Everyone woke early and we walked down to the riverfront to view a fish market that was in full swing since before dawn. Phil had been since before dawn and had been taking pictures of the weird fishes that lay glistening on the sand or in metal trays.
We walked from the fish market to another market nearby that was full of aromas and strange looking stuff amidst more recognizable produce. After taking photos and wandering about for a bit it was time to head back to the hotel for lunch and then our trip to the airport.
Chris and Rup were staying on an extra day as their flights didn’t leave until tomorrow but Phil, Bob and I were due to fly today. We hugged our goodbyes and were driven to the airport.
Check-in was straightforward and we took off on schedule. The flight to Delhi took us by the Himalayas again and we were treated again to a fabulous view of a low sun hitting the snowy mountains horizontally above and below the clouds.
We landed and said goodbye to Phil, who was due to fly shortly and then Bob and I were taken to another hotel for a night before flying early tomorrow. The taxi driver had no idea where the hotel was and Bob tried to give him directions in Hindi but failed. We eventually phoned the hotel on Bob’s mobile and let the driver speak to them directly. This didn’t seem to work either.
After searching the unmarked and teeming alleys of Karol Bagh for 20 minutes, I recognized the hotel where we had stayed the last time and asked the driver to stop. I told him to wait while I went into the hotel to see if they knew where the hotel we should be staying in was. They didn’t so I walked back out to find the taxi and Bob had gone.
I looked around me and realized I had absolutely no idea where I was. I walked to the end of the alley and still was completely lost. I considered my options: I had my passport and tickets and wallet so could probably find my way to the airport eventually. But I only had a couple of rupees and wasn’t able to use my cash card of visa as far as I knew. After about ten minutes of looking, thinking, panicking, calming down, thinking and then just looking, a horn sounded and I turned to see the taxi driver behind me. I spread my arms wide in a ”Where the fuck have you been?” gesture and glared at him as I got back in the taxi. Bob said that he’d told the man to stop but he’d just driven away and stopped about a block away for no reason and waited. Eventually he just decided to drive back to the hotel to find me. His actions were a complete mystery.
After more phone calls we eventually found the right hotel. After we had offloaded our bags the taxi driver looked at us for a tip and I felt like hitting him. Bob searched for his best Hindi - “No!”.
We had a late supper and slept for a while before another telephone alarm call dragged us and our bags down to the foyer. A waiting taxi drove us through a waking Delhi to the airport and we checked in for the early morning flight to the U.K.
An uneventful flight took us to Dubai where we killed time looking at various duty free offerings in the vast Emirates terminal. It really is too big for itself and takes forever to walk around. Another uneventful flight took us from Dubai to Gatwick where we landed in a cold November evening at 18:00.
I said goodbye to Bob at the train station and staggered under the weight of my rucksack onto the train bound for Clapham Junction and then Dorset. At Gillingham station, a taxi met me and took me the last few miles home where I slumped contentedly into my sofa. The house was freezing so I put the fire on to warm up.
I skyped Claudette and with a hot cup of tea chatted to her for ages. It was so good to hear her voice and to know that she would be with me in two days time.
I’d better tidy the house…
Thursday 4 February 2010
15th November – Back to Guwahati…
Today was supposed to be another day in the national park but we weren’t in the mood really and decided to leave early and head back to Guwahati.
After the usual hotel breakfast where toast arrives hours before the jam and butter and nothing is available on the vast menu, we set off to Guwahati, eight hours away. The drive took us back over the Brahmaputra and we arrived at our hotel by late afternoon. The hotel was comfortable and overlooked the river where fish kites circled endlessly looking for prey.
After dumping our bags in the room we headed into the centre to buy a few things and see the aftermath of the 18 bombs that tore the city apart a few weeks ago.
It was business as usual and the streets were full of traders and people going about their daily lives. So that’s the effect that terrorists have – nothing in the long run. On one street that had taken a direct hit, it was virtually impossible to see any signs of the bomb blast. A small notice of solidarity hung at the spot where the bomb went off but this was largely obscured by all the market traders’ goods and people milling about as normal.
We discovered another threat to the city too. Apparently there have been an increasing number of people being attacked at ATMs in the city by – leopards! I guess the leopards need cash too and haven’t figured out how to use the keypad yet.
The evening was spent drinking and having a lazy supper. We all made phone calls and repacked our bags for the flights tomorrow.
After the usual hotel breakfast where toast arrives hours before the jam and butter and nothing is available on the vast menu, we set off to Guwahati, eight hours away. The drive took us back over the Brahmaputra and we arrived at our hotel by late afternoon. The hotel was comfortable and overlooked the river where fish kites circled endlessly looking for prey.
After dumping our bags in the room we headed into the centre to buy a few things and see the aftermath of the 18 bombs that tore the city apart a few weeks ago.
It was business as usual and the streets were full of traders and people going about their daily lives. So that’s the effect that terrorists have – nothing in the long run. On one street that had taken a direct hit, it was virtually impossible to see any signs of the bomb blast. A small notice of solidarity hung at the spot where the bomb went off but this was largely obscured by all the market traders’ goods and people milling about as normal.
We discovered another threat to the city too. Apparently there have been an increasing number of people being attacked at ATMs in the city by – leopards! I guess the leopards need cash too and haven’t figured out how to use the keypad yet.
The evening was spent drinking and having a lazy supper. We all made phone calls and repacked our bags for the flights tomorrow.
14th November – from Tea to Kaziranga…
The factory sirens didn’t disturb me and I woke at 06:30 feeling good. Phil and I had the usual tea and coffee from the house servants whilst we washed and then wandered over to Sanjay’s bungalow for our 08:00 rendezvous. Today we would see the tea factory.
Green leaves picked from the plantation were spread over vast drying trays where huge fans blow air from various angles to dry them. When sufficiently dry, these were taken to the main factory for processing. The factory floor was covered with a host of machines and conveyor belts linking everything together. There were rollers, cutters, threshers, shakers, heaters, blowers and sifters. Detailed flow charts hung on the walls describing the Orthodox and CTC manufacturing processes (in case anyone forgot?). Sanjay took us through each stage of the process and let us examine the tea as workers eyed us from their machines. It was an amazing combination of highly controlled mechanization and intense manual labour. At one point in the process, women with metal sifting trays sorted the entire tea stock coming down the production line to manually remove stalks and other foreign objects. The tea would then be put back onto the production line for its final sorting and packaging. Tea ‘gurus’ (who had spent a lifetime with tea) wandered about the factory floor to oversee the entire process and make adjustments where necessary. At the final stage of bagging up, a very accurate weigh-scale was used to measure exact amounts of tea into each sack for onward shipment. This weigh-scale was used to settle a long-running argument that had raged for the entire trip on the river.
In some rapids, big stopper waves risk collapsing the front of the raft and hence, possibly swamp or flip it. The larger/heavier people are usually placed at the front of the raft to prevent this. The downside of this is that these people invariably end up drenched for most of the time. Bob had insisted for some time that he was not the heaviest in the group and had objected to being placed on the front of the raft to ‘stabilise’ it. He thought that Chris and/or Rup should take turns in front as they were equal, if not heavier than him. The scales would resolve this once and for all. Over the din of the factory I couldn’t quite hear the result but I think that Bob was judged to be the heaviest according to the scales which shut him up.
Sanjay led us from the factory to the tasting room where cups of amber tea were laid out for him to sample. Sanjay tasted upwards of 100 cups of tea a day and had such an attuned palate that he could now tell which part of the manufacturing process required adjustment in order to produce the correct quality of tea. We watched as he noisily sucked in a mouthful of each cup, swilled it around his mouth and then spat it out into a container nearby. He would make comments about each tea on a clipboard which was then fed back into the manufacturing process. Sanjay produced a kilo of vacuum-packed Assamese tea and generously handed a bag to each of us. The tea was Tippy Golden Flowering Orange Pekoe (I think) which is the best quality tea.
Back at the bungalow a jeep arrived to take us to the last place on our holiday, the Kaziranga National Park. We loaded our rucksacks, said our goodbyes to Sanjay and Devicar, Billy and Alka and then drove out of the tea plantation for another day’s bumpy ride.
We drove across the Assamese plains and arrived at our hotel in the Kaziranga National Park in the middle of the afternoon. After a freshen up, we drove into the park for a mini safari which we hoped would result in us seeing some Rhinos a tiger or two and lots of other big wild animals.
As it was, we saw a few distant grey rocks (which were Rhinos), a domestic elephant and its cub right by the entrance to the park and a few raptors in the trees. We stopped by the Brahmaputra for a break and a freshwater dolphin surfaced in the water by us. These mammals are blind and navigate in the murky water via sonar. Phil also found a cobra snakeskin in the sand. So our highlight of the park was a blind dolphin and an empty snakeskin. After our adventure on the river, this felt so wrong and pointless so we drove back out of the park to our hotel. The drive home was freezing and we huddled together in the open-backed the jeep to keep warm. We walked down to a local restaurant and had a great supper washed down with plenty of beer before retiring to bed.
Green leaves picked from the plantation were spread over vast drying trays where huge fans blow air from various angles to dry them. When sufficiently dry, these were taken to the main factory for processing. The factory floor was covered with a host of machines and conveyor belts linking everything together. There were rollers, cutters, threshers, shakers, heaters, blowers and sifters. Detailed flow charts hung on the walls describing the Orthodox and CTC manufacturing processes (in case anyone forgot?). Sanjay took us through each stage of the process and let us examine the tea as workers eyed us from their machines. It was an amazing combination of highly controlled mechanization and intense manual labour. At one point in the process, women with metal sifting trays sorted the entire tea stock coming down the production line to manually remove stalks and other foreign objects. The tea would then be put back onto the production line for its final sorting and packaging. Tea ‘gurus’ (who had spent a lifetime with tea) wandered about the factory floor to oversee the entire process and make adjustments where necessary. At the final stage of bagging up, a very accurate weigh-scale was used to measure exact amounts of tea into each sack for onward shipment. This weigh-scale was used to settle a long-running argument that had raged for the entire trip on the river.
In some rapids, big stopper waves risk collapsing the front of the raft and hence, possibly swamp or flip it. The larger/heavier people are usually placed at the front of the raft to prevent this. The downside of this is that these people invariably end up drenched for most of the time. Bob had insisted for some time that he was not the heaviest in the group and had objected to being placed on the front of the raft to ‘stabilise’ it. He thought that Chris and/or Rup should take turns in front as they were equal, if not heavier than him. The scales would resolve this once and for all. Over the din of the factory I couldn’t quite hear the result but I think that Bob was judged to be the heaviest according to the scales which shut him up.
Sanjay led us from the factory to the tasting room where cups of amber tea were laid out for him to sample. Sanjay tasted upwards of 100 cups of tea a day and had such an attuned palate that he could now tell which part of the manufacturing process required adjustment in order to produce the correct quality of tea. We watched as he noisily sucked in a mouthful of each cup, swilled it around his mouth and then spat it out into a container nearby. He would make comments about each tea on a clipboard which was then fed back into the manufacturing process. Sanjay produced a kilo of vacuum-packed Assamese tea and generously handed a bag to each of us. The tea was Tippy Golden Flowering Orange Pekoe (I think) which is the best quality tea.
Back at the bungalow a jeep arrived to take us to the last place on our holiday, the Kaziranga National Park. We loaded our rucksacks, said our goodbyes to Sanjay and Devicar, Billy and Alka and then drove out of the tea plantation for another day’s bumpy ride.
We drove across the Assamese plains and arrived at our hotel in the Kaziranga National Park in the middle of the afternoon. After a freshen up, we drove into the park for a mini safari which we hoped would result in us seeing some Rhinos a tiger or two and lots of other big wild animals.
As it was, we saw a few distant grey rocks (which were Rhinos), a domestic elephant and its cub right by the entrance to the park and a few raptors in the trees. We stopped by the Brahmaputra for a break and a freshwater dolphin surfaced in the water by us. These mammals are blind and navigate in the murky water via sonar. Phil also found a cobra snakeskin in the sand. So our highlight of the park was a blind dolphin and an empty snakeskin. After our adventure on the river, this felt so wrong and pointless so we drove back out of the park to our hotel. The drive home was freezing and we huddled together in the open-backed the jeep to keep warm. We walked down to a local restaurant and had a great supper washed down with plenty of beer before retiring to bed.
13th November – More Tea Anyone?…
Sirens jolted me awake. I glanced at the time and noted it was 06:00 and still dark. Phil mumbled something about early morning alarm calls for workers at the factory next door and fell back asleep.
Sirens jolted me awake again. It was now 07:00 and light. “Oh, that’s to remind them that they really, really must start work now or else they’ll get fired” said Phil. We were both awake now.
The giant factory fans had been running all night to dry the tea and I could clearly hear them now. I’d been so used to sleeping with the sound of a rushing river in my ears that I hadn’t even noticed them last night.
I wandered into the living room and saw a man crumpled on the floor under a blanket. I startled him awake and he stood up blinking at me. “Sahib?” he said. I asked for tea and coffee and the man shuffled away into another room.
We showered and drank our tea/coffee and then strolled across to the bungalow to see if anyone else was up. An armed guard peered at us from a slit in his hut and then swung open the metal gate for us to enter the bungalow’s spacious and well manicured grounds.
Bungalow in the U.K. usually refers to a smallish single story residence in a modest plot of land. Sanjay’s bungalow was similar only inasmuch as it was a single story dwelling. The building itself looked beautiful in white wood and stone with a grand drive-in entrance porch and glass conservatory/greeting room. The bungalow stood in about 2 acres of manicured lawns and borders with a swimming pool, tennis court and servant buildings around it. This all sat within 900 hectares of the tea plantation itself.
Sanjay was awake and came to greet us as we sat in the glass conservatory. I was doing my usual trick of confusing the servants by asking for a pot or glass of hot water (garam pani) and waving my tea infuser at them. They’d nod and disappear and then reappear with a glass of cold or lukewarm water. Sanjay eventually helped out.
After a hearty breakfast, we spent the day relaxing and sorting out our rucksacks for the journey home. Sand was emptied out from just about everywhere and then fishing tackle, lures and reels were carefully stowed. Our clothes were given to the servants who washed and dried them thoroughly for us.
Sanjay took us for a drive around the plantation in the evening. As the sun set, another beautiful amber full moon rose through the trees and cast a soft glow across the plantation. Dirt tracks crossed vast ‘seas’ of uniformly clipped tea plants under tall shade trees. The landscape as far as the eye could see was given up to tea. We stopped at a nursery area where baby tea plants sat under netting waiting to be planted out. We saw rice and wheat fields among the tea for locals to grow their own crops. India employs around two million people in the tea trade alone. Sanjay has 1,500 workers at this plantation which even has its own hospital. Workers live within the plantation grounds and life seemed simple but stable and secure for them.
We returned to the bungalow for supper where Billy and Alka had now joined us. We were treated to a feast which Devicar oversaw with meticulous attention. Tandoori chicken, salads, curries, rice, vegetables and chapatis kept on coming and coming until we could eat no more. Then pudding and then more tea and coffee (and alcohol) before we settled down to watch the footage that Chris had taken with his video camera.
I don’t recall what time I eventually got to bed but I remember feeling utterly satiated.
Sirens jolted me awake again. It was now 07:00 and light. “Oh, that’s to remind them that they really, really must start work now or else they’ll get fired” said Phil. We were both awake now.
The giant factory fans had been running all night to dry the tea and I could clearly hear them now. I’d been so used to sleeping with the sound of a rushing river in my ears that I hadn’t even noticed them last night.
I wandered into the living room and saw a man crumpled on the floor under a blanket. I startled him awake and he stood up blinking at me. “Sahib?” he said. I asked for tea and coffee and the man shuffled away into another room.
We showered and drank our tea/coffee and then strolled across to the bungalow to see if anyone else was up. An armed guard peered at us from a slit in his hut and then swung open the metal gate for us to enter the bungalow’s spacious and well manicured grounds.
Bungalow in the U.K. usually refers to a smallish single story residence in a modest plot of land. Sanjay’s bungalow was similar only inasmuch as it was a single story dwelling. The building itself looked beautiful in white wood and stone with a grand drive-in entrance porch and glass conservatory/greeting room. The bungalow stood in about 2 acres of manicured lawns and borders with a swimming pool, tennis court and servant buildings around it. This all sat within 900 hectares of the tea plantation itself.
Sanjay was awake and came to greet us as we sat in the glass conservatory. I was doing my usual trick of confusing the servants by asking for a pot or glass of hot water (garam pani) and waving my tea infuser at them. They’d nod and disappear and then reappear with a glass of cold or lukewarm water. Sanjay eventually helped out.
After a hearty breakfast, we spent the day relaxing and sorting out our rucksacks for the journey home. Sand was emptied out from just about everywhere and then fishing tackle, lures and reels were carefully stowed. Our clothes were given to the servants who washed and dried them thoroughly for us.
Sanjay took us for a drive around the plantation in the evening. As the sun set, another beautiful amber full moon rose through the trees and cast a soft glow across the plantation. Dirt tracks crossed vast ‘seas’ of uniformly clipped tea plants under tall shade trees. The landscape as far as the eye could see was given up to tea. We stopped at a nursery area where baby tea plants sat under netting waiting to be planted out. We saw rice and wheat fields among the tea for locals to grow their own crops. India employs around two million people in the tea trade alone. Sanjay has 1,500 workers at this plantation which even has its own hospital. Workers live within the plantation grounds and life seemed simple but stable and secure for them.
We returned to the bungalow for supper where Billy and Alka had now joined us. We were treated to a feast which Devicar oversaw with meticulous attention. Tandoori chicken, salads, curries, rice, vegetables and chapatis kept on coming and coming until we could eat no more. Then pudding and then more tea and coffee (and alcohol) before we settled down to watch the footage that Chris had taken with his video camera.
I don’t recall what time I eventually got to bed but I remember feeling utterly satiated.
12th November – Blankers and stark reality...
It was a race to be first up. The sleepy rafters watched as we bustled about getting rods together and organizing ourselves to get to the confluence. The Blankers party headed off accompanied by those in the know about the hot spot (me and Rup). Phil came along for the fun of it. Each Blanker would have five casts into the hot spot before the next Blanker took over.
As we walked towards the confluence we noted more tiger pug marks in the sand where we had not seen them yesterday. It was a sobering sight and reminded us that we were being watched.
Crossing the Sipla was an ordeal as people struggled to stay up in the knee deep water. Well it was knee deep where I crossed but other people chose to cross in crutch deep water instead and not only suffered the sharp intake of breath as cold water hits the gonads, but also nearly got swept away. They eventually made it by holding on to each other and using rods to stabilize themselves.
We reached the confluence and Bob was voted as the Blanker most worthy of casting first (I can’t quite remember why but it may have been down to his lack of clear vision having lost his glasses). A jelly lure was tied onto his line and I gave careful instructions about where he should fish. Once in position on the rocks, casting required nothing more than a gentle underarm flick to drop the lure 20ft out into the small eddy pool just below the confluence. Bob’s first cast was an over-arm lob and the lure disappeared into the mist upstream. By the time Bob had reset the reel and began retrieving his line the lure was already deeply lodged between two boulders on the riverbed. Bob tried in vain to get the lure back and broke the line eventually. We all agreed that Bob was unlucky and felt sorry for him so allowed him to still have another five casts before handing over to the next Blanker.
Bob’s second cast was better but he still didn’t manage to set his reel and retrieve line in time to prevent another lure wedging itself firmly between a different pair of boulders on the riverbed. He tried again in vain to get the lure back and broke the line. We all agreed that Bob was no longer unlucky but just an imbecile and didn’t feel sorry for him any more. Beside, at this rate, there would be so many lures in the pool that the mahseer would be forced downstream to find a new lie.
Chris was given the next shot at the hot spot and got himself into position whilst Bob skulked away into the rocks to tie on another lure. Chris cast perfectly into the pool but let his jelly lure sink too far and also got hooked up on a rock. I was beginning to understand why they had earned the title of Blankers.
Anyway, Chris lost a lure, Billy lost a lure and Bob ended up losing seven lures in total. We were all fishing by now having lost the will to sit and watch good water being filled up with jelly lures. Phil also started fishing and caught a small mahseer on a little jointed plug which brought a repeat of his master-class episode from a few days earlier.
The hot spot was decidedly cool and not surprising really considering the pressure it was put under yesterday by Rup and me. We spread out and searched for fish downstream for a few hours but no-one caught except Rup who managed to hook into something good in the large eddy pool below the rapids but his line broke again!
I felt brave and managed to cross the Sipla at the confluence where Tazir and Arun crossed yesterday. It was scary going though even with my felt wading boots on and I didn’t want to repeat the journey. Alka was fishing above the confluence with Sanjay. She managed to land a 2lb mahseer on a small toby spoon and Sanjay caught a 5lb mahseer on a rubber crayfish pattern. The Blankers party eventually struggled back over the Sipla and returned to camp for breakfast at 09:00.
Nino and his team used up all the eggs and other remaining rations to produce a real fry up for us. Eggs, omelettes, puris, curried beans and salad were wolfed down by us all.
We packed our bags and loaded the rafts for last time. As we drifted by the confluence I cast half-heartedly into the hot spot but was not surprised when nothing grabbed my lure. We rafted for a few hours and stopped at a couple of good looking spots to fish but no-one caught anything. At another confluence, smaller than the Sipla, I could see small fish moving about in the shallows. We fished hard and covered a lot of water but nothing was biting. There were lots of footprints in the sand so we figured that the place had been bombed recently as this location was easily accessible.
Just below this confluence we beached the rafts and had a lunch of biscuits and chocolate bars to use up the final supplies. In this pool, Sanjay had caught a 37lb mahseer the previous year when he and Billy had reached it by motor boat from downstream. This river had inspired Billy to hatch a plan to raft the Kamla and Subansiri. We took group photos, shook hands and hugged each other. Then we rafted the last few kilometres to our exit point, right by the Subansiri dam project. The river was slow and lifeless now and had lost much of its energy. We entered a steep gorge section of the river and it seemed as if the hills were trying to prevent the river from escaping onto the plains. The cliffs on the shadey side of the gorge were completely covered with a velvety green moss and looked like curtains. The sound of heavy machinery at work filled our ears from downstream. We rounded a corner and the dam construction came into view. It was immense and climbed hundreds of metres above us. The mountainside was being blasted and shaped smooth and rocks and debris fell onto the beach below. This rubble was then being scooped by giant diggers into giant trucks that drove a few hundred metres and then dumped their load into the river. The river was only a few days away from being completely dammed at which point, the water would be forced into a huge tunnel cut into the mountainside where it would power giant turbines to generate hydro electricity for India’s growing industrial and domestic demand.
We stared at the vast scale of the project as we drifted towards it, conscious that many of the dam workers were looking curiously down at us in our tiny rafts. The closer we got, the bigger it all became and the smaller we all felt. A jackhammer high on the mountainside dislodged some rocks that came crashing down into the river on the far side. The rocks hit the water with deep powerful thumps like artillery fire. When the project completes in a few years time, this river will rise 120m and drown the campsites and riverbanks that we have spent the last two weeks exploring. The flood will reach all the way back up the Kamla to Tamen where we first put in with our rafts and performed our pooja.
It was a pretty awful way to end our trip but unavoidable as the only road out from the river was at this point. We were surrounded by mud, concrete and an industry bent on destroying this beautiful river. The mahseer would hopefully survive and move further upstream to find higher waters where they could continue spawning. But we would have to find another river to fish as this one will soon become a silent and shapeless shadow of its former vibrant self.
Our jeeps were waiting on a track high above us as we offloaded our gear and changed into normal clothes again. The sight of Vikas’ fish being brought up to his jeep and dumped unceremoniously into the back (where I was going to have the misfortune to sit and travel with it) was terribly sad. We said our goodbyes to the rafters who still had much to dismantle and pack and drove off into the evening dust. As we headed away from the dam project, Vikas glanced at the destruction around us and made a comment about how man can thoughtlessly destroy beauty on a whim. The irony of his comment was not lost on me. A beautiful, but now dead, 35lb golden mahseer lay in the back of his jeep as a gift to his father. Killed on a whim? I was too polite and tired to say anything. Plus, I think, he would have made me walk home.
We drove out of the hills and back onto the Assamese plains as a glorious sunset bathed the land around us in soft red hues. A full moon rose shortly after and sat low and orange above the hills to complete the picturesque landscape. It was a very bumpy and dusty journey back to Sanjay’s tea estate and we stopped after a few hours at a restaurant to have a late drunken supper. The restaurant manager fussed over us like an overindulgent mother but the food was very good. He even made a grand speech at the end, thanking us for honouring his restaurant with our presence.
Rup and I were transferred from Vikas’ jeep to another jeep that had arrived. Vikas and Dhiraj were heading off to their respective tea estates and would be travelling for much of the night. They shook hands and hugged us all and then drove away. Billy and Alka also said their goodbyes to but arranged to come and see us at Sanjay’s in a day or two.
The rest of us continued our journey to Sanjay’s and dropped Tazir off at a village so he could take his heavy load of smoked fish home to his family. Here we also made quick phone calls to catch up with family and close ones. The bumpy roads made sleeping very difficult but I eventually crawled on top of our rucksacks in the back and slept for some time as it was the only comfortable place I could find. We were stopped by an army checkpoint en route and I sat sleepily on the roadside whilst the driver and Rup persuaded the army wallahs that we weren’t terrorists.
At around midnight we finally pulled into Sanjay’s tea plantation and were met by his charming wife Devicar. We sat weary-eyed in the living room of his very spacious bungalow whilst servants fussed around us with tea and coffee. Phil and I were given the deputy tea managers house to stay in which was a short walk from the bungalow. Chris, Bob and Rup shared a spare bedroom in the bungalow.
We slept instantly.
As we walked towards the confluence we noted more tiger pug marks in the sand where we had not seen them yesterday. It was a sobering sight and reminded us that we were being watched.
Crossing the Sipla was an ordeal as people struggled to stay up in the knee deep water. Well it was knee deep where I crossed but other people chose to cross in crutch deep water instead and not only suffered the sharp intake of breath as cold water hits the gonads, but also nearly got swept away. They eventually made it by holding on to each other and using rods to stabilize themselves.
We reached the confluence and Bob was voted as the Blanker most worthy of casting first (I can’t quite remember why but it may have been down to his lack of clear vision having lost his glasses). A jelly lure was tied onto his line and I gave careful instructions about where he should fish. Once in position on the rocks, casting required nothing more than a gentle underarm flick to drop the lure 20ft out into the small eddy pool just below the confluence. Bob’s first cast was an over-arm lob and the lure disappeared into the mist upstream. By the time Bob had reset the reel and began retrieving his line the lure was already deeply lodged between two boulders on the riverbed. Bob tried in vain to get the lure back and broke the line eventually. We all agreed that Bob was unlucky and felt sorry for him so allowed him to still have another five casts before handing over to the next Blanker.
Bob’s second cast was better but he still didn’t manage to set his reel and retrieve line in time to prevent another lure wedging itself firmly between a different pair of boulders on the riverbed. He tried again in vain to get the lure back and broke the line. We all agreed that Bob was no longer unlucky but just an imbecile and didn’t feel sorry for him any more. Beside, at this rate, there would be so many lures in the pool that the mahseer would be forced downstream to find a new lie.
Chris was given the next shot at the hot spot and got himself into position whilst Bob skulked away into the rocks to tie on another lure. Chris cast perfectly into the pool but let his jelly lure sink too far and also got hooked up on a rock. I was beginning to understand why they had earned the title of Blankers.
Anyway, Chris lost a lure, Billy lost a lure and Bob ended up losing seven lures in total. We were all fishing by now having lost the will to sit and watch good water being filled up with jelly lures. Phil also started fishing and caught a small mahseer on a little jointed plug which brought a repeat of his master-class episode from a few days earlier.
The hot spot was decidedly cool and not surprising really considering the pressure it was put under yesterday by Rup and me. We spread out and searched for fish downstream for a few hours but no-one caught except Rup who managed to hook into something good in the large eddy pool below the rapids but his line broke again!
I felt brave and managed to cross the Sipla at the confluence where Tazir and Arun crossed yesterday. It was scary going though even with my felt wading boots on and I didn’t want to repeat the journey. Alka was fishing above the confluence with Sanjay. She managed to land a 2lb mahseer on a small toby spoon and Sanjay caught a 5lb mahseer on a rubber crayfish pattern. The Blankers party eventually struggled back over the Sipla and returned to camp for breakfast at 09:00.
Nino and his team used up all the eggs and other remaining rations to produce a real fry up for us. Eggs, omelettes, puris, curried beans and salad were wolfed down by us all.
We packed our bags and loaded the rafts for last time. As we drifted by the confluence I cast half-heartedly into the hot spot but was not surprised when nothing grabbed my lure. We rafted for a few hours and stopped at a couple of good looking spots to fish but no-one caught anything. At another confluence, smaller than the Sipla, I could see small fish moving about in the shallows. We fished hard and covered a lot of water but nothing was biting. There were lots of footprints in the sand so we figured that the place had been bombed recently as this location was easily accessible.
Just below this confluence we beached the rafts and had a lunch of biscuits and chocolate bars to use up the final supplies. In this pool, Sanjay had caught a 37lb mahseer the previous year when he and Billy had reached it by motor boat from downstream. This river had inspired Billy to hatch a plan to raft the Kamla and Subansiri. We took group photos, shook hands and hugged each other. Then we rafted the last few kilometres to our exit point, right by the Subansiri dam project. The river was slow and lifeless now and had lost much of its energy. We entered a steep gorge section of the river and it seemed as if the hills were trying to prevent the river from escaping onto the plains. The cliffs on the shadey side of the gorge were completely covered with a velvety green moss and looked like curtains. The sound of heavy machinery at work filled our ears from downstream. We rounded a corner and the dam construction came into view. It was immense and climbed hundreds of metres above us. The mountainside was being blasted and shaped smooth and rocks and debris fell onto the beach below. This rubble was then being scooped by giant diggers into giant trucks that drove a few hundred metres and then dumped their load into the river. The river was only a few days away from being completely dammed at which point, the water would be forced into a huge tunnel cut into the mountainside where it would power giant turbines to generate hydro electricity for India’s growing industrial and domestic demand.
We stared at the vast scale of the project as we drifted towards it, conscious that many of the dam workers were looking curiously down at us in our tiny rafts. The closer we got, the bigger it all became and the smaller we all felt. A jackhammer high on the mountainside dislodged some rocks that came crashing down into the river on the far side. The rocks hit the water with deep powerful thumps like artillery fire. When the project completes in a few years time, this river will rise 120m and drown the campsites and riverbanks that we have spent the last two weeks exploring. The flood will reach all the way back up the Kamla to Tamen where we first put in with our rafts and performed our pooja.
It was a pretty awful way to end our trip but unavoidable as the only road out from the river was at this point. We were surrounded by mud, concrete and an industry bent on destroying this beautiful river. The mahseer would hopefully survive and move further upstream to find higher waters where they could continue spawning. But we would have to find another river to fish as this one will soon become a silent and shapeless shadow of its former vibrant self.
Our jeeps were waiting on a track high above us as we offloaded our gear and changed into normal clothes again. The sight of Vikas’ fish being brought up to his jeep and dumped unceremoniously into the back (where I was going to have the misfortune to sit and travel with it) was terribly sad. We said our goodbyes to the rafters who still had much to dismantle and pack and drove off into the evening dust. As we headed away from the dam project, Vikas glanced at the destruction around us and made a comment about how man can thoughtlessly destroy beauty on a whim. The irony of his comment was not lost on me. A beautiful, but now dead, 35lb golden mahseer lay in the back of his jeep as a gift to his father. Killed on a whim? I was too polite and tired to say anything. Plus, I think, he would have made me walk home.
We drove out of the hills and back onto the Assamese plains as a glorious sunset bathed the land around us in soft red hues. A full moon rose shortly after and sat low and orange above the hills to complete the picturesque landscape. It was a very bumpy and dusty journey back to Sanjay’s tea estate and we stopped after a few hours at a restaurant to have a late drunken supper. The restaurant manager fussed over us like an overindulgent mother but the food was very good. He even made a grand speech at the end, thanking us for honouring his restaurant with our presence.
Rup and I were transferred from Vikas’ jeep to another jeep that had arrived. Vikas and Dhiraj were heading off to their respective tea estates and would be travelling for much of the night. They shook hands and hugged us all and then drove away. Billy and Alka also said their goodbyes to but arranged to come and see us at Sanjay’s in a day or two.
The rest of us continued our journey to Sanjay’s and dropped Tazir off at a village so he could take his heavy load of smoked fish home to his family. Here we also made quick phone calls to catch up with family and close ones. The bumpy roads made sleeping very difficult but I eventually crawled on top of our rucksacks in the back and slept for some time as it was the only comfortable place I could find. We were stopped by an army checkpoint en route and I sat sleepily on the roadside whilst the driver and Rup persuaded the army wallahs that we weren’t terrorists.
At around midnight we finally pulled into Sanjay’s tea plantation and were met by his charming wife Devicar. We sat weary-eyed in the living room of his very spacious bungalow whilst servants fussed around us with tea and coffee. Phil and I were given the deputy tea managers house to stay in which was a short walk from the bungalow. Chris, Bob and Rup shared a spare bedroom in the bungalow.
We slept instantly.
11th November – Mahseer mayhem...
I woke at dawn to a cold morning with grey mist hugging the jungle. There was very little firewood left but we gathered what we could from among the rocks and got a small fire going to warm up.
After a cup of tea I fished my way upstream to a rapid without success and then walked above that across a huge landslide to fish the river above. I thought I had a take a one point but missed it anyway so turned round and clambered back to camp.
Phil had caught a tiny Boca that morning (his second fish of the trip) which he’d killed and was now offering us all master-classes on fishing techniques. We indulged him at first but soon got bored of his wittering and went about packing up our tents and drying clothes.
Some provisions were starting to get very low or run out which was making breakfast a little eccentric. There was almost no sugar left so honey was being used instead for tea/coffee and I think I noticed someone stirring jam into their coffee at one point. With honey now rationed for tea/coffee, pineapple jam was being added to pancakes as an ‘interesting’ alternative.
After breakfast we bathed in the warm waterfall of the side-stream and did some washing of clothes before loading the rafts and pushing off to head downstream. We covered a great deal of water and splashed/crashed through numerous rapids. We passed a few potential camp sites and much fishable water but Billy wanted us to get to the next big confluence as we only had a few days left before exiting the river.
Above one rapid where we stopped to survey, we found very clear and fresh tiger pug marks in the sand. I got some photos and was able to trace the route that the tiger had taken across the sand and along a rocky ledge to a stream where it probably paused to drink.
We arrived at the confluence of the Subansiri and Sipla in the early afternoon and tied the rafts off 200m above the confluence. There was a good sandy beach to camp on and masses of driftwood for the campfire. The sand was covered with tiger pug marks so we were minded to fish in pairs and not to venture far after dark. Tents were erected and the raft crew set about preparing lunch for us. We were all eager to fish so rods were quickly set up and anglers started casting.
Vikas and Dhiraj headed downstream towards the confluence and I followed them shortly after. When I caught up with them, they were standing on rock overlooking the river studying the water below. I offered them the confluence to fish but they wanted to fish above it so I walked on to cross the Sipla and fish below. Unbeknownst to me Vikas and Dhiraj had spotted a large mahseer near the surface and had opted to pursue this instead of the confluence which I thought looked superb.
The Sipla was beautifully warm but very powerful and I found it impossible to cross safely so walked 100m upstream to find a suitable wading point. Once across the stream I saw human footprints in the sand and hoped that no dynamiting had been going on. I walked across the boulder-strewn beach and cast a silver spate spoon into a small eddy pool right where the Sipla and Subansiri meet and fall over some submerged boulders. I had a take almost immediately and played a mahseer of about 10lbs downstream. “Good start”, I thought as I tied the fish onto a stringer and returned to the same eddy pool to fish. I cast again and hooked another mahseer which I played out and tied off. Then I caught another two mahseer of around 5lbs in quick succession. I was running out of stringers so decided to kill two of the smaller mahseer for supper and release one.
Upstream, I could see that Vikas was bent into a fish that was fighting very well. The fish was the one he and Dhiraj has seen at the surface earlier. Vikas had cast out when he saw the fish moving and it obligingly turned and engulfed his floating plug before he’d even started retrieving it. He was sitting back on the sand and leaning hard against the fish pumping the rod to tire it. It took 30 minutes to land and he was as pleased as punch. I also noticed Tazir was now fishing above the confluence with his small spinning rod and had landed a couple of mahseer of around 3lbs which he killed.
I continued fishing in the little eddy pool by myself and was thinking how much success we were having around the confluence. One or two mahseer per person per day was the norm but we seemed to be bucking the trend this afternoon. Then my line went tight and I struck into another fish which swirled powerfully at the surface and swept off downstream. I leaned hard against it but it was unstoppable and kept taking line as my clutch whined. I started to hop across the rocks in a bid to keep up with the fish which was now in the rapid and getting away from me fast. Fortunately it stopped after a short while and sulked behind a rock which gave me time to recover some line and get closer to it. I managed to get downstream from the fish and continued bending hard against it. After several more powerful lunges the fish started to tire and I caught my first glimpse of it. It was big, very big. My heart was pounding and I trembled nervously as I didn’t want to lose it through a stupid error. There was no-one around to assist and my shouts wouldn’t be heard above the noise of the confluence. I was 75m downstream from where I’d hooked the fish by now and just figured I’d continue applying pressure and slowly force it into the side. There was no beach to drag it onto so I was going to have to get into the river and grab it at an opportune moment. The fish was tiring but would swirl away from me whenever I tried to get near to it in the shallow water. After half a dozen attempts, I finally grabbed its top lip and held on as it thrashed one last time. I attached a stringer, tied it off and sat back on a rock to catch my breath.
No-one had noticed any of my commotion and people were all busy fishing above the confluence. Vikas’ fish had drawn their attention and they were helping him get pictures and take the fish back up to the rafts where it would remain until I was able to weigh it.
I let my fish recover for a bit whilst I sorted myself out and then weighed it. After much straining and jiggling, the scales settled at 42lbs. I couldn’t believe it, another stunning fish for me this year. The mahseer had beautiful markings, dark shoulders and flanks with reddish fins instead of the more common orange/yellow. I steered the fish back up to the head of the rapid and tied it off. I wanted to get pictures when somebody, anybody, finally made it across the Sipla to join me.
I cast again into the same spot at the head of the rapid and hooked yet another good fish that tore away downstream with me in hot pursuit. This was extraordinary. Chris was above the confluence now and had noticed me playing this fish. I had to land it on my own again and get into the water. From Chris’ vantage point he couldn’t quite see me as I fought with the fish and thought I fallen into the river or something. I finally emerged with a stringer attached to an 18lb mahseer that had similar dark markings to the 42lber I’d caught earlier.
Using sign language above the roar of the confluence, I indicated to Chris that the Sipla wading point was 100m upstream from him and he wandered off with Phil and Rup to find the crossing. Tazir and Arun were far more sure footed than me and managed to struggle across the Sipla right at the confluence. I showed them the two fish that I’d killed for supper and then the big one. Tazir asked if he could take the big one because he wanted to smoke it and take it home to his family. He claimed that the bigger mahseer taste better. I declined but said I’d keep another fish of around 10lbs if I caught one (thinking that surely there can’t be any more fish now). Tazir and Arun went 150m below me to fish a large eddy pool and rocks at the end of the rapid.
I continued fishing and landed two more 5lb golden mahseer from just below the small eddy pool. Then I landed a 12lb mahseer on a black and gold spoon which I tied off for Tazir and then caught another 5lber. This day was becoming surreal. A small patch of river was producing mahseer in numbers that were never taken in such quick succession.
Chris and Phil had given up trying to cross the Sipla but Rup had managed to do it and joined me. When I told him about my successes at the head of the rapid his eyes went wide and he got some pictures of the 42lber before I released it. I told Rup to start casting at the top of the rapid in the small eddy pool and, sure enough, he was soon bent into a hard fighting mahseer that raced off downstream. After a good fight I landed the fish for him. It looked remarkably like the 18lber I’d caught and released earlier. Sure enough, the weigh-scale settled at 18lbs. It couldn’t be, not the same fish caught twice in the space of 20 minutes surely? Nothing seemed impossible today.
I got pictures of Rup’s fish and then left him fishing the eddy pool whilst I fished downstream. I heard a cry and saw him bent into another fish by the confluence. I shouted for him to run after it as Rup tended to freeze rather than pursue running fish. My attitude is to keep the shortest amount of line between you and the fish where possible to avoid rocks and the inevitable bust-off. Rup came bounding over the rocks towards me with his rod was bent into the powerful fish. He was puffing and out of breath when he reached me and the fish had stopped in the river now so a stand-off ensued. Rup asked me if he should tighten the clutch or adjust anything as the wind sang through his taught fishing line. I nervously said I wasn’t going to touch anything on his reel because if the line broke, he would scream at me. The fish felt very heavy and Rup was unable to shift it for a few minutes so I got some action photos of Rup with his rod hooped over. His beloved felt cowboy hat that he’d bought in Ziro had been sat on so many times and got so wet on the rafts that it now looked like a used coffee filter paper, brown and shapeless. As I was taking pictures, Rup said the fish was moving and then his rod sprang back lifeless…
We looked at each other speechless; Rup was destroyed and sat on a rock to examine the frayed end of his line where the jelly lure used to be. He said the fish felt very big and powerful and there was nothing he could do to move it. I opined that Rup’s line probably got caught between two rocks when the fish was sulking on the riverbed and had broken when the fish decided to move off. There’s nothing you can say to an angler when they been in contact with what seems to be the mother of all fish.
“Never mind eh, at least I’ve caught a 42!” I said with a mischievous glint in my eye.
We continued fishing. Tazir and Arun had taken four or five fish downstream from us to 12lbs and I caught another small mahseer halfway down the rapid. Rup continued casting a jelly lure into the head of the rapid and hooked yet another fish which tore off downstream. Rup huffed and puffed over the rocks in pursuit and together we played and landed another big mahseer with dark markings. This weighed 30lbs and Rup was ecstatic as it was a new personal best for him in the Himalayas.
The afternoon was becoming evening as we continued to fish this extraordinary spot. Tazir and Arun came by us heading back to the camp with their booty of fish. I gave Tazir the fish that I’d killed and also the 12lber which pleased him immensely. He and Arun were carrying around 60lbs of fish back to the camp to be smoked and packed for their families back home. Even with the weight of these fish, they both still managed to ford the confluence barefoot where I had been too afraid to.
Surely there can’t be any more fish in the confluence I thought as I watched Rup cast. Bang! Another fight and more rock hopping pursuit as it surged off downstream. “This is ridiculous”, I exclaimed as the scales read 15lbs and Rup released another beautiful mahseer into the river. The light was fading now and Rup cast a broken jelly lure into the small eddy pool. Another take, but the line snapped. “Enough!” I said laughing. We had to end this surreal day. We still had to cross the Sipla and return to camp so Rup reeled in and we walked away from the river.
Rup and I returned to camp in darkness and heard much merriment. Vikas was celebrating his own large fish and the last few bottles of vodka were disappearing rapidly. He was looking forward to presenting the fish to his father. Apparently Vikas’ father claimed he never brought him anything so Vikas figured this fish would shut him up. I was stunned at his decision and quietly voiced my disappointment to some. I went with Vikas to weigh the fish and suggested he release it but he was resolute. It had not been tied off very well or handled very well and weighed 35lbs. I left it lying quietly in the water alongside the raft until morning but some of us seriously considered creeping down there in the night and letting it slip away. Vikas’ decision deeply affected my view about the ‘take-all’ mentality that prevails in the Indian sport fishing fraternity. One day, this will no longer be possible because the wild fish will be gone. It’s a hard lesson that the British have learned on our overfished island which has resulted in us having to stock many of our game fisheries to limit the impact on wild strains.
The day had been an extraordinary day:
21 golden mahseer had been caught in the space of a few hours by a handful of anglers. They weighed 42, 35, 30, 18, 18 15, 12, 12, 12, 10, 8, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2 and 1lbs and that excluded two bust-offs. These figures conjured up days of yore when English gentlemen in pith hats stood alongside poles lined with mahseer they’d taken that day. Most of the smaller mahseer were now smoking slowly above glowing embers to ‘seal’ them and make them last for up to a year as food for Tazir and Arun’s families. Some of the fish was also being steamed in bamboo for us. I think the chef must have been at the alcohol earlier because a couple of the bamboo tubes exploded splattering fish all over the place.
Nino and the team prepared a great final supper for us. Fish was clearly on the menu and the remaining supplies were being used to produce a range of interesting dishes (bean curry, paneer curry, fresh salad, potatoes, rice, dal and chapattis). There was too much of everything but it had to be used up and we filled our bellies.
Spirits were both high and disappearing inside contented anglers. We sat around the roaring fire and goaded the tigers to ‘come and have a go if they think they’re hard enough’. Overall the trip had been a great adventure and lots of fun despite the drenchings, near drownings, bumps and scrapes. It was noted that only certain people had enjoyed catching fish on the trip. Chris, Billy and Bob (even though Bob had kind of mistakenly foul hooked a small boca of a few inches one day) were duly noted as ‘Blankers’ and as such, were offered first cast into the ‘hot spot’ tomorrow morning before we rafted.
Tomorrow we would leave the river and head back to relative luxury in the real world.
After a cup of tea I fished my way upstream to a rapid without success and then walked above that across a huge landslide to fish the river above. I thought I had a take a one point but missed it anyway so turned round and clambered back to camp.
Phil had caught a tiny Boca that morning (his second fish of the trip) which he’d killed and was now offering us all master-classes on fishing techniques. We indulged him at first but soon got bored of his wittering and went about packing up our tents and drying clothes.
Some provisions were starting to get very low or run out which was making breakfast a little eccentric. There was almost no sugar left so honey was being used instead for tea/coffee and I think I noticed someone stirring jam into their coffee at one point. With honey now rationed for tea/coffee, pineapple jam was being added to pancakes as an ‘interesting’ alternative.
After breakfast we bathed in the warm waterfall of the side-stream and did some washing of clothes before loading the rafts and pushing off to head downstream. We covered a great deal of water and splashed/crashed through numerous rapids. We passed a few potential camp sites and much fishable water but Billy wanted us to get to the next big confluence as we only had a few days left before exiting the river.
Above one rapid where we stopped to survey, we found very clear and fresh tiger pug marks in the sand. I got some photos and was able to trace the route that the tiger had taken across the sand and along a rocky ledge to a stream where it probably paused to drink.
We arrived at the confluence of the Subansiri and Sipla in the early afternoon and tied the rafts off 200m above the confluence. There was a good sandy beach to camp on and masses of driftwood for the campfire. The sand was covered with tiger pug marks so we were minded to fish in pairs and not to venture far after dark. Tents were erected and the raft crew set about preparing lunch for us. We were all eager to fish so rods were quickly set up and anglers started casting.
Vikas and Dhiraj headed downstream towards the confluence and I followed them shortly after. When I caught up with them, they were standing on rock overlooking the river studying the water below. I offered them the confluence to fish but they wanted to fish above it so I walked on to cross the Sipla and fish below. Unbeknownst to me Vikas and Dhiraj had spotted a large mahseer near the surface and had opted to pursue this instead of the confluence which I thought looked superb.
The Sipla was beautifully warm but very powerful and I found it impossible to cross safely so walked 100m upstream to find a suitable wading point. Once across the stream I saw human footprints in the sand and hoped that no dynamiting had been going on. I walked across the boulder-strewn beach and cast a silver spate spoon into a small eddy pool right where the Sipla and Subansiri meet and fall over some submerged boulders. I had a take almost immediately and played a mahseer of about 10lbs downstream. “Good start”, I thought as I tied the fish onto a stringer and returned to the same eddy pool to fish. I cast again and hooked another mahseer which I played out and tied off. Then I caught another two mahseer of around 5lbs in quick succession. I was running out of stringers so decided to kill two of the smaller mahseer for supper and release one.
Upstream, I could see that Vikas was bent into a fish that was fighting very well. The fish was the one he and Dhiraj has seen at the surface earlier. Vikas had cast out when he saw the fish moving and it obligingly turned and engulfed his floating plug before he’d even started retrieving it. He was sitting back on the sand and leaning hard against the fish pumping the rod to tire it. It took 30 minutes to land and he was as pleased as punch. I also noticed Tazir was now fishing above the confluence with his small spinning rod and had landed a couple of mahseer of around 3lbs which he killed.
I continued fishing in the little eddy pool by myself and was thinking how much success we were having around the confluence. One or two mahseer per person per day was the norm but we seemed to be bucking the trend this afternoon. Then my line went tight and I struck into another fish which swirled powerfully at the surface and swept off downstream. I leaned hard against it but it was unstoppable and kept taking line as my clutch whined. I started to hop across the rocks in a bid to keep up with the fish which was now in the rapid and getting away from me fast. Fortunately it stopped after a short while and sulked behind a rock which gave me time to recover some line and get closer to it. I managed to get downstream from the fish and continued bending hard against it. After several more powerful lunges the fish started to tire and I caught my first glimpse of it. It was big, very big. My heart was pounding and I trembled nervously as I didn’t want to lose it through a stupid error. There was no-one around to assist and my shouts wouldn’t be heard above the noise of the confluence. I was 75m downstream from where I’d hooked the fish by now and just figured I’d continue applying pressure and slowly force it into the side. There was no beach to drag it onto so I was going to have to get into the river and grab it at an opportune moment. The fish was tiring but would swirl away from me whenever I tried to get near to it in the shallow water. After half a dozen attempts, I finally grabbed its top lip and held on as it thrashed one last time. I attached a stringer, tied it off and sat back on a rock to catch my breath.
No-one had noticed any of my commotion and people were all busy fishing above the confluence. Vikas’ fish had drawn their attention and they were helping him get pictures and take the fish back up to the rafts where it would remain until I was able to weigh it.
I let my fish recover for a bit whilst I sorted myself out and then weighed it. After much straining and jiggling, the scales settled at 42lbs. I couldn’t believe it, another stunning fish for me this year. The mahseer had beautiful markings, dark shoulders and flanks with reddish fins instead of the more common orange/yellow. I steered the fish back up to the head of the rapid and tied it off. I wanted to get pictures when somebody, anybody, finally made it across the Sipla to join me.
I cast again into the same spot at the head of the rapid and hooked yet another good fish that tore away downstream with me in hot pursuit. This was extraordinary. Chris was above the confluence now and had noticed me playing this fish. I had to land it on my own again and get into the water. From Chris’ vantage point he couldn’t quite see me as I fought with the fish and thought I fallen into the river or something. I finally emerged with a stringer attached to an 18lb mahseer that had similar dark markings to the 42lber I’d caught earlier.
Using sign language above the roar of the confluence, I indicated to Chris that the Sipla wading point was 100m upstream from him and he wandered off with Phil and Rup to find the crossing. Tazir and Arun were far more sure footed than me and managed to struggle across the Sipla right at the confluence. I showed them the two fish that I’d killed for supper and then the big one. Tazir asked if he could take the big one because he wanted to smoke it and take it home to his family. He claimed that the bigger mahseer taste better. I declined but said I’d keep another fish of around 10lbs if I caught one (thinking that surely there can’t be any more fish now). Tazir and Arun went 150m below me to fish a large eddy pool and rocks at the end of the rapid.
I continued fishing and landed two more 5lb golden mahseer from just below the small eddy pool. Then I landed a 12lb mahseer on a black and gold spoon which I tied off for Tazir and then caught another 5lber. This day was becoming surreal. A small patch of river was producing mahseer in numbers that were never taken in such quick succession.
Chris and Phil had given up trying to cross the Sipla but Rup had managed to do it and joined me. When I told him about my successes at the head of the rapid his eyes went wide and he got some pictures of the 42lber before I released it. I told Rup to start casting at the top of the rapid in the small eddy pool and, sure enough, he was soon bent into a hard fighting mahseer that raced off downstream. After a good fight I landed the fish for him. It looked remarkably like the 18lber I’d caught and released earlier. Sure enough, the weigh-scale settled at 18lbs. It couldn’t be, not the same fish caught twice in the space of 20 minutes surely? Nothing seemed impossible today.
I got pictures of Rup’s fish and then left him fishing the eddy pool whilst I fished downstream. I heard a cry and saw him bent into another fish by the confluence. I shouted for him to run after it as Rup tended to freeze rather than pursue running fish. My attitude is to keep the shortest amount of line between you and the fish where possible to avoid rocks and the inevitable bust-off. Rup came bounding over the rocks towards me with his rod was bent into the powerful fish. He was puffing and out of breath when he reached me and the fish had stopped in the river now so a stand-off ensued. Rup asked me if he should tighten the clutch or adjust anything as the wind sang through his taught fishing line. I nervously said I wasn’t going to touch anything on his reel because if the line broke, he would scream at me. The fish felt very heavy and Rup was unable to shift it for a few minutes so I got some action photos of Rup with his rod hooped over. His beloved felt cowboy hat that he’d bought in Ziro had been sat on so many times and got so wet on the rafts that it now looked like a used coffee filter paper, brown and shapeless. As I was taking pictures, Rup said the fish was moving and then his rod sprang back lifeless…
We looked at each other speechless; Rup was destroyed and sat on a rock to examine the frayed end of his line where the jelly lure used to be. He said the fish felt very big and powerful and there was nothing he could do to move it. I opined that Rup’s line probably got caught between two rocks when the fish was sulking on the riverbed and had broken when the fish decided to move off. There’s nothing you can say to an angler when they been in contact with what seems to be the mother of all fish.
“Never mind eh, at least I’ve caught a 42!” I said with a mischievous glint in my eye.
We continued fishing. Tazir and Arun had taken four or five fish downstream from us to 12lbs and I caught another small mahseer halfway down the rapid. Rup continued casting a jelly lure into the head of the rapid and hooked yet another fish which tore off downstream. Rup huffed and puffed over the rocks in pursuit and together we played and landed another big mahseer with dark markings. This weighed 30lbs and Rup was ecstatic as it was a new personal best for him in the Himalayas.
The afternoon was becoming evening as we continued to fish this extraordinary spot. Tazir and Arun came by us heading back to the camp with their booty of fish. I gave Tazir the fish that I’d killed and also the 12lber which pleased him immensely. He and Arun were carrying around 60lbs of fish back to the camp to be smoked and packed for their families back home. Even with the weight of these fish, they both still managed to ford the confluence barefoot where I had been too afraid to.
Surely there can’t be any more fish in the confluence I thought as I watched Rup cast. Bang! Another fight and more rock hopping pursuit as it surged off downstream. “This is ridiculous”, I exclaimed as the scales read 15lbs and Rup released another beautiful mahseer into the river. The light was fading now and Rup cast a broken jelly lure into the small eddy pool. Another take, but the line snapped. “Enough!” I said laughing. We had to end this surreal day. We still had to cross the Sipla and return to camp so Rup reeled in and we walked away from the river.
Rup and I returned to camp in darkness and heard much merriment. Vikas was celebrating his own large fish and the last few bottles of vodka were disappearing rapidly. He was looking forward to presenting the fish to his father. Apparently Vikas’ father claimed he never brought him anything so Vikas figured this fish would shut him up. I was stunned at his decision and quietly voiced my disappointment to some. I went with Vikas to weigh the fish and suggested he release it but he was resolute. It had not been tied off very well or handled very well and weighed 35lbs. I left it lying quietly in the water alongside the raft until morning but some of us seriously considered creeping down there in the night and letting it slip away. Vikas’ decision deeply affected my view about the ‘take-all’ mentality that prevails in the Indian sport fishing fraternity. One day, this will no longer be possible because the wild fish will be gone. It’s a hard lesson that the British have learned on our overfished island which has resulted in us having to stock many of our game fisheries to limit the impact on wild strains.
The day had been an extraordinary day:
21 golden mahseer had been caught in the space of a few hours by a handful of anglers. They weighed 42, 35, 30, 18, 18 15, 12, 12, 12, 10, 8, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2 and 1lbs and that excluded two bust-offs. These figures conjured up days of yore when English gentlemen in pith hats stood alongside poles lined with mahseer they’d taken that day. Most of the smaller mahseer were now smoking slowly above glowing embers to ‘seal’ them and make them last for up to a year as food for Tazir and Arun’s families. Some of the fish was also being steamed in bamboo for us. I think the chef must have been at the alcohol earlier because a couple of the bamboo tubes exploded splattering fish all over the place.
Nino and the team prepared a great final supper for us. Fish was clearly on the menu and the remaining supplies were being used to produce a range of interesting dishes (bean curry, paneer curry, fresh salad, potatoes, rice, dal and chapattis). There was too much of everything but it had to be used up and we filled our bellies.
Spirits were both high and disappearing inside contented anglers. We sat around the roaring fire and goaded the tigers to ‘come and have a go if they think they’re hard enough’. Overall the trip had been a great adventure and lots of fun despite the drenchings, near drownings, bumps and scrapes. It was noted that only certain people had enjoyed catching fish on the trip. Chris, Billy and Bob (even though Bob had kind of mistakenly foul hooked a small boca of a few inches one day) were duly noted as ‘Blankers’ and as such, were offered first cast into the ‘hot spot’ tomorrow morning before we rafted.
Tomorrow we would leave the river and head back to relative luxury in the real world.
10th November – Natives and bear prints...
I woke at 05:00 as usual and felt surprisingly good. Everyone else was either stirring or up and about too so the local beer was voted a resounding success.
As we were clearing our heads with an early morning brew, some local men and women from the Adi tribe wandered by the camp and stopped to talk. They were shy but inquisitive and looked wide eyed at us and our paraphernalia. They found the fishing rods, reels and lures particularly strange and held them gingerly, unsure of what to do with them.
Sanjay wanted to release his fish early so we all gathered on the rocks by the river. The morning light was perfect and the golden mahseer’s colours were stunning as we took pictures of him holding the fish. The locals watched as Sanjay removed the stringer and then gently let the fish swim away. On cue, one of the local men shook his head and muttered something about us being crazy to release such a fish. We got some pictures of the local men with their machetes and then the women with their head baskets and bright sarongs. Then they wandered off in a line heading upstream to a village somewhere.
We would be rafting later on in the morning so we split up to fish for a few hours. Rup and I went upstream to fish a rapid we had rafted down yesterday. We walked across beaches strewn with driftwood and eddy pools with post-monsoon trees stuck in the mud like rotting boat hulls. The slower river here meant there were more snags in the water to watch out for. I hooked and lost a fish on a black and gold spoon in one of these eddy pools. Rup headed off upstream from me to fish above the rapid that we had reached and hooked but lost a fish. I hooked and landed a 3lb Boca from the rapid itself which I killed and kept for the pot.
Rup and I returned to camp for breakfast to find that Phil had managed to catch his first golden mahseer of 7lbs on a small jointed plug. He was justifiably delighted and we all congratulated him. He had landed the fish just down from the camp and a local man had been watching him. The local asked if he could have the fish for supper and Phil had politely declined. Chris was taking pictures of Phil as he was releasing the fish but it squirmed and fell from his hands into the shallow water. Before Phil or Chris knew what was happening, the local man had jumped into the water, whacked the mahseer on the head with his machete and was walking off with it smiling broadly.
We had breakfast and then rafted a short distance to the next camp spot. En route we stopped on a pebble island in the river to fish a long stretch of good looking water. Chris had made his first cast at one spot and a savage take had nearly wrenched the rod from his hands. He cursed at missing the fish and carried on casting a few times before noticing something strange about his jelly lure. He swung the lure into his hands and was stunned to see that the bend on the single hook had been straightened out, almost certainly by that earlier violent take.
I had walked downstream to a spot where the river hit a sheer cliff on the far side of the river and then turned at right angles and flowed to my right. A great looking eddy pool was formed by this and I hooked but lost two Boca here. Billy and Alka joined me shortly after so I offered them the pool and fished around them. Alka cast first but soon got hooked up on the riverbed. She and Billy tried to get the lure back but eventually gave in and broke the line. Alka resigned herself to losing her favourite plug to the river gods. Billy continued fishing and hooked but lost a fish from the same spot where I had lost my two fish.
Meanwhile Sanjay was fishing with a Toby spoon and had hooked into another good golden mahseer that had fought well in the fast water. He was upstream from us with Chris who had landed it for him. We all gathered back at the rafts to move on and Sanjay produced his fish on a stringer tied to Arun’s raft. It weighed 18lbs and he said he wanted to kill it. Dhiraj and Vikas had also wanted to kill the fish as they said it would feed us all well.
I protested as diplomatically as I could. Vikas, Dhiraj, Sanjay and Billy come from a culture where there has always been a ready supply of both large and small fish so killing them was considered normal. Dynamiting, netting, poisoning, and line wallahs aside, there is a relatively small amount of angling pressure on the mahseer in the mountains. ‘Sport’ fishing with rod and line is rare and the reserve of the wealthy in India so killing fish is perfectly acceptable in such circles. It reminded me of the pictures I’d seen in angling books from the Raj with lines of fish hanging from poles held up by shikaris. The mentality of the time by the British was the same as it was in Britain, one killed what one caught (except for fish under a certain size). Angling pressure on U.K. wild stocks has forced a re-evaluation of such policies and a more conservationist mentality now prevails where stocking of rivers doesn’t occur.
Anyway, it seems my gentle protests didn’t go unheard and Sanjay agreed to release the fish. I thanked him and we watched the mahseer swim gently away into the river.
Back in the rafts we shot two more big sets of rapids and all got very wet again. The waves were big and we whooped and hollered as we crashed through them. Just before another rapid we pulled into the side and decided to camp for the night. This campsite sat on a raised sand covered plateau of rocks right by the river. Large boulders surrounded the plateau where our tents where pitched and made our camp look like a fortified village with battlements around it.
Shortly after setting tents up, Rup started fishing and immediately caught a small Boca right in front of the camp. I wandered off downstream and fished to the next rapid a few hundred metres away. I found a really nice stream tumbling in from the side that formed a perfect shower/waterfall as it fell from a flat rock above me. It was too late to bathe today so I reserved my place for tomorrow. On a small sandy beach I saw some animal tracks and paused to examine them. They weren’t feline but looked more like a sloth bear as they had short fingers and a longer palm print.
I fished without success until I reached the pool at the side of the rapid. After a few casts with a spate spoon I was soon hooked into a hard fighting fish that ran me all over the pool before I could drag it onto a pebble beach. It was a fine 5lb Boca which I killed for supper. I continued casting and then hooked another fish which fought well. It was a golden mahseer of about 6lbs. I was going to return it and then thought about Sanjay returning his large fish earlier in the day. Sanjay and his friends considered golden mahseer taste better than Boca and I felt a bit guilty that we’d not kept a golden mahseer for them to eat yet. I decided to kill this fish as a return gesture for them letting the larger mahseer go.
Up until this trip, I’d not killed as many fish to eat before and it felt a little odd doing it. I didn’t feel so much about the Boca strangely as I didn’t feel such a connection with them. I have the same dilemma when killing brown trout versus rainbow trout. For some reason, I have fewer qualms about killing rainbows as I do about browns. It made me ponder how subjective we all are about what’s important in terms of preservation. One man’s sacred stock is another man’s food. The size of the fish plays the greatest part for me in terms of releasing it or killing it. I view a larger fish a rare and special and therefore I want to release it so it can grow even bigger. The smaller fish are often in greater abundance so I surmise (rightly or wrongly) that killing one of these has a lesser impact on the stocks.
The light was starting to fade and I had no more success so I collected the two fish and made my way back to camp. Carrying 11lbs of wobbling fish in one hand, a fishing rod in the other and then trying to scramble over boulders proved to be an interesting challenge. Suddenly a crashing of trees in the jungle above startled me and I froze. Those bear tracks I’d found in the sand earlier came flooding back into my mind as I stared intensely into the jungle. I still had a few hundred metres to reach the camp and some difficult rocks to negotiate. The light was fading and I had my hands full with fish and rod. I waited and continued to scan the trees for a bit but there was no further noise or movement in the jungle apart from the odd bird call or buzzing insect. I figured whatever it was had possibly been coming down for its usual drink at the river but had been disturbed by this foreign oik (me) and had skulked off to choose another time to quench its thirst.
I got back to camp and presented the mahseer to Sanjay, Vikas and Dhiraj hoping it would make up for the fish I’d persuaded them let go earlier. They were magnanimous and we thanked each other. Tazir took both the fish and said he’d cook the mahseer using a traditional method tonight. This method involved using bamboo and a broad green leaf (similar to a banana leaf) to effectively steam the fish over a log fire.
Whilst we all drank tea or alcohol and chatted around the fire, I watched Tazir prepare the fish and bamboo tubes for cooking. Tazir descaled and cleaned the mahseer and then cut the white flesh into rough cubes which he mixed with bamboo shoots, ginger, garlic and some chilies. He cut foot long sections of green bamboo stems that were naturally sealed at one end and open at the other. He inserted a rolled up leaf into each bamboo tube so that it lined the inside of the tube with a few inches protruding from the top. The leaf would prevent the fish from sticking to the bamboo as it cooked. He then dropped the marinated fish pieces into each tube and tamped it gently to pack the fish tightly together. When each tube was full he folded the exposed part of the leaf over to seal the fish in the tube. The tubes were placed directly onto a log fire to steam the fish for around 20 minutes. The fish was cooked when the bamboo tubes turned black and started to break up. They were removed from the fire and cut open and then the fish was removed from the leaves and served immediately. It smelled and tasted utterly divine and was one of the best meals I’d eaten so far on the trip. Nino also made the usual accompaniments which were washed down with a little bit of now-rationed whisky.
Locals only carry their machete and perhaps a little rice with them when they go hunting. All of their cooking utensils, containers and cutlery were made with bamboo or other natural things around them. Throughout the trip I’d noticed how bamboo played such an important part of the raft crew’s life around the camp. It was cut into very thin strips and used as rope to bind. It was sliced lengthways and used to made drainpipe material for channeling water. They made makeshift furniture from it and many other things. The other crucial item was the machete. This was used in a variety of ways to cut, slice, scrape, dig and gouge.
After such a fine supper more wood was gathered to replenish the fire and we sat around it for a while talking before retiring to our tents and to sleep.
As we were clearing our heads with an early morning brew, some local men and women from the Adi tribe wandered by the camp and stopped to talk. They were shy but inquisitive and looked wide eyed at us and our paraphernalia. They found the fishing rods, reels and lures particularly strange and held them gingerly, unsure of what to do with them.
Sanjay wanted to release his fish early so we all gathered on the rocks by the river. The morning light was perfect and the golden mahseer’s colours were stunning as we took pictures of him holding the fish. The locals watched as Sanjay removed the stringer and then gently let the fish swim away. On cue, one of the local men shook his head and muttered something about us being crazy to release such a fish. We got some pictures of the local men with their machetes and then the women with their head baskets and bright sarongs. Then they wandered off in a line heading upstream to a village somewhere.
We would be rafting later on in the morning so we split up to fish for a few hours. Rup and I went upstream to fish a rapid we had rafted down yesterday. We walked across beaches strewn with driftwood and eddy pools with post-monsoon trees stuck in the mud like rotting boat hulls. The slower river here meant there were more snags in the water to watch out for. I hooked and lost a fish on a black and gold spoon in one of these eddy pools. Rup headed off upstream from me to fish above the rapid that we had reached and hooked but lost a fish. I hooked and landed a 3lb Boca from the rapid itself which I killed and kept for the pot.
Rup and I returned to camp for breakfast to find that Phil had managed to catch his first golden mahseer of 7lbs on a small jointed plug. He was justifiably delighted and we all congratulated him. He had landed the fish just down from the camp and a local man had been watching him. The local asked if he could have the fish for supper and Phil had politely declined. Chris was taking pictures of Phil as he was releasing the fish but it squirmed and fell from his hands into the shallow water. Before Phil or Chris knew what was happening, the local man had jumped into the water, whacked the mahseer on the head with his machete and was walking off with it smiling broadly.
We had breakfast and then rafted a short distance to the next camp spot. En route we stopped on a pebble island in the river to fish a long stretch of good looking water. Chris had made his first cast at one spot and a savage take had nearly wrenched the rod from his hands. He cursed at missing the fish and carried on casting a few times before noticing something strange about his jelly lure. He swung the lure into his hands and was stunned to see that the bend on the single hook had been straightened out, almost certainly by that earlier violent take.
I had walked downstream to a spot where the river hit a sheer cliff on the far side of the river and then turned at right angles and flowed to my right. A great looking eddy pool was formed by this and I hooked but lost two Boca here. Billy and Alka joined me shortly after so I offered them the pool and fished around them. Alka cast first but soon got hooked up on the riverbed. She and Billy tried to get the lure back but eventually gave in and broke the line. Alka resigned herself to losing her favourite plug to the river gods. Billy continued fishing and hooked but lost a fish from the same spot where I had lost my two fish.
Meanwhile Sanjay was fishing with a Toby spoon and had hooked into another good golden mahseer that had fought well in the fast water. He was upstream from us with Chris who had landed it for him. We all gathered back at the rafts to move on and Sanjay produced his fish on a stringer tied to Arun’s raft. It weighed 18lbs and he said he wanted to kill it. Dhiraj and Vikas had also wanted to kill the fish as they said it would feed us all well.
I protested as diplomatically as I could. Vikas, Dhiraj, Sanjay and Billy come from a culture where there has always been a ready supply of both large and small fish so killing them was considered normal. Dynamiting, netting, poisoning, and line wallahs aside, there is a relatively small amount of angling pressure on the mahseer in the mountains. ‘Sport’ fishing with rod and line is rare and the reserve of the wealthy in India so killing fish is perfectly acceptable in such circles. It reminded me of the pictures I’d seen in angling books from the Raj with lines of fish hanging from poles held up by shikaris. The mentality of the time by the British was the same as it was in Britain, one killed what one caught (except for fish under a certain size). Angling pressure on U.K. wild stocks has forced a re-evaluation of such policies and a more conservationist mentality now prevails where stocking of rivers doesn’t occur.
Anyway, it seems my gentle protests didn’t go unheard and Sanjay agreed to release the fish. I thanked him and we watched the mahseer swim gently away into the river.
Back in the rafts we shot two more big sets of rapids and all got very wet again. The waves were big and we whooped and hollered as we crashed through them. Just before another rapid we pulled into the side and decided to camp for the night. This campsite sat on a raised sand covered plateau of rocks right by the river. Large boulders surrounded the plateau where our tents where pitched and made our camp look like a fortified village with battlements around it.
Shortly after setting tents up, Rup started fishing and immediately caught a small Boca right in front of the camp. I wandered off downstream and fished to the next rapid a few hundred metres away. I found a really nice stream tumbling in from the side that formed a perfect shower/waterfall as it fell from a flat rock above me. It was too late to bathe today so I reserved my place for tomorrow. On a small sandy beach I saw some animal tracks and paused to examine them. They weren’t feline but looked more like a sloth bear as they had short fingers and a longer palm print.
I fished without success until I reached the pool at the side of the rapid. After a few casts with a spate spoon I was soon hooked into a hard fighting fish that ran me all over the pool before I could drag it onto a pebble beach. It was a fine 5lb Boca which I killed for supper. I continued casting and then hooked another fish which fought well. It was a golden mahseer of about 6lbs. I was going to return it and then thought about Sanjay returning his large fish earlier in the day. Sanjay and his friends considered golden mahseer taste better than Boca and I felt a bit guilty that we’d not kept a golden mahseer for them to eat yet. I decided to kill this fish as a return gesture for them letting the larger mahseer go.
Up until this trip, I’d not killed as many fish to eat before and it felt a little odd doing it. I didn’t feel so much about the Boca strangely as I didn’t feel such a connection with them. I have the same dilemma when killing brown trout versus rainbow trout. For some reason, I have fewer qualms about killing rainbows as I do about browns. It made me ponder how subjective we all are about what’s important in terms of preservation. One man’s sacred stock is another man’s food. The size of the fish plays the greatest part for me in terms of releasing it or killing it. I view a larger fish a rare and special and therefore I want to release it so it can grow even bigger. The smaller fish are often in greater abundance so I surmise (rightly or wrongly) that killing one of these has a lesser impact on the stocks.
The light was starting to fade and I had no more success so I collected the two fish and made my way back to camp. Carrying 11lbs of wobbling fish in one hand, a fishing rod in the other and then trying to scramble over boulders proved to be an interesting challenge. Suddenly a crashing of trees in the jungle above startled me and I froze. Those bear tracks I’d found in the sand earlier came flooding back into my mind as I stared intensely into the jungle. I still had a few hundred metres to reach the camp and some difficult rocks to negotiate. The light was fading and I had my hands full with fish and rod. I waited and continued to scan the trees for a bit but there was no further noise or movement in the jungle apart from the odd bird call or buzzing insect. I figured whatever it was had possibly been coming down for its usual drink at the river but had been disturbed by this foreign oik (me) and had skulked off to choose another time to quench its thirst.
I got back to camp and presented the mahseer to Sanjay, Vikas and Dhiraj hoping it would make up for the fish I’d persuaded them let go earlier. They were magnanimous and we thanked each other. Tazir took both the fish and said he’d cook the mahseer using a traditional method tonight. This method involved using bamboo and a broad green leaf (similar to a banana leaf) to effectively steam the fish over a log fire.
Whilst we all drank tea or alcohol and chatted around the fire, I watched Tazir prepare the fish and bamboo tubes for cooking. Tazir descaled and cleaned the mahseer and then cut the white flesh into rough cubes which he mixed with bamboo shoots, ginger, garlic and some chilies. He cut foot long sections of green bamboo stems that were naturally sealed at one end and open at the other. He inserted a rolled up leaf into each bamboo tube so that it lined the inside of the tube with a few inches protruding from the top. The leaf would prevent the fish from sticking to the bamboo as it cooked. He then dropped the marinated fish pieces into each tube and tamped it gently to pack the fish tightly together. When each tube was full he folded the exposed part of the leaf over to seal the fish in the tube. The tubes were placed directly onto a log fire to steam the fish for around 20 minutes. The fish was cooked when the bamboo tubes turned black and started to break up. They were removed from the fire and cut open and then the fish was removed from the leaves and served immediately. It smelled and tasted utterly divine and was one of the best meals I’d eaten so far on the trip. Nino also made the usual accompaniments which were washed down with a little bit of now-rationed whisky.
Locals only carry their machete and perhaps a little rice with them when they go hunting. All of their cooking utensils, containers and cutlery were made with bamboo or other natural things around them. Throughout the trip I’d noticed how bamboo played such an important part of the raft crew’s life around the camp. It was cut into very thin strips and used as rope to bind. It was sliced lengthways and used to made drainpipe material for channeling water. They made makeshift furniture from it and many other things. The other crucial item was the machete. This was used in a variety of ways to cut, slice, scrape, dig and gouge.
After such a fine supper more wood was gathered to replenish the fire and we sat around it for a while talking before retiring to our tents and to sleep.
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