Crabs Escape on Train!

So to my weekend jaunt to the delightful Sunderbans. A perfectly chilled group of us took a 2 day boat tour of the Sunderbans in search of the elusive man-eating Bengali tiger through the largest mangrove delta in the world (not mangoes as one of our troupe thought!). We started off super hungover after a Hope Foundation flat-warming party (the results of which saw the Hopers get evicted due to the apparently rowdy party. Eeps!). We then, of course, took a plethora of transportation modes: firstly, the taxi to Sealdah train station, onto the locals train, onto a sort of rickshaw front end with a flat wooden cart stuck on the back for us to sit on (possibly the most uncomfortable 45 minutes of my life with every bump in the road felt as heads and legs were thrown against bars and boards), and finally onto our modest little boat.

Rickshaw/cart fusion. Beautiful scenery en route made this journey bearable: mud huts, rice paddies, tropical trees...

It was simply extremely chilled with guitars and singing, nice peeps and beautiful surrounds. On the first night we went to one of the villages and sat amongst a courtyard of mud huts for many hours with more guitar and singing and a cheeky little toddler to keep us entertained. The villagers then cooked us the most amazingly delish foods as served up for festivals (and of course there was a festival, this time for Saraswati): mushed up and spicy lentil and rice dish, grilled aubergine, and matchstick fried plantain. All eaten by hand and served up on a metal tray. We then popped off to the main event which turned out to be a village dance-off and as the guests we were invited up on stage. Urgh! I avoided this humiliation but the boys had a great time even giving a thank you speech. Afterwards we returned to the boat for some sleeps but alas!!, the boat was stranded on the mud bank! With some bloke muscle power they managed to haul the vessel back towards the dock. Disaster averted!

Mangroves...not mangoes!

We spent pretty much all of the next day cruising around the Sunderbans spying a few monkeys, a big lizard, and a croc...but no man-eating Bengali tiger! At one of the docks we bumped into a famous Bengali actor who climbed aboard, blessed the boys with a splodge of river mud on their forehead, and then gave us some river crabs as a gift for us to cook up for our tea. Bizarre!

Bengali actor warmly greeting his fans

On the journey back we piled into a tempo which could comfortably hold our group of eleven plus driver, but as soon as we were about to depart the masses piled in as they wedged their way onto the benches, clung to the sides, and sat on the roof bringing us to 25 aboard! Hilarious!! Then, at a brief stop at another town, another 5 magically squeezed their way on!! Impressive stuff! On the train back to Calcutta I was in charge of looking after our crab dinner. I did a poor job. Unbeknownst to me one escaped and as I caught sight of the second trying to claw its way out of the carrier bag it was too late and it too scuttled off - it's pincers looked pretty fierce and determined! There was mild pandemonium on the train as word got out that the foreigner's crabs had escaped! Pointing and high dramatics ensued. The crabs scuttled a little further down the carriage towards the doorway and were promptly kicked off the train by two in our group who were trying to save the crabs from being stomped to pieces by the locals. So no crab dinner. Funny times.