India's Northeast

Good Morning!
I hope this email finds you all well.  Kolkata has been unbearably hot recently (well over 40 degrees Celsius), but I've been out of town for almost two weeks, so the heat is just now getting to me.  Here are some updates and things I've done recently, in chronological order:

Aakash and I really enjoyed Meera's visit.  Meera and I spent days and days shopping in different parts of the city, which was very wonderful!  We also ate lots of delicious food and visited various temples.  Aakash and Meera took a siblings trip to Shantiniketan for a few nights, and it sounds like they had a great time and experience.

I also visited Shantiniketan another weekend with Alec and Matt. Shantiniketan is a town about four hours outside of Kolkata that Tagore built a university in.  It's now considered a huge hub for all types of artists, particularly Baul singers. We stayed for two nights and had a blast.  Between the three of us, we rented one cycle and one cycle rickshaw, so we explored the area with one of us on a bike, one of us pedaling the cycle rickshaw, and one of us sitting in the rickshaw stocked with daab.  The fresh air and friendly environment was a nice break from Kolkata.

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My sister and I, along with Alec, went on a trip to the Northeast.  We started in Meghalaya, which is now my favorite part of India.  The highlight of Megalaya was staying in Mawlynnong, a small village that was awarded the title of "Cleanest City in Asia" a few years back. It was absolutely exquisite and clean, especially for India!  We stayed in a home that included a Sky View, which was a 85 plus foot bamboo structure that allowed us to climb above the forest so we could view the plains of Bangladesh, about 4 km away.  Spectacular.

Seeing Living Root Bridges in Meghalaya was one of the most, if not the most incredible thing I've ever seen and touched.  Behind our house in Mawlynnong, we walked around 30 minutes through the valley and neighboring villages to Riwai. Even now, after seeing the bridges, I hesitate in trying to describe it exactly.  Meghalaya is the wettest place in the world, so when monsoon comes, all man made infrastructures are destroyed within five years.  So instead of rebuilding bridges across rivers every few years, they spend a century cultivating the roots of a tree into a bridge.  The bridge itself was absolutely massive and beautiful, and it was hard to believe it was all nature. The path across it was wide and sturdy and paved with a few stepping stones, presumably to help if it is wet.  We left early in the day and were the only ones on the bridge when we arrived.  The river was low and we were able to climb the bridge, touch it's roots, and explore the surrounding rocks.  I can't quite explain how magical it was, but it was incredible to see such a harmonious blend of humans with the nature around them.

The "paved" road on top of the bridge.

Following Meghalaya, we traveled to Kaziranga National Park in Assam.  This park is not only a tiger reserve, but also boasts having 2/3's of the great one-horned (unicorn) rhinosaurus, as well as elephants, water buffalo, and countless other birds and animals.  In the morning, we went on an elephant safari, where we road on the back of a pack of elephants as they took their morning stroll and ate breakfast.  We were extremely close to so many rhinos that I'm unable to tell you how many of the magnificent creatures we saw.  In the afternoon, we took a jeep safari and saw more rhinos and elephants just hanging out, as well as so many other birds and animals.  And most exciting of all, we actually saw a tiger!  He was sunbathing on the opposite side of the river and we were able to see in from a watch tower.  It was magical.  The park was beautiful and another great example of humans living respectfully and side by side wild animals.

Coming back to hot hot hot Kolkata has been difficult.  The Wizard of Oz is one week away and I am looking forward to celebrating the success of the students' hard work and no longer working with an administration I do not see eye to eye with.  Our time here is diminishing quickly- less than two months away!  I hope  enjoyed my update.  Know that both Aakash and are thinking of you all.

Love,
Jayanthi