Days 38, 39 and 40: Sibsagar and Majuli

It's a quarter to ten in the evening and I just realised it's Paddy's Day when I checked the date to write this blog. Woops! It's easy to lose touch with the outside world out here. Anyway Happy Paddy's Day to anyone reading, no Guinness this year but did have some rice beer earlier. Otherwise I will have to content myself with some Kila on my speakers.

So Sibsagar was nice enough without being mind blowing. The main Shiva temple is pretty impressive with a 33m high dome and a line of sadhus (India's spiritual wanderers) as you enter. The market was quite colourful too, otherwise there was not a lot to see or do. So yesterday I left for Majuli, the world's largest river island in the middle of the Brahmaputra, again on public transport. One bus, another bus, then a very overcrowded ferry (for 2 hours! This is some river!), and finally a taxi the last 7km over potholed roads to arrive at the accomodation of choice, some traditional style bamboo huts. That said there wasn't exactly much in the way of choice but this place is nice, bamboo everything, but electricity, hot water available and mosquito nets. After a tasty Assamese dinner, I arranged for a jeep to take myself and a French couple, who have been on the road for 15 months, to explore a little. They were the first foreigners I had seen for a week. The lodge owner also agreed to be our guide.

So this morning after breakfast we hit the road. Majuli itself is very picturesque, full of rice fields and smiling faces. The first stop was Auniati Satra. A satra is like a monestary for Vaishnavism, a branch of Hinduism where Vishnu, particularly in the incarnation of Krishna, is the main focus of worship. This satra has 400 monks, who were very friendly and happily posed for photos whatever they were doing. After visiting the living quarters and the prayer hall we went to a Shiva Baba next door, which was essentially a very small room with an extermely wiry old man (ninety we were told) with hair that was matted and several times his length sat surrounded by piles of fruit, a basin of milk, ganga (marijuana) and his chillum (an Indian pipe). Apparently he subsisted merely on fruit, milk and ganga! He blessed people who came and they supplied him his three essentials. We were told that he didn't allow photos but when our guide asked he agreed so you will be able to see what I mean soon enough!

From there we visited a mask worshop, where we were shown how the masks used in the dramas performed here are made. Next we visited a village where everyone was involved in the production of pottery urns, and they showed us again the process involved including heating them en masse over a great fireplace, where people took turns to keep watch. Then we went for lunch in a nearby Derry village (no connection to the city in Northern Ireland that I could fathom). The Derry are one of the tribes from Majuli, and the people again were very friendly and the food was very tasty, and served with rice beer. After lunch we visited one more village, this time a Mishing village, where one young child turned and fled when he saw me, and could not be consoled by his amused mother for quite some time. Tired after a long day we came back to relax for a while, then had dinner and showed the French couple some photos of Arunachal, which I believe has now sneaked into their planned itinerary! Ok bedtime, goodnight.

-Dave