The largest river island in the world

I'm home!! Back in the United States. But I still have so many photos and stories to share from India. Here's one from last February...

Majuli is the largest river island in the world. How could I resist a trip there? It's accessible only by a 2-hour ferry—and that's after my flight from Delhi, an overnight train, and two excruciatingly long busrides. The ferries are packed to the brim. There was so much weight on mine—people, cars, animals—that cargo puttered along just a few inches above the waterline. If the surrounding river weren't so glassy, we would have taken on water for sure. Check out the photos of the ferry. Claustrophobia much?

On the island, the first thing I did was register with the police. Majuli is in the northeastern state of Assam, where a large portion of the population is addicted to chewing tobacco. It puts a strange taste in your mouth (pun intended) when everyone smiles at you with bright red tobacco teeth. Hello, police station. An officer there told me that there were 150,000 islanders and only one foreign tourist: me. After hearing that, my mind raced to thoughts of red-teethed zombies attacking me. So I registered. This consisted of signing my name and passport number in a tethered book. Not very comforting. Afterwards, I found a hotel for six American bucks and went to sleep.

The next morning, I wanted to rent a bicycle. I had read that the island—a few hundred square kilometers of marshland—is best explored leisurely on a bike or scooter. I didn't know where to get one, so I returned to my police officer friend.  He said that he'd find one for me. I watched as he walked outside and almost threw a random passerby off his bicycle. He then gave me that bike. Oh, Indian police. Such crude methods. That said, it was great having a temporary bike, and I routed my new wheels towards the famous mask-makers, deep inside the island. (I planned to return the bike when I was finished, of course!)

During the ride, I passed fields of yellow mustard flowers and lots of people who wanted to say hello. I saw what looked like a five-year-old driving a tractor (remember that kids grow up fast here) and another boy who had just caught a fish. After two hours of biking, I made it to the mask makers. On Majuli, village life centers around satras, multi-functional spaces that serve as monasteries, schools, theaters, and gathering spots. Each satra has its own specialty or trade, and this one made elaborate ceremonial masks.

A man at the satra volunteered to wear the masks and dance around for me. Does it get any better? Definitely didn't pass him up on the offer.  He tried on many of them, swaying his head to and fro, giving me a private performance. The coolest part was that the eyes on the masks could blink, and the mouths opened and shut. Pretty awesome. Pretty strange. That's Majuli in a nutshell: beautiful and bizarre.

I left the island on the same ferry that brought me there and got a final surprise after it had landed on shore. Unbelievably, there were no buses to take passengers to the nearest town (more than 30 kilometers away), and everyone was expected to spend the night on the shoreline. There were no hotels. It was a beach—and just a beach. Panic mode set in.

I ran up to a nearby policeman and asked him what I should do. As luck would have it, there were two other officers who had just arrived on the ferry, and the policeman had brought an empty 40-passenger bus to pick them up. They let me, the hysterical foreigner, board the bus, as the rest of the stranded ferry passengers pounded on the bus doors and windows, trying desperately to get a seat on a vehicle that was 90% empty. The bus almost ran them over. I kid you not! Craziness. I felt guilty about taking the bus. But in India, I take a break when I can get one.

Indian kids

Apologies if this offends anyone (e.g., my future children), but I think Indian kids—we're talking ages 2 to 10—are cuter than American kids. (For that matter, Asian babies, with their chubby faces, win the baby contest.) Check out these photos I took in northern India. How can you not agree?

One-horned rhino hunting

Well, not hunting. But it sure felt like a throwback to India's colonial days, riding atop an elephant through eight-foot grasses at dawn in pursuit of a rhino. All I was missing was a big white mustache.

Khaziranga National Park in northeast India—the bulbous part of the country surrounded by Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, and China—is tough to get to but worth the visit. From Delhi, I took a 3-hour flight, an 8-hour train, and a 4-hour bus. Planes, trains, and automobiles. The rhinos, with their charcoal plated armor and articulated rib bones, look as close as anything to prehistoric. They grunt and stomp and charge, even overturn a safari jeep or two when they get the urge. That one horn packs a punch.

Himalayan desert camels

In north India, furry spitting two-humped camels brought from the Silk Road live in a high-altitude desert at 10,000 feet. They strut across the sand as clouds dip and swirl above them, the Hamalayas rising above the horizon line like stony snow-capped monoliths.

Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal lives up to all the hype. At sunrise, it surpasses it. I visited the Taj on a few occasions. It got better each time. (My landlord here agrees that it improves with age. I think it's the only thing on which we see eye-to-eye.) The work that went into it—20,000 workers over 20 years—is impressive: marble is cut with precision, inlays are intricate, windows with honey-combed openings are carved from single stone slabs, the facade is massive.

I think my favorite part is its story. (Pre-emptive apology for the brief history lesson.) The Taj was built to commemorate an Indian emperor's wife. Shah Jahan, who ruled the Mughal empire for thirty years in the 17th century, lost his beloved Mumtaz Mahal to pregnancy complications. He commissioned India's largest mausoleum in her memory. The emperor soon lost power to his sons, who locked him away in a palace. He could see the Taj only from afar and spent his final years admiring its beauty from a distant window. Shah Jahan is said to have loved his wife more than anything. It shows.

Imprisoned by his son, the disrobed Shah Jahn stared through latticed windows in his palace. He had this view of the Taj Mahal.

Skies in India (Part II)

I'm home in the U.S. for two weeks. It's wonderful, if only because I don't worry about shower water getting in my mouth and giving me stomach problems. But I'm missing my favorite things about India—cheap tasty food, cows on the road, auto-rickshaws, Hindi, sunrises and sunsets. A few months ago, I posted about India's skies. Here are more of my favorite photos. Can you believe the Himalayas at sunset glow pink?