NE India River Trek Story and Photos

Life has been fast and furious these days, with trips stacked on top of each other. Because of the hectic pace these posts are going to be a bit mixed up as I try to share interesting events and stories. While the trip to SE Alaska was a "once in a life-time" vacation and included some of the most amazing images of Creation possible--there are still a number of interesting stories and accounts from the NE India trip that occurred ten days before...

12 hour voyage down the Barak River

What was first described as an 8 hour trip down the Barak River in NE India turned into a 12 hour marathon. We did not arrive at our destination until well after midnight in the pitch dark moonless night.

The first obstacle to our reaching our goal on time occurred when we ran aground and threw a propeller. I instantly recognized the sound of the prop-less shaft making the motor whine like super model Naomi Campbell at Heathrow Airport in London. We drifted down the river until we reached a small camp where the boat driver hopped off and ran off into the jungle to find materials to fix the problem.

Eventually he returned with a 3' piece of bamboo that he created a bushing with that adequately solved our propulsion problem.

The series of three photos at the bottom of this post is of the driver determining whether the shaft had been bent too much to be used. After making his calculations he expertly slammed the shaft down with the hopes of straightening it...evidently he knew what he was doing as we did not have this problem again for the next 10 hours.

All in all this was an amazing day -- quite relaxing in comparison with the horribly rutted and bumpy 4x4ing that we had to do as we twisted and wound through the high mountain mud tracks known as roads which linked the mountain-top communities of the Hmar region.

As we glided down the Barak river we learned that there were also Hmar villages that occupied the river-banks--these folks lived very differently from their mountain-top cousins.

Similar to our reception as the first foreigners to visit in the mountainous region in generations, we stopped in one village to inspect a school construction project and were told that even during the British colonization of India--that no foreigner had ever visited. Since this was a very common theme on this trip I wondered how this could be true.

There is no way for me to verify these claims--but I do know that the area has been cordoned off since the British era...and the Indian central government has simply extended the laws which isolate this region.

One interesting story told to me during our many hours on the boat was that in the late 1980's or early 1990's a very tall German young man had driven his "box-van" through the area. Evidently his girlfriend lived and worked in Bangkok, Thailand and he decided to drive from Germany the whole way. He arrived in Hmar territory unannounced, sick and hungry. The Hmar, known for their open hospitality welcomed him and cared for him...as they did this they informed him that despite maps indicating roads that linked the region through Myanmar to Thailand...that actual roads did not exist. After a few days of eating and changing light-bulbs (b/c he was tall the villagers asked that he switch out the light-bulbs in the few locations they existed), this kind and tall German got back in his van and continued his trek. The Hmar never heard whether he ever reached his goal...but they loved to share the story.