Darjeeling narrow gauge railway

Our last night in Darjeeling was spent camping just under Tiger Hill - a viewpoint for Kanchenjunga - the third highest mountain in the world - and we were up at 4.30 to join the hundreds of people who had been driven from town to watch the sunrise. Fortunately the clouds kept away long enough to see the mountains, though too much high cloud prevented the sun catching the tops.
Our next stop is Sikkim.

 

Road sharing

 

Camp with Kanchenjunga in background

Darjeeling traffic

 

 

 

 

Great Hornbill