A Jungle Jaunt and Misty Memories: Trip to Manas

We travel, initially to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves - Pico Iyer

We travel to escape from the mundane, to explore the unknown and feel the bliss of being ourselves. We lose ourselves in chatter and drunken revelry. The inner voice we wanted to hear is lost in the cacophony rising out of tour guides advertising their services and tourists haggling in a souvenir shop. So we return the same person, richer maybe only with the knowledge of the best bargain hotels and a Facebook album. To find ourselves, often remains a distant dream. It is due to this reason that I always look forward to a trip that takes me off the beaten track , where nature can be experienced in its purest form and I can return a fuller person if not a better one. My trip to Manas National Park, Assam in March 2009 was one such journey.

Manas National Park on the Indo-Bhutan border has always been the hidden Shangri-La for me with its inaccessibility adding to its mystery. Manas , which is one of the ‘Project Tiger’ national parks in India, lies about 175 kms from my hometown, Guwahati. Despite its proximity to the capital city, Manas has always been the country cousin of the famed Kaziranga national park, partly because it was notorious for the militant Bodo Liberation Tigers throughout the nineties. The park was made open to the public only in 1999. A few government officials did manage to sneak into the park and enjoy family outings in the protection of personal security officers, a privilege reserved in my state only for the babudom [bureaucracy]. The stories of Manas they recounted added to the mystique surrounding the park. In March 2009, after a lot of deliberation I decided to set out for Manas. As I had returned home after almost a year and a half, a family get-together of sorts was planned. Not being the biggest admirer of the ‘Great Indian Family’, I wondered if I would have been better off in the wilds by myself or maybe with a friend and some rum. However, the thought of going into the wild was enough to make me change into the family-man mode. So on a lazy Saturday morning, I set out on a journey into the wild - not exactly in Christopher McCandless style- accompanied by mom, aunt, cousin, her husband and two little nieces. Using every possible contact we had, we booked a room in the forest guest house which is normally reserved for high-ranking government officials and ministers. Everyone knows everyone else in Assam; you need not be very well connected.

We approached Manas through its central entry point at Bansbari as we made our way though Assam’s Bodo autonomous districts. The roads were expectedly bad. The potholes and the road blended into such a seamless continuity that one never realized one is driving on potholes. The excitement of my nieces at the prospect of spotting a tiger was enough to keep my cynicism at bay. After three hours of a backbreaking drive we finally reached the entry point where we were warmly greeted by the forest officials. After fulfilling the formalities at the guest house, we drove deeper into the jungle as the landscape around us changed almost dramatically. The fresh jungle air itself gives a kick to city slickers like me. Manas is real wild country .The vegetation is so thick that if you get lost you won’t probably find your way out for a million years. After driving almost an hour through some of the thickest jungles one can imagine, we reached the banks of the Manas river which lends its name to the national park. On the other bank of the river were the eastern foothills of the Himalayas .The blue hills shrouded in the late morning mist, the sound of the river waters hitting the cliffs and a wild buffalo lazily drinking water completed the picture postcard feel of the place. I later learnt that the other bank of the river was actually Bhutan’s territory with the river serving as the international border. No checkpost, no fences, no gun-toting soldiers. It was a place John Lennon would have loved. The forest guest house, which stood overlooking the river, was built as a ‘chang-ghar’, the architectural style common in the northeast where the house is built at an elevation, supported by wooden pillars or bamboo poles . We checked into the guest house and were pleasantly surprised to find it spotlessly clean and freshly painted. After a hearty meal and lots of mindless chatter, we decided to set out for Bhutan on an impulse. Nature does strange things to people. We were joined on the trip by Michael, a young forest security guard. A local Bodo youth, Michael was a polyglot, conversant in Assamese, Nepali, Bhutanese, Hindi and English. He suggested that we could venture deep into Bhutanese territory without any problems. The way to Bhutan started with a narrow hilly track that was so steep and treacherous that we felt that the engine of our Tata Sumo might give up any time sending us downhill. The scenery was so breathtaking that we had to stop every five minutes just to feast our eyes. The misty mountain tops, the serpentine river flowing through the thick jungles and the Buddhist prayer flags fluttering in the distance - this was indeed Shangri-La. The officer at the border check post let us in without much fuss. I wished all our neighbors were as friendly as this Himalayan kingdom. We made our way to a tiny Bhutanese village called Panbang, where life seemed to have slowed down to an extent that I felt people were living in slow motion. The sight of young girls carrying cherubic babies on their backs and young lads in football jerseys made it feel like any other northeastern hill town. After a cup of tea in a roadside stall we returned the guest house. It was already pitch dark. The lights at the guest house were switched off. We were provided candles. Nature gives everyone a strange adrenaline rush. Within an hour everyone was ready for the night safari in an open jeep. My nieces were the most excited, their encounter with the big cats being just moments away. The driver was very much at home in the jungle tracks. We saw herds of sambhars , pygmy hogs and wild cats, their bright eyes piercing the darkness. Much to the disappointment of the kids, there was no ‘Tiger, tiger burning bright’ moment. As the family called it a day, I managed to get some Bhutanese ‘Druk’ beer and spent an hour watching the river as the moon shone brightly over it. There was a small forest fire on the top of the hills. The constant gush of the river and the crickets created a surreal atmosphere. I had to fight an urge to go down to the river. I felt the local beer making me light in the head. I knew it was time to hit the bed.

Early next morning we went on an elephant safari, very much the standard thing to do for tourists. On our way to the starting point of the safari, we were pleasantly surprised to find a number of peacocks blocking the way. Other than deer and wild pigs and some spectacularly colorful birds, there was hardly any wildlife to feast our eyes on. The elephant seemed disinterested, often going off track. Carrying fat Indian families on your back early in the morning isn’t the job description that would make one excited. I wholly empathized with the elephant.

Back at the guest house, we had a quick breakfast and packed our bags .It was time to say goodbye to Manas, but not before one final adventure. Instead of driving to the exit point of the national park, we decided to take a raft downstream along the Manas river which would take us to the same point. The water was shallow at that time of the year but the current was strong. While whitewater rafting at some other parts of the country might give a bigger adrenaline rush, rafting at Manas was a different experience altogether. With the thick jungles on one bank and the Himalayan foothills on the other, the serene setting gives an amazing sense of inner calm. I was surprised how every once in a while our conversations would be punctuated by deep silences as everyone soaked themselves in the atmosphere. When nature has such an overwhelming presence, words become superfluous. When we reached the exit at Panbari we drove back home in our trusted Tata Sumo which did not let us down even in the roughest of terrains.

Looking back, the trip has acquired the quality of a late afternoon reverie. With time the minute details blur into a dreamy continuity. As the memories get foggier, I believe Manas would one day remain with me as a haze of laughter, mist and moonlight. That is exactly how I would like to remember Manas. In the words of Pico Iyer again, the best of journeys, like the best of love affairs are never really over. Today , I know what he means.