Southern trees bear strange fruit - blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Friends, I would like to tell you a lot about my travels throughout India, about wonderful and wild places I had visited. One of such places - Sundarbans jungle. This is the largest mangrove forest in the world. It's located in the state of West Bengal, in the delta of Ganges. An incredible amount of rumors and legends surrounds this rotten and boggy place. Besides here lives endangered Bengal Tiger - Tiger cannibal. Therefore, every now and then appear the stories of mysterious disappearances of people, who got lost in the mangroves or were killed by a tiger. Nevertheless, the land is very fertile, and people continue to live here no matter what. We longed to visit this place after the book of Salman Rushdie "Midnight's Children." He, in his usual manner, was able to describe this place as mystical and alluring. So, being in Calcutta we could not resist the temptation to visit Sundarbans.

Our adventure began early in the morning. We took a minimum of things and got into an old  minibus, carrying us away from the Сity of joy. We drove for hours and changed several modes of transport from rickshaws and carts to motor boat, before reaching the village at the edge of the jungle. This is an incredibly picturesque place with rice fields, wicker huts and herds of cows. People in this village live only by manual labor and handicrafts.

We wandered around the neighborhood until sunset, had time to take a boat ride and listen to the singing of thousands of birds. Perhaps it was one of the most beautiful evening of my life.

The next day we dedicated to mangrove jungle, having studied them far and wide. This is a strange place, but still not as enigmatic as we expected. Of course, we have not seen a Bengal tiger, but were rewarded with deers, crocodiles, baboons and other wild forest animals. This trip wasn't very easy for us, but still it of that costed. These age-old forests are actually very fragile and in need of our protection, as well as their inhabitants. 

After this trip, we were insanely tired and went back to Calcutta half asleep. Mile after mile on the bumpy road in the night we were carried away from strange trees of Sundarban. Perhaps we got not what we've expected. Perhaps we imagined Sundarbans too stereotyped. But like each time India was able to surprise us, open itself with the unknown side and teach something new. We fall asleep with the realization that we still want to go back there.