Garjiya Visit

Two days after the rains, I visited a local deity whose temple sits on a rock right in the middle of a river bed. The rock has not budged for ages. Not even in the fiercest of the floods. Two years back a strong flood destroyed everything around it and washed away a few villages and some tourist resorts along with it. But the temple stood still. Here it is

 right in the middle of the river bed. You can see people washing their cars in the river. Another shot

see that small dot in the middle of the river bed. This is that temple

During the floods it was half submerged under the water. The river destroyed its banks and some temple infrastructure. You can still see the damaged concrete slabs. The water flowed up to that height in the full flood.

Apart from the temple I was particularly amused by a bitch fight between the two ladies who operate some nearby shops. The reason of the fight was unclear to me. Here they are

 A few other interesting things see on the way back...first is a unique mashup of religious symbols. This one

The second was the never ending line of tourist resorts on the banks of Kosi river. With large number of them taking tourists into the forest (?) every morning in open jeeps for safari. I remember one friend of mine, who operates one of these resorts (which have mushroomed in last decade), telling me how easy it is to fool people into believing that they have seen the forest by taking them around the fringe areas of Corbett. Some of them have also bought old and tired elephants from circus owners (who have closed down) to do the safaris. Tourists are super excited even if they manage to see a wild fowl, deer or a jackal.

What surprises me is that all of these safaris happen in the morning. You can easily imagine the calm of the forest being disturbed by early morning assault of loud and noisy tourists on these jeeps. I bet the animals have made a special note for themselves to not be present in the areas frequented by these safari tourists. All of them speed, like at more than 60kmph on the state road passing through the forest, caring little about the slight possibility that an animal might cross the road. But fat chance that any animal would first be that dumb to come into that noisy area.