Sundarban Diary - Thrilling Lifetime Experience

Part I

Sreeja Ghosh

If I ask you about Sundarban,one of the world's largest mangrove forest, what will come to your mind first? Bengal Tiger. Yes the great Royal Bengal Tiger. But I must say Sundarbans means exquisite nature, the mystery and the music of jungle, rustling of leaves, shades of green and yellow, whistling of crickets, bird's chirping and serenity of the river. Sundarban is one of the world's largest estuarine forest criss crossed by hundreds of tributaries and creeks.

It was after a prolonged waiting I and my family managed to plan a short trip at Sundarban - the land of Bengal Tiger. On 11 October 2019.We headed towards this world heritage site located at the southern tip of west Bengal (A large part of Sundarban is included in Bangladesh too) and about 110 Km from Kolkata. 

https://youtu.be/emhQhudce9w

To reach Sundarbans you have to reach Gosaba block ghat at Godkhali first. We were supposed to meet at Godkhali with our tour operator. So we reached Canning via train from Jadavpur (one can also take train from Sealdah to reach canning). From there we reserved an auto to reach Godkhali. It took about an hour to reach there and from then we could feel the real thrill and were excited by anticipating the adventure.
while waiting to join the tour operator at Godkhali I had a conversation with few local inhabitants. They shared that how Bengal tigers has become part and parcel of daily life of Sundarbans. This is the land of Tiger, definitely man eater, crocodiles and King cobras.There are so many stories hidden in Sundarban that are undeniably gave us goosebumps. I was startled to learn from one of the ferry men (majhi) that in the last day itself the man-eater claimed a human prey from one of the village outskirts of the jungle!