The Sundarbans

Since getting to Bangladesh, I had heard about the mythic Sundarbans mangrove forest in the south, the largest mangrove ecosystem in the world, and home to the legendary Royal Bengal Tiger. It remained on some sort of mental 'to do' as the river of life here in Bangladesh flew, drifted, tumbled and otherwise meandered along. All this changed when a French friend of mine Melody organised a small group of us to visit the Sundarbans on an eco-tour.

We converged at the airport midweek after work, and before a public holiday (the hindu durga puja). After some delay which gave extra time to sample some mishti (Bengali sweets), we flew from Dhaka to Jessore, then took a minivan for a couple of sleepy hours. There was a certain deep-seated pleasure from gliding on the soft, furry edge between wake and sleep. Eventually we arrived on The Boat around 1am to drift into an excited night-before-christmas type of sleep.

While we slept the little vessel chugged through the night, inching its way down the Pasur river. Upon dawn breaking, my bleary eyes met with a visage of panoramic stillness, a mirror reflection of distant treelines in the gently ebbing water. We had arrived in the Sundarbans, around 10,000 square kilometres of mangroves, a vast delta on the Bay of Bengal formed by the super confluence of the Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers. From the air it looks like a world of capillaries and blood vessels; from the ground it's like you are stepping into a primordial interface between water, trees, and sky.

Our little boat was an exercise in rotund cuteness; squat yet charming, with green and orange sides. There were six tiny compartments down below that slept two each in a cosy fashion, while up top a mini deck provided a shared relaxation place. I felt a bit guilty that there were at least six crew there to support the eight of us, mostly crammed into the crew box-like section at the back. However these type of space constraints were pretty much standard in Bangladesh - maybe you just notice it more when you're on a boat for three days. The tour operator, Rapantar, was more than just a travel company, quoting from Travel To Care:

The company originally had its start as a development organisation under the name Rupantar, which means ‘social transformation.’ The central idea behind its work is that development practitioners use local social/cultural media to encourage change among its client villages. In plain English, these are music performances where the villagers gather not only for entertainment but to hear stories about the difficulties some members of their society face and how they overcome those challenges. Given the low literacy rates and difficulties in transmitting information between the remote villages of the Sundarbans, Rupantar has discovered a unique, effective and culturally appropriate way to spread ideas.

Over the next three days we drifted through various canals and tributaries, marveling at the expanses of sky and water around us, unheard of back in Dhaka. At one point we took on two armed guards - apparently to protect from pirates and tigers. Back in Dhaka I found a Daily Star article that suggested we were lucky to be protected by more than just sticks! As for the tigers, there are estimated to be around 450 left in the forest, but these are threatened by poachers and angry villagers. On the latter point, the villagers actually do have a reason to be angry - on average a tiger will kill a person every three days in the Sundabans - the exact duration of our trip. With their habit shrinking from illegal woodcutting, tigers have been increasing coming in contact with humans. There are some projects that provide alternative livelhoods to villagers to make them less reliant on extraction from the forest. From the tigers' side the SundarbansTigerProject increases research and conservation efforts in the area.

Eventually though it all had to come to an end, and as the sun set while we chugged along back to Khulna, I realised that the last three days had been the most peaceful and beauty-rich in Bangladesh. I hope to return someday!




Postscript: Praise Kid Garden

I took a day off and to stay in Khulna, another of our party Anne did the same. We visited a school that my wonderful Bangla teacher in Melbourne, Mary-Anne Hess, would donate the money from our classes to. I had always wanted to visit it and finally got the chance. The school, called Praise Kid Garden, housed and educated around 70 children from disadvantaged backgrounds - many from indigenous minority groups in the north of Bangladesh. It was started in 2002 by a NGO worker and Christian preacher Patrick Dias, who wanted to find a home for the many small children that he found local women were offering to him as they could no longer support them. Today he still runs the school entirely voluntarily, doing additional translation jobs as paid employment. He is an inspiring, warm hearted man who embodies a combination of love and determination.