We met at 6:30 am to begin our trip to the Sunderbans. Our wonderful little group consisted of me, Arnab who works at New Light, his wife Sungita and their 13 year old daughter Pebbles, Tony, Arnab's Scottish nephew, his English girlfriend Ruth and Sophie, an 18 year old volunteer from New York.
It was about a 2.5 hour drive to where we would board the boat and was foggy and beautiful all the way down. We stopped at a village near the jetty to buy some prawns that were the size of baby cats and some fresh crabs as well.
We got loaded into our sweet little boat and we decided that we would be pirates. The Sunderbunions.
The area is beautiful. It was like I imagine the Amazon to look like. Everything was very green and lush. We saw some very large crocodiles, some whistling ducks, many monkeys but alas, no tigers. We stopped to pick up our guide, which is required and to show our passports. After we got back on the boat, my stomach started to rumble and soon it felt like the rock 'em sock 'em robots were having a championship bout in my tummy. I spent the rest of the day and night in the head pooping and puking my brains out. Not fun.
When we got to the island where we stayed we had to walk about 1/4 mile to our little motel and it was the longest walk ever on top of a mud wall that was created after the cyclone. I had a terrible night of being so sick that they talked about flying me out. But luckily by morning I was much better. I stayed behind while everyone went out on the boat to explore other islands and visit people there. Arnab asked the man at the motel to keep an eye on me and he was great. He brought me water and a newspaper. In the afternoon he came to check on me and I had been dead asleep for several hours. He took one look at me and pointed to my hair with a sour look on his face. He didn't speak English but it was clear that he was telling me I should comb my hair. This was so funny.
On the third day we had to leave but we went to another island, Bali where we gave out some blankets and toys for the children. The people were crying with joy as I handed them a new wool blanket that cost less than $1. This was stunning to me and so incredibly touching. I could not stop crying and was so full of emotion. It still blows my mind to see how little it takes to change someone's life here in India. They have so little and we have so much.
I had a wonderful trip to the Sunderbans. I would highly recommend this trip to anyone. It's beautiful and peaceful there and nobody knows about it.
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