Shake, Rattle and Hold On Tight in Similipal
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
23
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Baripada,
India
Sunday, January 13, 2008
We were glad to check out of our Calcutta hotel and escape from all the scary over zealous tip-hunters. When the various men/boys who helped in some capacity around the hotel discovered we were leaving the following day things got a bit stressful. Firstly the 'boy' (their term for him - he was easily 20) who often brought our breakfast actually came into our room, shut the door behind him and demanded paying (we'd been planning to leave tips for the various members of staff when we checked out). As there was no obligation to pay him anything, we didn't have any small change on us and in any case, we weren't going to reward such intimidation we told him where to go. I think we need to shake off our English manners and reticence a little faster though in this country. The next day Hugh went out to get change and so when the 'boy' came back to ask for money we were able to give him a little amount, making it clear we might have given more if he hadn't have been so rude
Villager in Similipal National Park
. Then on the way out we ran the gauntlet of several other men who had done such great things as attempted to carry our bags (we'd stopped them) and given us a bottle of water or a bar of soap during our stay but who now all wanted tipping. We'd had enough and no one else got anything.Our journey to Baripada went surprisingly well. The taxi ride to the bus station wasn't too scary (older, less aggressive driver who didn't seem to mind going a little slower in favour of arriving in one piece) and we found the bus easily. The bus was old, apparently made of tin and got really packed but as we'd arrived early we got a seat. They don't appear to store livestock in the bus, or eat roadkill all the journey, so even though the bus wasn't nearly as modern or comfortable, I actually much preferred the journey as I wasn't attempting not to be sick all the way! Sometimes people got on to sell some peanuts or other crunchy snacks, but they smelt yummy so we didn't mind people eating those.
We found the hotel with no trouble - we'd called to book from Calcutta in case we needed to give more notice to arrange our trip to the national park. It was a bit of a scary concrete monstrosity of the type India seems very fond. The cavernous dark inside had bare concrete staircases with heavy curtains slung across doorways
Our driver haggling with villagers
. The room was pretty large, but dark and very basic. There were heavy dark stained curtains across the windows which concealed glass that I'm not sure was transparent even when new, and in any case appeared to look onto a concrete enclosed space full of pigeons. The bathroom was clean but a bit scary. And it took us until the end of the following day to work out we had to ask for our hot water, which arrived piping hot in buckets (so not actually as bad as you'd think, as normal showers often don't heat the water very well or consistently). They didn't provide bedding, but we were happy to use our sleeping bags as we had done in Calcutta anyhow (I wasn't convinced the sheets were clean there.). We seemed to be the only white people in the hotel. In fact, I'd wager we were the only white people in the town, if not the district as we hadn't seen another soul since our hotel in Calcutta (tourists didn't seem to wish to brave Calcutta's bus depot....can't think why ;) ), so we didn't mind a few cultural-translation difficulties and the staff were very friendly, which helps in trying to work out such things as 'why are they telling us we have hot water when there is none?' or 'why have they just come back three times in half an hour with different trivial requests?' (Turns out check-out was at 8am, but they hadn't told us so they didn't try to make us pay for checking out a couple of hours late.). The next day started early
Watering hole in Similipal National Park
. There didn't seem to be a heck of a lot of options for visiting Similipal national park, so we had to arrange a trip via our hotel. It turned out that for about 25 pounds we'd managed to hire a jeep that would have been at home in the army. No mod cons for us - no nice suspension or seatbelts or doors or windows, oh no - we were to be experiencing every rocky road and cloud of dust the park had to offer. Which turned out to be a fair number. If you added up all the driving time, we were probably in that jeep for about 9 hours. 9 hours of being rattled about so hard that you have to wedge your feet against the ridges in the floor and your knees against the seat in front to keep yourself from being thrown out the sides every time you went around a corner. And we are still, several days later, washing orange dust from our pores (and I'm coughing like nobody's business).Anyhow, in spite of the truly harrowing car ride the park was actually quite beautiful. The trip wasn't exactly what I'd been expecting - I'd thought that we'd be driven to a good spot where we'd get to sit quietly and hope to spot a something-or-other. Not so, the guide seemed to think the best way to see animals was to hope to scare them with the ungodly noise of the jeep (and it was bad - when the engine was turned off our ears continued to ring!) in the hope they'd run across the road. Now I'm no Indian wildlife expert, but I'd have thought that all but the most stupid creatures would hear the jeep from a long way off and hide, or else freeze in the undergrowth
Hugh at Similipal National Park
. So I was surprised that we did actually see an eagle (sorry, guide had no idea what type), quite a few peacocks, a troop of Lagur monkeys and a rather marvellous spotted deer in this manner. The few times we did stop we saw a herd of spotted deer (by the 'salt lick'), more peacocks and Hugh and I found a Giant Squirrel leaping around above our heads when we wandered away from the jeep. We also saw several waterfalls (more predictable are waterfalls. Tend not to run away and hide), a few tribal villages (one of which we stopped in so the guide could buy something in a packet that I'm sure was highly dodgy) and some lovely countryside that was sometimes more savannah like, sometimes rice-paddies fringed by blue hills and sometimes dense forest (Indian Mahogany apparently - felt almost like a deciduous forest at home).We didn't see any tigers (no surprise there), nor any wild elephants (although we did see fresh elephant poo), nor any crocodiles (although we found footprints), nor any other type of wild cat or, sadly, a pangolin. When I asked the guide whether we could look for a pangolin he seemed to think I was off my rocker as apparently they can't run away fast or defend themselves and are highly prized for medicine but, presumably, not as high profile as the tiger so no one is overly concerned when it is no longer possible to find them. Poor pangolins. People are horrid
Waterfall at Similipal National Park
. The guide then went on to tell us that the tribal people who lived in the park were allowed into the very protected area (the park has two zones - one people can live in, within some rules, the other they can't, from what I gathered) every year for two days to shoot everything they find apart from tigers and elephants. However, I kept seeing people with bows and arrows and we weren't there at the hunting time, so I suspect people keep to the rules rather loosely. Our guide also kept stopping to ask people something and wanted to look in their bags - to begin with we thought he was helping to police against poaching, but as time wore on we suspected his motives might not have been so honourable. In spite of our guide telling us that it would be possible to see elephants with no trouble if we stayed over night, and taking us to all the park lodges where we could stay, we were determined to get back to our hotel to partake of such luxuries as food (no restaurants or shops in the park and we hadn't managed to communicate our want for packed lunch to the hotel that morning) and clean clothing. Thus began one of the most harrowing journeys of our time travelling so far. We were already shattered from being bumped about in the jeep all day and assumed the journey back to Baripada would be about the same time as it took to get to the park in the morning - about 45 minutes. Not so. Two and a half hours later we arrived. The journey was very scary, painful and I spent most of it trying not to be sick, trying not to look outside (or indeed, open my eyes, to avoid the dust whirling past at speed) and trying (and failing) to stay warm (in spite of our fleeces, the temperature drops suddenly in the hills at dusk and in the exposed back of the jeep we really felt the chill). We could barely climb out of the jeep at the hotel. Ouch! Suddenly Indian tea seemed like the most wonderful stuff - it is essentially hot milk with a mild tea flavour and a silly amount of sugar, perfect for bringing you round from something that must have been bordering on clinical shock - I was freezing, shivering and dizzy, and remained so for the rest of the evening, gradually improving with a hot bucket-water shower and dinner but not feeling back to normal until after a good night's sleep tucked up in my sleeping bag.
Food in Baripada:
We're clearly not having problems finding veggie food in India, but we do sometimes encounter problems finding places to eat that look nice and clean. The vegetarian restaurant next to our hotel smelt awful, even though it was very busy, so we ate our dinners at our hotel restaurant. The food was really nice, the people friendly and it seemed to be kept relatively busy with Indian families. Some papads (poppadoms), a big rice dish, a curry, some dal and a bottle of water came to about a pound. Yup - a pound for dinner for two. And we were stuffed...
