THE TREES OF THE ANDAMANS
from a thicket between merging thickets
Swaraj Dweep ...
a many many splendoured place
beaches, coral
yet particularly
the jungle
the rain-forest
the rich greens
ten thousand of them
with the trees
the unique high trees
reaching up, beyond
in deep, tall swathes of green
...
below its the lianas and vines
the eight-foot serrated grasses
the huge leaves, the fronds, the ferns
then, above them
its the many kinds of palm
and the banana trees
plus the Banyan, Baobab and Peepul trees
each of which is still enough to make me stop
yet its, especially
the yawingly high
bare-trunked trees
found only here
the Andaman Redwood,
Bulletwood and
Gurjan
...
while it has
wonderful beaches
Radhanagar Beach,
Elephant Beach,
Secret Beach
...
and great coral
some of it, on Elephant Beach
the most easily accessed ever
...
yet most of all
its the jungle
particularly more inland
away from from the samey coastal woods
...
its the most amazing rain-forest i’ve seen outside the
Columbian Amazon
and what makes it so gorgeous
is those Redwoods, Bulletwoods and Gurjans
each unique to these islands
and rising hugely high
higher than any tree in Europe [?]
and giving an extra dimension
to the rain-forest
to the very varied vistas and banks and roadsides and ridges
of the most greenly green greens
...
all making for wondrous wanders
sometimes semi-lost
up down and around the jungle trails
...
and if not lost then
certainly not
found
…
with patterns next patterns
shapes on shapes
vines behind vines
greens in greens
thicket beyond thicket
...
where much of the jungle floor is wreckage
organic detritus
fallen coconuts, the husks of shelled coconuts
fallen branches, fallen boughs, fallen trees
in a browned underworld
of soft browned earth
and crunchy brown leaves
and rotting wood
plus the bushes
including the thorniest thorn-bushes i ever got ambushed by
while above the walker
or the idle stopper
or the tree-trunk sitter
are the layers of green
often thick green
rising to the reachingly high canopy
of leafy branches above those starkly outlined trunks
...
while
on an inland walk
where i quickly become a
single drop of sweat with a
human being inside
the winding trail will take you around then
updownup
and downupdown
through it
amongst it
in its all its ebullience and richness
its thickness and closeness
its rich reaching lushness
...
...
while i get around by hitch-hiking
which often takes thirty seconds to get a lift
and i just got a lift from a guy from Nagaland
who told me about a trail near Radhanagar
so that’s Thursday morning
earlyish
after Parotha breakfast
before it gets too hot
...
...
...
...
while
yesterday
i did get myself in yet another jungly pickle
somewhere inland
and got surrounded on all sides by dense thickets of extra jungly jungle
where the only way i knew there must be a way out
was that i had
obviously
somehow
found a way in
...
...
...
...
...
in other news
i just did that walk the Nagaland guy recommended
or tried to
because it wasn’t a trail
or if there was a trail i lost it soon
and it was a dry river
i clambered up
and picked my way down
where, in this highest of sweltering heats
it was tough
am shattered
came down and drank two litres of cold water in ten minutes
...
still don’t know where i was
will never know
in that riot of greens
found nowhere that felt like anywhere
just jungle
no building no path no clearing no vista
just jungle
...
there was no trail
just jungle
yet there were machete cut vines and branches
reassuring me
until suddenly there weren’t
... was i lost?
had i missed the tree with
a machete in it
and a skeletal hand grasping that machete
?
...
until
in the end
i did one last steep rocky branchy rooty clamber
hoping i’d be somewhere but no
no path no clearing no vista no break
just jungle
so when the woozy headyness abated
and sensing a possible downpour
which would make retreat distinctly tricky
i went back down
which was not easy
...
...
...
...
in other news
am hitch-hiking a lot
and the only reward i can give the driver or rider is
a winning smile
yet my winning smile has yet to lose
One of the places I dream of visiting, how did you get there?
Oh yes and I learnt a similar lesson about following "easy" jungle trails in Sumatra. It was that trip that inspired my dreams of the Andamans.
Keep writing, it's great to visit with you in my head, I think that makes sense, but maybe not....