Assam, India
kevin pilley heads to Assam, the northeast-indian state to the east of the Himalayas, to savour its wildlife and tea plantations
“not another one-horned rhino!” Jemima sighed in that forlorn way that implies that once you have seen one slow loris and Royal Bengal tiger in the wild, you’ve seen them all. Once you’ve bathed one elephant, you needn’t bathe another.
We had ticked off the eastern swamp deer, langur monkey and crab-eating mongoose. And we were surrounded by winter migratory tourists, including a family of British Babblers — dad, mum and three female fledglings, Jemima, Jessica and Jocasta.
We were in the UNESCO Kaziranga National Park in Assam in northeast India, on a cruise to catch the “susu” (river dolphin) along a tributary of the Brahmaputra. But one thing was missing: River dolphins (platanista gangetica).
We had already passed wild buffaloes munching on water hyacinths and roofed turtles sunning themselves on sandbanks, and watched rosy-headed parakeets chatter. But the British Babblers weren’t happy.
You couldn’t fail to sense they had been everywhere and seen everything. Clouded leopards at Namdapha. Hispid hares in Manas. The “squalor” of five-bedroomed residences. The family’s holidays are inspired by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. So they had been to Bhutan as well. And were disappointed as it’s so Wifi-disabled.
Now they were fed up with Assam’s back-breaking dirt roads and missing their Twinings tea bags.
India is the world’s second largest tea-growing country, and Assam’s 200 tea gardens provide a sixth of the total national production. Tea was introduced into Assam by Scotsman Alexander Bruce in 1823 and the first Assamese black tea arrived in London 180 years ago.
Although Guwahati (a two-hour flight from Delhi) has the Tea Auction Centre, Jorhat is the tea capital and hosts an annual tea festival which features tribal drumming and opportunities to sample Chai Pani (tea with water) and Gakhir Sah (milky tea). Both are served without sugar. The tea pluckers themselves, mostly ladies and descendants of coolies brought in by the British from Odisha and Jharkhand, prefer salt in their tea.
Every February, the Jorhat Gymkhana Club (founded in 1856, it’s the second oldest golf club in the world outside the UK) hosts the Jorhat races, including The Governor’s Cup, Assam’s version of the Ascot.
“In the good old days we had weekly film shows, sports days, dances and parties. Lots of dressing up. And much fun. Drinking was a rational activity,” remembered Amoto, a barman at the club for 56 years. It was he who invented the club’s signature cocktail Ladies’ Fire (lemon and vodka).
Back on the boat Jemima heaved another
homesick sigh, telling everyone she was fed up with rice in general and, by extension, everything good about Assamese food that is rice-dominant. There are 122 types of Assamese rice, with Karnnajoha being the most popular. The rice is usually scented, steamed or sun-dried. Puffed rice is called “akhoi”, and flattened, “chira”. “Pitha” is ricecake, and “ghila pitha” is a patella-shaped pancake.
Assamese cuisine uses few spices. Instead, elephant apple chutney, pickled Buddha’s Hand, jute leaves, curry leaves, tomatoes, kaji nemu (elongated lemons), thekera (dried mangosteen), gourd, hog plum, Indian gooseberry, bore (pulverized lentils) and aloo pitika (mashed potatoes) feature in the dishes. Most rural households have their own ponds. “Hukuti” is dried puthi maas fish pounded with arum stem and dried in bamboo tubes. “Pokori” are pumpkin leaf fritters.
I’d been on the Conversations With Nature Trail at the Wild Mahseer heritage stay near Tezpur. Set in the midst of the Balipara division of the Addabarie Tea Estate (established by the British Assam Tea Company in 1864), its dining pavilion was once the old tractor shed, while residences of the doctor, accountant and visiting agent have been converted into bijou boutique colonial homestay bungalows.
I learnt that silkworms feed off mulberry leaves (producing Pat muga silk), castor oil trees (eri) and so much more, thanks to the 22-acre Eastern Himalayan Botanic Ark, which surrounds the homestays and promotes conservation of the region’s rich biodiversity. The Wild Mahseer also has its own bamboorium.
The ideal luxury bases from which to discover wildlife, explore Sivasagar (old Rangour), Sualkuchi (the handloom centre), and Majuli (the world’s largest river i sland) a re t he c lassy o ld tea plantation bungalows at Wild Mahseer, Banyan Grove near Jorhat, and Dibrugarh’s Mancotta Chang ( house on stilts) near Chabua. With their colonnaded “jaali” verandas, “khansamar” ( house stewards) and “chowkidar” (gatekeeper), they evoke the feel of the Raj
The ideal luxury bases from which to see the wildlife, and explore Sivasgar and Majuli are definitely the classy old tea plantation bungalows at Wild Mahseer
and the privileged but lonely last- days- of-the-empire teaplanter lifestyle.
Inside the Sangsua and Gatoonga tea estates, the Heritage North East Burra Sahib’s bungalow is now the clubhouse of the luxurious Kaziranga Golf Resort, which houses stylish cottages, a spa, restaurant, and driving range. “Advisas” (pluckers) walk down the fairways in their “jhapu” hats and “chupti” baskets.
Back on the boat, “I’ll scream if I see another Indian bison,” Jessica promised as we waited for the river dolphins to surface. In the meantime, hornbills continued to feed on monkey fig trees and a crimson sunbird passed overhead. “Sightings are rare. Largely because of dredging and damming, ‘susu’ numbers are decreasing,” offered the Kiwi on our tour.
There had been two false alarms. One was a cushion and the other, a carrier bag. We watched the river surface. There were no ripples. Not a whiff of a blowhole or longsnout. Perhaps because I’d experimented at dinner the night before with the local elephant repellent. Made of Bhut jholokia, said to be the world’s hottest chilli and grown only in Assam, it’s smeared as paste on walls and fences to deter elephants. It’s excellent for dispersing mobs, even the Indian police use it.
As the sun slid down the sky, the river remained brown.
“They’re going the same way as jhinga river prawn. And other freshwater dolphins — Yangtze baiji, Indus bhulan and Amazon boto,” continued the Kiwi.
We chugged along. “Try the Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary if this blanks” he announced. “We tried there. Didn’t see a ruddy thing. Just egrets,” said Jemima.
The boat turned and we saw sambars and macaques. But no hog badgers, flying foxes, fishing cats or a single platanista gangestic.
The last to disembark, I thought I saw a dorsal fin waving us goodbye. Or maybe giving us another familiar hand gesture.