RIVER CRUISING
Shiva terracotta temple, Klnas
In the haze of dawn mists, there was often no line where sky met the flat water. Then, as the sun rose, the 3km-wide river revealed fringes of self-seeded plantations of snow-white pampas grass, edging sand- bars, islands and lagoons that stretched to huge horizons.
When closer to shore, we could see the banana groves, sugar cane, rice paddies, maize and banana crops. We would pass villages with painted temples amongst fruit-bearing trees like mango and custard apples, with wigwams of drying jute poles. Occasional pop-pop craft, paddle and sail- boats were piled high with traps and nets. In the wilderness, antelope could be seen feeding. Cranes flew overhead as our pilot confidently swung our vessel through an array of channels that varied from expansive to positively skinny. He had worked the Ganges as a child with his fa- ther, and could now read the speedy swirls of currents, whether deep or shallow. The city sights of Patna, with its thrumming streets and deranged dins of honking traffic, were fast fading. There, we had seen the huge granary built by Warren Hastings, the first British Governor of Bengal in 1786 to house grain after a famine. The Patna Museum, built by the Raj in 1928, displayed exquisite sculptures of Gods to Moghul art, with archaeological finds from the Mauryan period (300BC to the 1st Century AD) relating to the ‘enlightened’ Emperor Ashoka, who turned the wealth and zeal of his huge empire – including Afghanistan – to the gentle teachings of Buddha.
Pakistan Delhi Kathmandu Nepal Bhutan
Sukapha moored up at the Farakka Barrage
Sukapha had the CLASSIC LOOKS of a riverboat of yesteryear yet with
ALL THE MOD CONS you would expect from being only six years old, including the essential of air-conditioning.
China
Patna Sarnath Varanasi
Ganges Monghyr
Farakka Bhagalpur
Murshidabad Hugli
Kolkata Kalna
India Winter 2012-13 I WORLD OF CRUISING 73 Bay of Bengal Myanmar
Bangladesh
Peter Matthews Photo Library
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104