Satchari National Park Naturewatch, Habiganj, January 2009

Dewdrops Shine: Satchari National Park
Habiganj, Bangladesh

23 Janaury 2009


It was a crazy idea! Well, how many would come out of home at 4:00 in the morning with the aim of seeing a jungle wake up?? Yes; we did the crazy thing! Actually for birders and wildlife enthusiasts, its not an unusual practice. Animals and birds are at their most active during the early part of the day. I got a similar experience from my visit to Lawachara National Park in 2008. So, the idea was actually not total guesswork. We had some experienced bird photographers with us, whose idea of going out very early didn’t surprise me too much. But it did put me in trouble in other places. I had to convince my family that it wasn’t actually a crazy idea after all. I still don’t know whether I was successful in my effort.

Since coming back from the great tour to Tanguar Haor, bird and wildlife began to attract me. And why not? This is the season to go out for such works. The weather is tolerable and lots of migratory birds are crowding various places. I had been to Lawachara and being very close to that place, Satchari National Park almost waived at me. I was thinking of an outing for the day, and Satchari came as the first choice. Its on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway and comes before Habiganj while we start from Dhaka. This small forest of some 243 hectares is also one-sixth of Lawachara, which is a small forest itself. But the real surprise of Satachari is its avifauna. It has 218 species of birds within such a small place. It’s a paradise for birdwatchers.

Collected some friends who were very enthusiastic about it. But I didn’t even know how to reach there. Desperately needed someone to guide us. And who better than the great Zamir Bhai!! I hadn’t been with too many birders in my life. But of those whom I’ve met, Zami Bhai was the craziest. He does exactly what is required of him to collect bird photos. His dedication cannot be doubted. He was on his toes to go and so was another crazy birder, Gazi Bhai. Those two had made many birding trips together. So, we three, Kamal, Arif and me, had a couple of great birders to accompany us! It would be a learning trip also.

As we planned; Zamir Bhai came down with his car and we came out of home sometime after 4:00AM. We took fuel and our main journey started by around 5:00AM. The main thing that worried us was fog. Just the day before, we saw perfect weather with excellent visibility. But coming out of home at those early hours was a real shock! Visibility was extremely bad and we began to count time. When we started our journey, we could hardly see anything ahead of us. Zamir Bhai is a good driver and he drove pretty slowly. We hardly had a sleep at night, yet, our eyes were glued to the windshield with concern! We had to do some guesswork regarding the right choice of road several times. And that choice wasn’t helped by the thick fog.

It didn’t really clear up that much until around 6:30AM when the sun began to smuggle some light through the thick curtain of mist. We finished our breakfast at a roadside restaurant (less than five-star quality) and began moving once more. My fingers were itching to click!! There were so many subjects flying past us and I was just looking! Well, we had a more important goal and that goal required continued driving. Zamir Bhai is an old visitor to Satchari. He even went there seven day in a row! He knew the forest like anything; but even he required some guide, as he hadn’t been to the place during the last one year. He called Palash, a local trained guide, over phone and told him to be ready. Palash was trained by Nishorgo, a USAID-funded project aimed at sustained conservation and development of our forest resources.


Welcome to Satchari!!........ Entrance to the one-hour trail.......

We reached Satchari by around 8:05AM. It was foggy. Though the surrounding area was full of tea gardens, we couldn’t see a thing. We arrived at the forest almost without a warning. It just arrived in front of us! Palash was already waiting for us there. We parked our car and started walking. Palash took time to show us the activity of the primates. This is the time when the primates are at their most active. We watched several primate families around the highway. The highway actually goes through the northern edge of the forest. Some of those primates were on the northern side of the highway although the main forest lies south of the highway. Palash showed us the Pig-tailed Mccauqe. In that low light condition in the trees, we could at best notice that there were some primates in the trees. It wasn’t that easy for us to identify their species. We also saw some Capped Langurs. They moved and made sounds. Zamir Bhai was remembering his infamous welcome from these animals during a previous visit, when they were being thrown various stuff from the trees. Anyway, we proceeded. We walked along the highway northward; searching for the trail that would take us deep into the jungle.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Misty morning at Satchari..........01

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature..........01

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Just like the witch-tree!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Bamboo chaos!!



Sound of dewdrop shower.........


It would be hard to describe the mystery surrounding those mist-covered threes. The road vanished into that ghostly haze and the trees barely announced their presence. It was a perfect setting for a thriller movie! We found our trail soon enough and entered the forest proper by around 8:45AM. Anticipating some mobile phone network problems, we finished our talk before we vanished into the forest. The entrance to the forest was full of leaning bamboo trees, almost creating a gate of nature. And there were birds composing the welcome tune! Couldn’t help recording the sound of that. We crossed one of the several wooden bridges there. These bridges are built across some narrow streams that were completely dry at that time. Needless to say, these streams are quite a handful during the rainy season. The appearance of Satchari wasn’t too different from that of Lawachara. My experience at Lawachara told me what to expect in a rain forest. Yet, I couldn’t hide my excitement. I continued to enjoy the beautiful tone of Nature and the mystery of the environment. The continuous sound of dewdrops on dead leaves amazed me most. I couldn’t help recording that beautiful music.



Laughingthrush sound.........


Our first find was a noisy bird in the bushes. The bird was making some really interesting noise, but we couldn’t see it. I was able to take a peek at the yellowish bird through very thick vegetation. Our birdwatchers identified the bird as a kind of Laughingthrush. We were able to record the sound of the bird, but failed to shoot a picture. This was one of those encounters that would be repeated many times throughout our hiking. This was the same experience I got at Lawachara. There too, we were able to hear many types of birds, but we could hardly see them. Vegetation here is very thick and the trees are so high that a bird sitting on top of a tree would be difficult to see even with good equipment.



Barking Deer sound............

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........02

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........01

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Ant-house!!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........03

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........04

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........05

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........06

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........07



By around 9:20AM, Palash alerted us to listen to Barking Deer. It certainly sounded like a dog! And that’s why its called Barking Deer. Our hiking took us past numerous spider webs. I hadn’t noticed that many spider webs at Lawachara. At Satchari, they were noticeably more in number than at Lawachara. We took our time painstakingly documenting the spiders in our way. The spider webs were also something to see. Dewdrops on those webs formed pearls in the air! They looked like latest designs from international design houses! Their beauty and complexity made me wonder how small we are in terms of making things. All our achievements go down the drain when Nature defeats us with these simple creations. And how dare we that we proceed to destroy the things that we can never make! That’s foolish arrogance!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........02

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........03...... this was the biggest spider web I had seen!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

They also dwell at Satchari...........

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Collective presence!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Not bigger than a waterdrop!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Big antennae........



On the way, I discovered the biggest spider web that I have seen in my life! It was hanging from a tree and didn’t have the spider on it. But it was huge! It was several feet in length. By around 10:20AM, we found a bit of an oasis! It wasn’t pleasant to see some clearings right in the middle of the forest though. We spent some time there recuperating. Also started a bit of competition to find as many species of insects as we could find. Zamir Bhai was always leading!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........04

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Believe me, its a spider and its alive!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Noisy dwellers of Satchari........01 (Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Noisy dwellers of Satchari........02 (ID please!!)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Small but stylistic!


By 10:45AM, we were on the move once more. Soon, we found a particularly interesting spider. To the untrained eye, the spider might look like a dead one or even the prey itself! It had an uncanny ability to fool its victim or predator alike! We spent some time photographing that marvel. By around 11:30AM, we arrived at a place where we got convinced that we could get glimpses of quite a few birds. The birds were very busy, so we had a tough time shooting them even with our big lenses. We brought out our field guides to get some instant ID. And we got ID on at least three species.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........08

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo........ have a look at its exotic tail....



We moved on when we thought we had disturbed them enough. Our voices probably also gave them enough scare. The hiking got a bit harder after that. We had to do a bit of climbing. It wasn’t too easy with all the heavy photographic equipment hanging from our shoulders and neck. But the hard work paid off by around 12:30PM. We spotted a single Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo. Its exclusive tail made it my catch of the day. It was hard shooting the bird, with all the undergrowth restricting my view. We also spotted 4/5 other species of birds there. Even Hill Myna was there, as spotted by Palash. But we failed to get a real glimpse of them. As usual, we could hear more than we could see.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

The crime scene!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Evidence!!



One thing that I cannot help mentioning is that we’ve witnessed the same pathetic logging at Satchari. We heard people cutting down trees and saw numerous freshly-cut trees. I’m not whom to blame here. But simple blame game wouldn’t be able to save the rare species that call this place home. I’ve seen this at Lawachara and now, I’ve seen this here too. It breaks my heart and makes me wonder what we are about to leave for our next generations.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Who lives in there??


By around 1:00PM, we arrived at something like a cliff! When we climbed a pretty much vertical surface (almost 60 degrees) that had no support on it, we knew we would have to come down from there. So, when we arrived in front of an even steeper fall, the shock was just a wee bit lesser than absolute. Some of us wanted to go down. It must’ve been at least 40 feet at 70 degrees with no support whatsoever. Others objected. Palash suggested an alternative route, which took us through thick undergrowth and through yet another cliff, which was a wee bit easier to negotiate. We were constantly worried that someone might lose his footing and take all the others below with him. But fortunately, we were able to reach the flat trail once more. The trail that we had been negotiating, was a relatively new one. It still had stems of cut-down plants and its surface, wherever steep, didn’t have any support. And there was constant fear of losing grip.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........05

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........06

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

The giant!!........ This was the biggest spider we saw at Satchari of the day......

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Deadly, but colourful.......

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Evil mark left by humans........ Whoever is reading this, please help stop these nonsense activities.......

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........07

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Primates go about their activities.........01 (Capped Langur)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spreading wings........

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Colours of Satchari........



It was around 1:30PM and we were well on our way back. Palash’s tough detour saved us some time. Our aim was to leave the place as soon as possible. It was necessary for a quick return to Dhaka. We still went on shooting as we walked. By around 2:00PM, spotted some Capped Langurs on our way back. We also clicked yet more spiders. We got our biggest spider of the day. Don’t know the species, but it certainly was big, black and majestic. Other smaller ones also didn’t disappoint. Their colours and designs were truly wonderful. Nature is not just beautiful here, its intelligent and deadly too!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Primates go about their activities.........02 (Rhesus Macaque)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Primates go about their activities.........03 (Rhesus Macaques)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Catching the sun........

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Face-to-face......... (Common Myna)

We reached the end of our hiking by around 2:40PM. Spotted some Rhesus Macaques in very much playful mood. We ended our day of shooting with them. By that time, we were pretty tired. Didn’t have a lot to eat whole day. Took some rest and boarded the car by around 3:15PM.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Tea gardens...... we completely missed them in the fog!


This was the when we began to realize what the mist kept from us. We raced through tea gardens and the vanishing layers in the horizon forced me to think that it might not have been a very bad idea to stop the car. But we had our priority once again. Reaching Dhaka within a reasonable time was first priority. We stopped by a roadside restaurant and a late lunch. It was refreshing. Generated enough energy to reach home safely. The return journey wasn’t as exciting as the journey in, but was enjoyable. With the kind of adventurers I had on that day as my biddies, it was never boring. It was hard work, but great fun. It was interesting as well as inspiring. It almost seemed liked a teaser for more visits there. And the sound of those dewdrops would push me until I pay another visit there.

P.S. This blog contains only some of the images from the tour. For more pictures, please visit the following link:
Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

For a collection of videos, please visit the follwoing link:
Satchari National Park Playlist

Lawachara Rain Forest & Sreemangal, February-March 2008

29 February – 01 March 2008

It’s a real pity that I only heard of Lawachara last year (2007). I believe I’m quite an informed person as I do maintain my contacts and do go around the Net a lot. There are lots of other people who are much less informed than me. This only shows how poorly this place was marketed. And it gives me a lot of pain thinking that I couldn’t visit this place before. What a shame.

I had been planning to go to Lawachara for several months. But wasn’t quite prepared somehow. Waited a while for a big telephoto lens which I could use over there shooting wildlife. The lens finally arrived in February and I thought I was ready. But what’s so special about Lawachara?

Lawachara is one of the last remaining chunk of rain forest in Bangladesh. Lawachara National Park is located approximately 160 km northeast of Dhaka, 60 km south of the city of Sylhet in the civil administrative units of Kamalganj Upazilla, Maulvibazar District – about 10 kilometers from the town of Srimangal. The Park incorporates the southern and eastern parts of West Bhanugach Reserved Forest, within Lawachara, Chautali and Kalachara Beats, Moulvibazar Range, Sylhet Forest Division. The area was formally established as a National Park in 1996, incorporating an area of 1,250 hectares. Many of the large mammal species have long since disappeared from the Park area (e.g. tigers, leopards, bears, wild dogs, and sambar) probably as a combined result of hunting and habitat fragmentation. However, viable populations of many small and medium sized mammal species that can survive in disturbed or secondary habitats (e.g., jackals, small cats, barking deer, wild pigs) still remain. The Park also supports important populations of; gibbons, langurs and macaques. Two of these (hoolock gibbon and capped langur) are key indicator species for the development and implementation of conservation measures here. The Park and adjacent Reserved Forest support a documented avifauna of 337 species, one third of the total bird species known from Bangladesh. The avifauna includes a large number of species that are dependent on dense ground cover and undergrowth (47 species) and/or forest cover (175 species). The Park is also thought to support a rich diversity of other faunal groups (reptiles, invertebrates, some fishes and amphibians). However, very little information on these groups is currently available. Finally, the Park is drained by a number of small, sandy bedded streams, all of which dry up following the end of the rainy season in October November. Although limited in extent, aquatic habitats and riparian (streamside) vegetation are important elements of overall habitat composition. Both of these elements are thought to harbor specialized plant and animal species although inventories are incomplete.

There are several other similar forest areas near Lawachara. Satchari National Park and Rema-Kalenga Wildlife Sanctuary are two such forest areas nearby. But those two areas are some distance behind Lawachara in terms of development for ecotourism. This is the main reason behind selection of Lawachara as my first venture into the world of rain forests.

I had been out of the country for several days in February, so, I had to plan the whole tour before I could leave for the foreign tour. While I was looking for partners to accompany me in this venture, I got lucky that one of my colleagues had exactly the same plan for exactly the same time. So, without any delay I started to organize the tour. As my flight was on the 22nd, I had to bring everything into place by the 21st. I had a great ally in my wife’s uncle (“Khalu-Shoshur”) who happens to be a big voice in the tourism industry, Mr. Jamil Ahmed. He assured me of everything. Thus I was able to fly without any worry. The date was set at 29th of February.

My colleague Lipu had two friends confirmed along with him. They were all very fit guys, unlike me. They climbed the highest hill in Bangladesh, the Tajindong in Bandarban district. My wife’s little brother Riad was accompanying me along with my childhood friend Saadi and my para friend and choto bhai Aurnab. My uncle had already set a guide for us, Mr. Khurshed, whom we were supposed to take with us. We were going by Shyamoli Paribahan bus, starting at 8:00AM from Sayedabad Bus Terminal. Before our journey could start, one of Lipu’s friends dropped out because of office duty. So, we were seven souls traveling: Lipu, Shajeeb (Lipu’s friend), Saadi, Riad, Aurnab, our guide Khurshed and poor old me. After a bit of mismanagement by Shyamoli Paribahan, we ended up scurrying for the bus at around 8:10AM. Anyway, it was a start at long last. The journey got stuck up in long traffic congestion and this lengthened the journey by almost an hour.


Journey by bus..............


Somewhere in Narayanganj.......

Even though Lawachara is in Kamalganj Upazilla, we had to stay at Srimangal, because that is the nearest developed area to Lawachara. From there, Lawachara is around 8km road journey. On our way to Srimangal, we could gather some glimpses of the hilly plantations. This place is not new to me, but my last visit here was quite a while back, so the place beckoned to me like I had never seen it before. It is Spring, so, the trees are yet to gain their beautiful colours. Yet, it was a nice experience witnessing the transition of nature. The tea, rubber and pineapple plantations are all showing off their long struggle with a harsh winter. Even though the winter never reaches its extremes like in northern countries, a lowest temperature of 4-5 degrees Celsius is not uncommon. That said, we reached Srimangal; and it was already past 11:00AM.


A partial view of Sreemangal town; the Habiganj Road

Our guide took us to Tea Town Guest House on Habiganj Road. We jammed in a bigger room and felt quite happy about it. After a refreshing bath, we said our Friday prayers and finished our lunch at a nearby restaurant. It was beyond 3:00PM when we gathered around to plan for the rest of the day. Khurshed Bhai gave us an idea about visiting some lake nearby. This was out of our original plan though. We had originally envisaged a short trip to Lawachara on the first day. But the light left for the day didn’t seem enough for a trip to Lawachara. But we still kept the plan for an evening trip to Lawachara after finishing off the tour to the lake. Anyway, the lake looked a little far as well, as far as the time to sundown was concerned. A 45 minute journey would leave us very little time to have a look around. Khurshed Bhai didn’t see a lot of profit with us, so he decided to leave the job of guiding to another guy. A bit of persuasion from us wasn’t enough to take Khurshed Bhai with us. But he arranged for us an old Jeep for around Tk 850 for the whole round trip. The trip to the lake included a visit to a unique tea preparation shop, that is reputed to produce a tea that contains five layers of different colours. But we had to drop the plan for the evening trip to Lawachara.


Speeding through.......


Through the Tea Estates..........


Pineapple plantations.......


Betel Nuts........


Tea plants.......

We started off through the numerous tea estates and soon found out that our driver was not too informed about the road to the lake. He took numerous help from the passersby and also took numerous wrong turns before he finally brought us at Madhobpur Tea Estate. It was already around half past four when we reached there. We parked our vehicle and noticed some tourists. That gave us some idea about the popularity of the place. It’s a tourist place alright. A little bit of walk was required before we found a higher, but flat place. That’s our lake, the Madhobpur Lake. The lake’s water plane is higher than the surrounding land. It’s surrounded by hills on most sides. The hills are all under tea cultivation. This is not the green season, so the trees and tea garden looked a little dull. Our guide informed us that it’s around 3 km in length. The sun was setting on the other end of the lake. Our team took to the top of the surrounding hill on the left bank of the lake. I took the base of the hill and continued through the winding path edging the lake. The lake bed was decorated with lotus on numerous places. The sides not surrounded by hills were fenced by some nice trees. As I walked, I could see the reflection of the trees from the other bank on the lake. I climbed the shallow hills on the other side and continued to use the camera. I could see some birds flying around. They looked like migratory ducks. But our guide told us that these ducks are of local origin and they can found in nearby waters almost all year round. Of course during the winter months migratory birds increase the bird population of this place. I was just thinking about the number of birds that we would able to see at Lawachara.


Madhobpur Lake seen from the shallow hills on the south side.........


Madhobpur Lake is well-decorated by lotus......


Madhobpur Lake seen from the west bank........


No journey is complete without a sunset picture. Sunset at Sreemangal............

The sun was setting on the lake. We took to the top of the shallow hills and came back to the back where we had started. The hills had the lake on one side and a sparse forestry and shallow hills on the other side. We boarded the vehicle and again took to the road through the tea estates. The evening fading lights produced the dreamy fog through the distant trees in the tea estates. We simply had to come out of the Jeep to take some snaps. It was already quite dark. So photography was a bit tricky without a tripod. Anyway, we were again on our way. Destination was the famed five-layered-tea. Before long we arrived at a place teeming with people. It looked like an open air restaurant. There were many tourists coming in by a lot of vehicles. It looked like rush hour and we had to place our order quick. An order produces the tea in front of you after around one hour. There are different types of preparations. The difference was in number of layers. Each layer costs Tk 10. We went for the highest number of layers and ended up paying Tk 50 for each cup.


Nilkantha Tea Cabin

Can you count five layers??

After waiting almost half and hour, our tea finally came. Our curiosity reached the limit. We could actually count the five layers! There was a brief photo session for the cups. And then we started off. The top layer tasted a bit spicy. The other layers were not too easy to identify through taste. The second last one tasted like lemon though. The cups were empty and excitement, well, not as high as it was when we started. It seemed like exploring something new. It no longer seemed new when the cup was empty. The taste didn’t seem as exciting as the view of the cup itself. We were told that the guy was offered a lot of money to sell his formula, which he declined. Whatever the case, he seemed to have a good business running now.

We were on our way back to Srimangal after the exciting tea break. On our way back we saw some kind of weird cultural program being held at the local Shaheed Minar (monument for the Language Movement of 1952). The program forgot the very thing that it was being held at such an important monument. Anyway, as soon as we were back, we had hardly anything to do. It was around 8:00PM. We decided to finish off our dinner before we freshened up totally, because that would make us feel the toil of the journey. A local restaurant was again the place. But this dinner was worse than the lunch we had at the other restaurant. But the dinner was enough to fill our stomach and let us catch some sleep. We walked around for a while getting an idea about the small town’s life and then went back to the hotel. The tiredness of tour didn’t put us to sleep too early though. We had a gossip until quite late, even though our target was to see the first light at Lawachara. We had already confirmed the same Jeep to take us there before the clock hits six. The Jeep was supposed to come by around quarter past five. It was our duty to board the vehicle before 5:45AM if we had wanted to see sunrise at Lawachara.

We were six people in one room, using only one bathroom; so, there was no way we could get ready that quickly. Our concern about the ride was soon replaced by the concern about our own timing. After a busy day and a late night sleep, it was almost too much of a task for most of us to jump out of bed. But at least, we were out of the room before the clock could hit six. But when we were boarding the Jeep, we could easily realize that we were a bit late. The sky had already started to clear up. We jammed into the vehicle and raced through the beautiful setting of tea estates. The foggy morning was yet to wake up among the tall shading trees of the tea gardens. It was a dreamy sight. Some of us were interested enough to even get down to get some decent shots. But we had our eyes fixed on our prize. We knew that a small delay here could ruin our very purpose of early rising. The race was on; a race with time, through an empty road.

It wasn’t too long before the tea estates were replaced by trees; their height and their density both began to increase fast, until, before long, we found ourselves turning the headlights on! This is where the real thrill started. We found ourselves completely surrounded by giant trees on both sides of the road. These tall and ancient trees were trying their best to delay sunrise here. All of us in the vehicle were awed by this brilliant setting of nature and began to count the moments to our freedom from this mechanical confinement.


The awe-inspiring canopy


The giants of nature........


The ancient..........


The map of Lawachara National Park

We jumped out of the vehicle by about quarter past six. We knew that the sun was already up; but this is a place where nature has her own rules, and the sun has to go by that rule too. Anyway, we began to proceed through the unguarded roadblock that had some mobile tollbooth attached to it. We carefully looked at the map and took the way to the left, which was supposed to lead us to the three-hour trail. There were forest range offices, but hardly anyone there. One or two souls walking here and there, but none asked anything. So, we took our own way, taking the maps in our cameras. We could now see the railway that goes through here. When we just arrived at the gate, we could hear a train. Just across the railway, two trails get divided. The right one was obviously our way. But these road dividers didn’t end so quickly. There were more divisions ahead, with no direction sign anywhere. The maps unfortunately don’t reveal all the trails and sub-trails that create all the confusion. But as the map showed we were supposed to go right in order to reach the other end of the trail at Bagmara. Thus “go right” was the policy we took for the tour.


Everyone takes this shot; so I did too....... :)

The forest had its own sounds and smells. It was quite as anything and at the same time, it was noisy as anything. There is nothing here that makes any unnatural sound expect us. We could hear the dews falling; on the leaves and on the sandy trail itself. It was not short of a drizzle! We could feel that we had missed the sunrise. Life here starts early and goes by the clock of the nature, if you miss that clock, there’s no way rewinding it. Even though the sun was up, it was still gloomy in the trail. The sun was still not high enough to reach the top of the trees. Seemed like a twilight zone. Our cameras struggled with the lower than ideal light. We could hear the birds; many of them actually. When I say many, I mean many types. I haven’t never heard that many types of birds singing at the same time. Almost all the singing seemed alien to me. But the most interesting part of it was that we could hardly see any bird! I had my big lenses ready to shoot birds; had set up the tripod at numerous places. But where are the birds? I could hear them. Some of them can be seen jumping around the top branches of the tallest trees! Even a massive 500mm lens was finding it difficult to bring the birds closer! They were simply too far away! It wasn’t too long before I realised the amount the patience I need to shoot birds here. That would curtail the time needed to see the whole place. So, I had to sacrifice my photography to go forward.


In some places sunlight really struggles to come in.......


This is a Rain Forest........ dew stays for a while.......

The trail took us through some of the densest forests I had seen. Some places are so dense that it feels like twilight there, even though the sun was well up by then. There were small streams across the trail every now and then, which were more or less empty of any substantial flow of water. But we could see some small fishes in those starved-off streams. Many types of flowers decorated the path and butterflies tried hard to improve the decoration even farther. Lots of different types of undergrowth offered lots of macro photography opportunities. By I had to be satisfied with a few as I had to lose my macro equipment to others in the group. I was frustrated with the lack of tele shooting opportunities even though I was carrying the massive weight of the big tele lens. Many insects could also be seen making their marks on the sides of the trail. The trail was sometimes going up or down rather than just carrying on monotonously. As the sun began to hit the top branches, the insects increased their tone. It was almost like a change of volume along with the intensity of sunlight!


Tropical Dreamlights............


Lawachara_Nature...........05


Lawachara_Nature...........01

This is a forest and there is wildlife to be seen. And all on a sudden our eyes caught some movements. Black Squirrels were jumping between branches. They were making some unique noises. These squirrels are somewhat rare I had learned. We spent some time trying to get some decent photo of these creatures, but no chance. We had to move along. It was already past three hours in this three-hour trail. We were moving pretty slowly. We had a little bit breakfast that we took with us, though it wasn’t enough considering the amount of walking we were doing.


Meet Paan Rani......

Alas! That’s an elephant! It was a real surprise to see an elephant coming towards us. But there was a man guarding it. And seemed like the animal was friendly enough to him. We approached this “Paan Rani” and took some snaps in the low light. Avoided any camera flash though. Riad was really interested in her and touched her going close. Others were happier staying a little farther down. The animal wore a large sickle on one of its feet. But this is one heck of a strong animal, which you can never trust with 100% certainly. Paan Rani left us in no time. And we proceeded.


The Team........

We stopped at a divider once again and contemplated. A sudden movement in the nearby trees revealed several Langurs. We went quiet all on a sudden. Set up cameras and observed. The Langurs were playing the branches, but they didn’t bother to show themselves to us. We only saw them behind a forest of leaves. And had to be satisfied with that one! But it was at least one success finding some wildlife around here. Riad tried to go really close to the animals to get some reasonable shots; but in vein. These creatures, along with most others are increasingly becoming rare. We were yet to get a sight of any Gibbons. That would’ve been the real prize of the tour. Khurshed Bhai told us that if we were lucky, we could see a whole family of them. But so far we didn’t seem that blessed. Their habitat is under tremendous threat now. The canopy is degrading and without the canopy, these severely endangered animals cannot survive. Already they are down to their bare minimum numbers, making them one of the 25 most endangered species in the world.


Lawachara_Nature...........07


Lawachara_Nature...........06

Anyway, after watching the Langurs for a while, we decided to go straight instead of going right. The canopy began to fade away fast in this direction. And there were people up front. No sooner they spotted us, we could hardly see their traces. They were off in a flash. They were loggers. This is the Reserved Forest part of Lawachara. We were officially out of the boundaries of National Park. The NP is well protected it seems. But this area doesn’t seem like having any potential to last more than several years! Already there’s hardly any canopy left and still the loggers are at it. And definitely there is a need for protection. We saw numerous cut stems beside the trail. This indicated that these were cut in a hurry and needed to make it as convenient as possible.


Evidence of destruction.......

We saw more than one effort going on to cut trees here. People fled at the sight of us. We had heard that these people are indeed locals. And I didn’t get too much evidence to suggest otherwise. We didn’t see any industrial level logging. Only scattered efforts. These are poor people from the neighbourhood, not satisfied with their current level of earnings. We were depressed, but we felt lucky to have witnessed the real picture. If we were to have taken the right track, we probably wouldn’t have seen these misdeeds. These small efforts of these small people can be the difference between our future generations being able to see rain forest and not seeing it at all.


Lawachara_Nature...........04


Bagmara villager...... hard life; but still can smile........


Hiding from the lenses, are you??

We were tired like hell. Its been almost five hours since we started. At around 11AM we arrived at a village called Bagmara. We rested a bit there. The villagers told us that we needed to walk a couple more miles before we could reach the main road. We were thus off once again. Walking through a village setting now. No forest here. We walked and walked. The village roads are winding. They never go straight and touch almost every house in the area. These winds increase the length of the journey by several folds.


Village smiles..........

Like finding an oasis, we arrived at a small stream. We decided to wet our feet for a while. The water was really cool and provided a nice relief to the otherwise tiring journey. We were off again and by around 11:45AM we reached a small village shop and decided to rest a bit. Lipu discovered that he left his glasses somewhere near the stream. So some of us rested in the increasingly crowding shop, while others went with Lipu to recover his specs. Lots of village children gathered to watch us. We took some tea, caught some well-earned rest and did some photo session with them and decided to leave the place by around 12:20PM. Yet another walking streak followed. And by around 1:00PM we reached the rail line. The line was crossed by a village road that everyone said leads to the main road. We could hardly rest. Once again the village road followed. But in the end when we could see the road, we found that we were simply making it tougher for us by going along the village road. We decided to go off track; through the dried-out paddy fields.


Curious??


Just back from school...........


Riad and friends........

We reached the main road by 1:40PM and found a bus. Our tired bodies had found the heaven that we had been looking for. The shelter was more than enough to put us to sleep. We drooled to Srimangal within a short time. We left our stuff to the hotel and finished off the lunch in a hurry. We knew our bus was at 6:45PM. That left us enough time to touch the bed for a while. This was one of the most desired sleeps I ever had. Over seven hours of walking took the price of this nap to the highest level. We don’t know what happened during the next couple of hours. By 6:00PM we were out of bed and rushing for the rest room. We called Khurshed Bhai for the last time and he helped settle the room rent to a more tolerable level. The bus stop was very close by. So, without a trouble we reached there and before we could wait, we boarded the bus. It was really timely.

Thus ended the fascinating tour to an amazing place. I could hardly do any photography there. Yet that didn’t make this journey a failure for me. Lawachara remains in my memory as one of the most beautiful places I ever visited. This is a place so unique and rare that I cannot wait before I can make yet another visit there. I can still see the high canopy and hear the dewdrops. I hope to take my patience with me the next time I go there. Perhaps a little more nature photography can result from such a tour.