Raiganj & Tapan

01 November 2020: Day trip to Tapan from Raiganj (82 km one way)

Woke up refreshed after a good nights sleep. It was a hard day's drive yesterday. Went out for a walk through Kulik Bird Sanctuary. What I had not realised is that the sanctuary has quite a long walking trail. Explored the place and used my DSLR quite liberally for the first time in 4 years. It was a good walk through the wild, though it was only for 1 km or so. Had to get back into the habit of carrying heavy loads.

The sanctuary is bounded by the Kulik river on 3 sides, and the national highway on the fourth. Its a favourite nesting place of Asian Open-billed storks (Anastomus oscitans), and they were all over the place. While there were other birds too - like Little Cormorant (Microcarbo niger), Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) and Cattle Egrets (Bubulcus ibis), the storks outnumbered the remaining birds. The whole place smells of bird droppings, and feathers. When we were visiting, the chicks were being given flight training before their migratory flight in the upcoming winter.

The interesting thing was that in addition to the birds there were lovely critters on the ground, and spiders in between trees. Saw Oval St. Andrews Cross Spider (Argiope aemula), and what looked to me like Stainer Bugs (Iphita sp.) and Seed Bugs (Spilostethus pandurus).

Left for Mojid's place at around 11am. His home is in Tapan. I used to always think that his home is quite close to Raiganj. But actually, it is about 80 km, and takes a good bit of 2 hours. Mojid was waiting at Tapan and he escorted us home. We were a bit of a celebrity there. First up, we were served some incredible food. Fish fry, mutton pulao, mutton curry, chicken fry, mishti doi and rosogolla. Could hardly move after that meal. SO went outside and sat on the bench in front of Mojid's house for a while, trying to get the food to settle down. Spoke with Amin, and then Aijul came up. Chatted with them for a while.

Thereafter, Mojid and his brothers had organized a fishing event at their family pond. Professionals arrived with fishing nets and they caught lots of fish. The original plan was to eat that fried fish along with evening tea. However, Aijul hijacked us and insisted that we visit his home too for evening tea and samosas. Since we were fully stuffed, managed to share 2 samosas - that was about it. So missed the fresh fish fry. But that was OK.

Went for a drive to the Bangladesh border, about 10km from Mojid's place. His son Fahim and daughter Parveen joined us. Faheem promptly fell asleep. Parveen was a good girl, sitting quietly at the back. Returned for a quick cup of tea, before we packed up and left. In all it was a good day's trip to Mojid's home in the middle of nature and rice fields.

Reached Kulik at around 7:30PM. Mojid's Mum had packed dinner for us. They had made an amazing rice roti - something like a rice bhakri, which we had with the leftover food from lunch. Tomorrow is another long day's drive to Murti. But North Bengal Always attracts me. So looking forward to it. Hope to get some bookings too in the hills, before we return. Fingers crossed.