A Short Solo Travel

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How does one write about a small solo trip? Should it contain the details of the journey—the itinerary, the uncertainties, the hour-by-hour visits, observations, feelings and experiences—or should it be a summary of only the subtle but most prominent observations?

I will try a little of both: a small introduction, the trip in reasonably small details, and more emphasis on the experiences and observations.

So here we go.

To start with a confession, this was my first solo trip by car in recent years. It was a very small one, hardly 60 km from Kolkata, followed by an overnight stay. Yet I was quite worried because I had not driven this far alone for a long time.

The only other time I had travelled or driven a car alone was long back, probably in 2008 or 2009, when I drove from Rajgir to Ranchi, about 260 km. That was a very unique experience. I started early in the morning, around 3 a.m., when it was still dark, and passed through the roads of Rajgir—dark and silent roads, with the distant sound of bells tinkling somewhere. I reached Ranchi by 9:30 a.m. and sat down for breakfast. After that, however, I had never driven a car alone for more than 20 km.

This time I kept wondering: Would I feel bored? Would the car break down? Would I feel depressed after reaching the destination? What would I do there? All these thoughts were clouding my mind.

And it was the 15th of August.

I started around 12:30 p.m. from Kolkata after lunch. It was the peak of the rainy season. On the way there were bouts of heavy downpour—so heavy at times that it appeared the rain would never stop. Luckily, after 15–20 minutes it would stop, only to start again after some time. The whole 60 km journey went like this. Fortunately, there was no problem on the way.

I was heading towards a village called Noorpur, situated at the confluence of three rivers: the Ganga, the Damodar and the Roop Narayan. It is south of Diamond Harbour, and at this place the river opens up dramatically, spreading into such a vast area of water that the opposite shores are hardly visible and appear very distant.

The turn from the highway onto Noorpur Road took me onto a road with very little traffic. Because of the peak rainy season, the road was damaged at many places, but overall it was not very bad. The drive was mostly smooth, between lines of green trees, banana plants and full-grown bushes and shrubs. I drove at a leisurely speed, avoiding potholes and being careful not to lose my way.

When I was only about 500 metres from the destination—the tip of the land after which the huge mass of water of the three rivers begins—I noticed that there was hardly any traffic or even people on the road. It was around 3:30 p.m. The place I was visiting was supposed to be a tourist spot, but there was no sign of any tourism activity.

I slowly and cautiously started looking for a place to park my car. The road was quite narrow, and parking by its side did not seem appropriate. Luckily, around 250–300 metres before the destination shown on Google Maps, I spotted a place below the road where several auto-rickshaws and one or two minibuses were parked. The place was muddy and slippery because of the rain. Still, I drove my vehicle down and found a relatively sturdy spot to park.

No one spoke a word to me. Nobody objected to my slightly clumsy parking. No one offered any advice, and not a single rupee was charged.

The place looked desolate, except for a few shops, several small houses, parking rooms for motorcycles and a signboard indicating the way towards the jetty. On the right side was the tourist spot for which I had come all the way. In fact, there was no tourist activity even on a holiday like 15th August, when no room was available in any of the hotels in the nearby area and up to the Raichak area.

The road by the riverside was badly damaged, full of slush, with construction material scattered around. I had read before starting that a Singaporean cargo ship, around 150 metres long, had crashed into that side of the road, badly damaging it. Repairs had just started. I was expecting this and was therefore not surprised.

I walked around slowly for some time and then found a small spot near a ferry that was under construction, right beside the huge mass of river water. I rested there and allowed the silence and the smell of the place—the smell of fresh rain, mud and cow dung—to enter my being.

I found a few spots from where there were majestic views of the river, with ferries parked nearby and small boats and ferries moving on the water. The huge mass of water sparkled under the afternoon sun, which appeared occasionally but was mostly hidden behind clouds.

I then walked towards the other side, towards the jetty, through very narrow pathways continuously dotted with small houses where people lived.

One of the persons sitting by the path, probably renting out a simple room for parking motorcycles for a fee, asked me with a smile, in his language, something like: “Sir, enjoying, sir? Having a good time?”

Standing on the jetty, which led to the ferry boarding platform, I felt the cool breeze flowing over the river water. Immediately, it occurred to me that the journey was worth it just because of this cool breeze.

We, the city dwellers, have become so unfortunate that, just to experience a small gust of cool, simple, unpolluted breeze, we spend thousands of rupees and travel many, many kilometres.

At the jetty I took out my Canon camera and started clicking a few photographs. Soon I was surrounded by a bunch of children, perhaps eight, nine and six years old.

One of them asked me, “Are you making a video?”

I said no.

Then he asked, “Do you make videos for YouTube, or do you make reels?”

Again I said no. I was just taking photographs.

He asked, “What will you do with these photographs?”

Honestly, I did not have an answer. Why was I taking these photographs? What for? What would I do with them?

But something had to be said, so I told him, “I am learning. I have just started.”

Then he asked, “What is the cost of the camera?”

I was ashamed to tell him the real price. I said, “The price is 40.”

He understood. “Forty thousand?”

I said yes.

I wanted to take a picture of those children, but something stopped me.

By then I was still without a hotel, and the clock had ticked past 5 p.m. It was uncertain whether I would stay nearby for the night or have to drive all the way back to Kolkata after visiting the Raichak riverside, another tourist spot about 17 km from where I was.

I tried online again and finally got a room in a hotel around 7 km away. I booked and paid for it, put the location into Google Maps and started driving towards it. My plan was to check into the hotel and then go to the Raichak riverside.

Close to the hotel, Google Maps started trying to take me left into very narrow lanes. I kept driving forward in the hope that I would find a broader road. Eventually, the map took me to a very narrow road right beside the river.

The map was not actually wrong. Road construction was going on, the road had been damaged by the heavy rains, and boulders had been placed on it. Now I was stuck on a narrow road beside the river. I could neither turn around nor reverse for a very long distance.

Here I encountered an interesting person.

When I was trying to move forward towards the hotel, with a few boulders visible ahead, I asked him whether the car could go. He said enthusiastically, “Yes, yes, go ahead, go ahead.”

But another e-cart fellow on a motorcycle was reversing his bike and said, “No, the road is under construction. You cannot go. You have to reverse your car from here.”

So I started reversing. The same fellow who had enthusiastically directed me to go forward now helped me reverse the car and get back towards the main road.

I was standing at the turning of the road. It was quite clear to me that the car could not simply be reversed, yet the fellow kept enthusiastically helping and directing me. I told him that I would have to reverse all the way, perhaps 100 or 200 metres, until I found a broader area.

Luckily, after a few metres, I found a little broader patch. There was also a group of people sitting on a raised platform. They guided me and helped me reverse the car from that spot and then drive towards the main road.

Time was running out because I wanted to reach the Raichak riverside before sunset for the supposedly magnificent sunset view.

I called the hotel to confirm the route. I told them that I had booked a room there. The reply was that no room was available and that the online booking was not valid because the hotel had no accommodation available.

Nevertheless, I found the accommodation voucher in my email and also found a better road to reach the hotel. I reached the hotel and claimed my room.

The hotelier said, “No, sir. We are not subscribed to this website for hotel booking.”

He advised me to make a claim immediately and said I might get a refund. I opened the customer-care portal of the travel website, Traveloka, which he said was a Japanese company. I trusted that the company should not cheat me like this.

On the help-desk chat, I narrated the situation and asked for a refund. The reply said, “Wait for some time. We will get back to you and help you in every possible manner.”

The same hotel, which had refused to accommodate me, suggested that I try a nearby hotel. I went there. They said that one room was available.

I said, “Book it. Take the advance. I will check in later because I have to rush to the sunset site.”

“No problem, sir,” he said.

The riverside at Raichak was the real tourist spot. It was extremely crowded and difficult even to walk or find a place to sit. Nevertheless, I walked down the steps towards the river and found a secluded spot under a tree beside the concrete steps.

By then the sun was almost going down, but I managed to click some stunning photographs of the river, cargo ships, transmission towers standing in the middle of the water and huge lifting cranes in the water.

I left the crowded riverside and walked along the narrow road towards the west, hoping to find a more secluded and better spot. The narrow road immediately became quiet.

I walked through grass and wet soil towards the river, found a dry spot and sat there for some time, watching the ships and ferries, and the river water turning dark in the setting sun.

I was hungry by then, so I returned to the crowded riverside. It was full of sellers of jhalmuri, puchka, ice cream and fast food, with the noise of people and vehicles filling the crowded road.

I stopped near a thela selling jhalmuri and bhel puri. I asked for a ₹20 jhalmuri.

The seller prepared the jhalmuri right there in front of the customer. Before completing the preparation, he would hand over a small quantity on the customer's palm and ask whether the taste was okay. Only after the customer approved the sample did he mix the rest, put it into a paper packet and hand it over.

Even a small seller selling a ₹20 item ensured that the customer was satisfied with the taste and the preparation he was buying.

So I stayed in the luckily found hotel that night.

The next morning was going to be equally suspenseful.

I got up at 4:00 in the morning. It was drizzling. I did some exercise to energise myself, made myself a tea, freshened up, took a bath and, by 5:30, was ready to leave with my camera, umbrella and the breakfast of peanut chikkis that I had already consumed.

The hotel gate was locked. There was no one at reception at that hour. I knocked at the guard's hut and, luckily, he came out and opened the gate.

At 5:35 a.m. I was on my way towards the same jetty at Noorpur that I had visited the previous day.

On my second visit to the jetty, I was behaving like a frequent visitor.

I took my car straight to the parking area, found a good spot and parked. From there it was a five- or six-minute walk to the jetty. The people in the houses were also beginning to wake up.

I walked with my eyes down towards the road, otherwise I felt I might invade the privacy of the people living in the small houses beside the pathway, where a considerable part of private life is carried out in public.

At the ticket counter I was told that the jetty to Gadiar starts at 6:40, not 6:05 in the morning. I now had 40 minutes.

I walked back to the tourist spot I had visited the previous day, and now I was striding around almost like a frequent visitor, or perhaps even a local.

One shopkeeper asked me, “Where are you heading to? The road is closed.”

“I know,” I said. “Just passing time because the launch is delayed.”

Frankly, the next 40 minutes passed quickly in that serene early-morning environment, with the locals, including sari-clad women, moving around and taking a dip in the river.

The ride on the launch or ferry is best described through the photographs and small videos. It cannot really be described in words. The cost for 20 minute ferry ride was Rs, 8.0.

The Gadiar tourist spot was much better organised than the Noorpur tourist spot. It had a tourism department property right beside the river. The road beside the riverbank was paved, with benches all along at a height from where the vast river confluence could be viewed. There were basic tea shops serving tea, biscuits and so on.

I took a stroll up and down and encountered occasional drizzles, which were of no concern since I had my umbrella. I settled down for some magnificent views and photographs.

I was also lucky enough to spot the fort, now submerged in the river, said to have been built in the late eighteenth century, in the 1770s, by Robert Clive to guard against river pirates.

The top of the fort becomes more and more visible as the water recedes during low tide. It feels as if a magnificent structure is revealing itself little by little to a person who is waiting patiently beside it, waiting long enough.

The nearby tea shop was run by a middle-aged woman. A girl and a young boy were sitting on its benches. The girl must have been nine or ten years old, and the boy younger, around six.

While the lady was preparing tea for me, the lone customer, I saw a young man coming towards the shop. The children called him “Papa.”

I noticed that the man was well built but walked with a lame stride. His left leg was thinner than his right leg, and his right arm was thinner than his left arm.

A toto was parked outside the tea shop. An old man wearing a janeu emerged. Clearly, he had just come out after bathing because he was carrying water in a bottle. He sprinkled it all around inside the tea shop and then over all four tyres of the toto.

It was the holy water of the Ganges (Hooghly).

I wondered: living beside such a huge mass of flowing river, and with rain falling around him every now and then and heavy downpours from time to time, had all that water diminished his faith in those few drops of water? Apparently not. He still hoped that those drops would bring good luck and well-being to him and his family.

The tea and biscuit were priced Rs 15.0

There were benches facing the river on the elevated road, all along the riverside. They had been built by the tourism department for tourists to sit, relax and enjoy the vast view of the water.

I was also sitting on one of those benches under my umbrella, facing the river, when I noticed a large number of plastic packets and other waste just below the bench.

My first reaction was anger. I thought the small roadside shops must have thrown all this waste there.

But then I noticed the same kind of bunches of plastic packets and other waste lying in front of almost all the benches along the road. The waste was slightly hidden by the overgrown grass and bushes.

Then I understood.

These had been thrown by the tourists themselves, accumulating over a period of time—tourists who had come here attracted by the serene environment, clean air, clean water, clean roads and hotels.

It was time for another cup of tea and biscuits. It was around 8:30 a.m.

In between, a few people emerged from the tourism department resort. They wandered a little here and there on the road beside the river and then went back to the resort.

There were perhaps 40 to 50 cars parked inside the resort campus, since it was a holiday and weekend, but hardly anyone came out or spent time by the riverside.

It was, in fact, a blessing for a solo traveller like me, who did not want to be disturbed by the crowd and clutter of tourists.

I wanted another cup of tea and biscuits, this time from another shop.

While the tea was being prepared, an old man came towards the shop, walking with the help of a long stick. He was peculiarly bent sideways, which made his stride appear uneven, with one leg shorter and the other longer. His waist and neck were also bent to one side.

The tea-shop people started calling out to him while he was still some distance away, saying that there was no tea or biscuit available. They seemed to want him not to come closer.

The old man did not react or show any emotion. He simply came closer to the tea shop and stood there.

In the meantime, an auto-rickshaw carrying supplies for the tea shop arrived and stopped in front of the shop. Its driver also addressed the old man and said that there was nothing available to eat.

I felt strange.

Was it a local joke? Were these people really serious about not offering the old man anything to eat or drink?

The fact that he was surviving showed that this could not be the whole story. He must have been fed by the local people in some way.

Another thought crossed my mind.

In this remote and sparsely populated hamlet, even an old, physically dependent person, dependent on others for food, clothing and shelter, had some recognition among the local people—even if that recognition was expressed in a negative form.

Such a sense of recognition is perhaps not possible in bigger towns and cities, where the number of people is huge and everybody is running towards somewhere. No one has the time to think, to look, to nod, or even to respond to the presence of an old, bent person.

With these mixed thoughts and emotions, I realised how many minute observations had become possible simply because I had an abundance of time: because of the quiet of the place, the steadiness of the river, the purity of the air and the cool temperature of the breeze.

It was time to catch the ferry and ride back to where my motor car was parked on the other side, waiting to take me back to Kolkata.

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