Gonderbul Forest with its spotless floor.

Young girl on the banks.

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2003-08-14 - Water Trek (Day 121)

I wake covered in bug bites and generally not pleased as the cook had continued his impossible conversation at 6:30am when I was still in deep sleep. I say impossible conversation as from the moment we'd stepped on the boat the cook had started talking with the rowers and simply did not stop talking till we were all bedded down to sleep. I pulled out my watch at one point and clocked what was the longest he would go without talking, I reached a maximum of 1 minute 20 seconds but I think that was a strange anomaly, perhaps he had something in his throat. This is including time he was listening which never passed that same mark, he would give the rowers a sentence or two every once and a while, cut them off and continue talking. They for their part seemed resigned to let him talk and I only seldom heard them say a word. At first I thought it was just the guys getting acquainted, that turned to amazement that a person could talk straight through from 1pm to 9pm without stopping, I had never seen anything like it. However, when it woke me up in the morning of Day 2, I was annoyed. It was a dilemma though which I figured anyone who would talk for 8 hours straight without having the listening parties say more then a sentence or two would probably be very frustrated if I told him to shut up, a constant gab obviously being the core of his personality. Fortunately, I brought a couple of audio books and putting on my earphones, I could ride along in peace.

The morning row was an hour or so, and then we pulled into a small village and took a different shikara up a small river to Mans Ball Lake. This lake was ringed with lotus blossoms and leaves and crossing from the river to the lake was a struggle of plowing through a small forest of lotus blossoms. Coming out into the lake however, I was amazed by the crystal clear water where I could look down seemingly endlessly, and the peace of the lake. The government had obviously controlled the area and there were no houses or people in sight ¡V thus clear, unspoiled water. The sky was cloudy but the lake ringed by mountains with cranes and kingfishers looking for their morning breakfast was truly beautiful. Back down into the river I saw horse drawn carts that looked right out of "Little House on the Prairie" from my youth and ducks all over the river. The feeling is of life as it has always been and I'd be surprised to find that much has changed here in the last 100 years.

Back out on the river we go up another side river toward Gonderbul Forest. We are going upstream so one of the oarsmen has to get out and wrapping a rope around his body pulls us up river from the bank. We get to the forest and it is amazingly lovely though it took me a few minutes to realize why - there was absolutely no underbrush in the forest. I was hoping for a campfire as I had decided to sleep in the tent tonight and avoid the bugs but in more then an hour of wandering around the forest, I'd found no more then a few twigs. The forest was picked clean of any fallen twigs, dead wood or any low hanging branches who presumably use the wood in their fires. There was nothing at all to find on the ground, which made for beautiful pictures but left me with just a candle as my campfire, even so it was a magical place seemingly out of a storybook. While I was in the forest, a herd of horses, which just added to the beauty, passed me. I was saddened to see many of the horses front legs tied together in the Indian manner of making sure they don't run too far which is just a horrible way to treat the animals.

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