Majuli Island - Assam - Northeast India

Majuli – Assam

It's always amazing for me, even interesting, to learn about places that I've never heard of before. In the guest house of Bokakhat they often talked about this, I was strongly recommended to go here. And since I quite clearly let myself drift on my travels, this is my next destination.

Majuli, I think the name alone is inviting enough. The way here was short enough, I only had to take a bus in Bokakhat to Jorhat, where after a good 90-minute drive just before the gates of this city, at a bus stop one stuck his head into the bus, a few volleys I couldn't understand babbled, which included the name Nimati. I understood that, quick-wittedly I looked at the ticket man, he me and he repeated something more understandable Nimati Ghat? I say "Yes"! And it was very quick, within 30 seconds I changed the bus seat with that of a tuk tuk. Nimati Ghat is the ferry dock where I wanted to go. Running! The journey lasted a good 25 minutes until I was standing on the dusty place of the ferry dock. The ticket was bought quickly, given all the formality of the details (typical India!), i.e. name, age, telephone number. And nothing stood in the way of the crossing, which took a good 40 minutes, over the Brahmaputra to Kamalabari Ghat. The shared taxis were ready and after 10 minutes I reached the town of Gumar.

It was agreed that my new guest house owner would pick me up here. But he wasn't there, so I called him. Unfortunately, his English was incomprehensible to me on the phone. I said I'd get a cab and hung up. A tuk tuk was found quickly, but he looked at my smartphone for what felt like 2 minutes, with which I gave him the address, but just shrugged his shoulders and called a passer-by who knew just as much. Now this ran with my cell phone to the next, none. Everything was now gathered at a small shop, the owner of which was now looking at my cell phone and swiping it. He then made a call and when he hung up, he pointed in one direction. The funny thing is that we could have just driven off from the start. Since I could already find the address via Google Maps, I'll explain it to an Indian tuk tuk driver.

A good 5 minutes later we reached our destination, it could have been so easy.

Majuli – a Peaceful Place! ( A peaceful place! )

Yes, there really are places in this world whose beauty and serenity can hardly be described. Majuli is definitely one of them. I took a bike for the next two days, which looked super modern in the style of a mountain bike. However, without gear shift, I didn't even know that such a thing still existed. With that I set out to explore the area. It was unbelievable for me how nice the people actually are here. I drove for hours through countless small villages and was greeted nicely over and over again. A hello here, a hello there, that's how it went for hours, no matter where I drove. The kids were the funniest, they even called from afar. Hello Mr! where are you from? (where are you from?), waht is your name? (what's your name?) all the time, incredibly fascinating this hospitality. This makes traveling fun. And the landscape of this world's largest river island (peninsula), which is also listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is always too green, alternating with large rice fields. Cows and goats were everywhere. And the background noise rounded off the whole spectacle, chirping crickets and singing birds wherever you were.

https://www.majuli.info/

https://whc.unesco.org/