In this time we have crossed Orissa, travelling firstly to Kotagar forest in the southwest, and then Sunaberra in the far west of the state. The latter in particular has been fascinating and given us some lovely recordings. However somewhere along the many kilometres of rutted and potholed rural roads, I have injured my back with what I later have diagnosed as a facet sprain. Whatever it is, I am hobbling, unable to sleep, dosed up on pills and in excruciating pain.

I’ll tell you about this week later, as, despite my misadventures, it is a good story. But for now, we are heading back east towards Bubaneshwar and the end of our trip.

It is Saturday. Thus tomorrow will be Sunday. And our route is taking us right past Satkosia again.

Every Indian village has a telephone shop, they are ubiquitous throughout the subcontinent. Painted bright yellow with the black letters ISD, PCO and STD printed boldly, they are often the only access to land-lines that many Indians have (and explains why cellphones are just as ubiquitous). Every village we enter is now an opportunity to find a ‘yellow shop’, contact the Range Field Officer (RFO) at Satkosia, and request an extra night’s accommodation.

But I’m not having much luck. Lines go dead, numbers ring out, and when someone finally does answer, they cannot understand English and hang up. I suspect we have called through to the RFO’s home, and one of his family has picked up the phone. Shiva comes over to save the day. Yes, the RFO is ‘on station’ at the park, checking out the new tourist tented camp development. He will be back later. We drive on.

When, we finally do speak with him, he is delighted that we are returning. Not only that, but he is keen that we become the first overseas visitors to stay in his newly completed camp. Remembering the site on the banks of the ‘crocodile infested’ river, and imagining a rough night on campbeds, I inform him of my back condition and regretfully decline. I can hear the disappointment in his voice, but with my back, I cannot oblige his wish.

Not that the alternative is much better. The ‘Bison Room’ has been booked for the weekend by visitors from Calcutta, and we are relegated to a grotty fleapit a few doors down. It is called the ‘Crocodile Room’, but that seems an insult to the poor creatures. But the bed is flat. That’ll do.

At 4.30 we are woken by the alarm in our cellphone. After three months in India, its cheesy tunefullness is beginning to give us a neurosis. To this day it reminds us of being dragged from blissful sleep into the humid predawn for another morning of recording. We find that Shiva, the night before, has not only found the nightwatchman and told him in no uncertain terms to leave the gate unlocked, but has personally checked that it is indeed open before retiring himself. Bless him. He is earning a healthy tip for acts such as these.

Still hobbling, I get in the vehicle and we prepare to leave for our favourite spot. A feeling that ‘nothing can stop us now’ puts a smile on my face, at which Sarah reminds me that we are, after all, still in India. Anything can happen.

On this occasion however, it doesn’t. The morning is completely and delightfully free of drama. We arrive at our chosen spot in the predawn, and I set up my gear in the dark. Sarah stands quietly nearby, patiently awaiting enough light to photograph. Shiva parks the car a few hundred metres away, returning to sleep and possibly dreams of crazy westerners. The last of the Owlets are calling, and there is an anticipation in the air. It is my favourite time of day.

The dawn chorus that ensues is one of the most beautiful I have heard. Scimitar Babblers call frequently with their lovely fruity voices, Tailorbirds create intricate rhythms in the bamboo groves, small woodpeckers drum overhead and those Malabar Squirrels are well on form. My recording lasts three hours, and by the end my legs and back are screaming. But it has been such a beautiful morning. And… no cyclists! Not one. So Sunday really has been the right day to be here.

I catch up with Sarah on the path and we sit quietly and talk. Like me, she is fatigued after 3 months in India, and looking forward to being home again in Australia. She is close to tears with tiredness. In the heat of the jungle, a butterfly hovers around us, and amazingly, alights on her finger. She forces a smile as I pick up the camera to capture the moment. But she just looks strained and exhausted. We acknowledge that the ups and downs of our journey have taken a lot out of both of us.

We return to the vehicle, where Shiva is sleeping like a baby.

A few hundred meters on, and are hopes are dashed. At the edge of the compound is a fence and gate. For the first time since we have been here, the gate is closed, a heavy chain and padlock looped through the metal bars. What the…? We stare at it bleary-eyed, illuminated in the headlights. There is no getting past this without a key.

There is a small walking track we remember that may go around the gate. A few minutes later, and that has proved to be untrafficable. The only chance is to find the nightwatchman and get the key. We double back a few kilometres to the village.

Shiva walks up the steps of the ranger’s quarters, and eventually we can hear sleepy voices in the dark. A lantern is lit, and shadowy figures wrapped in blankets are seen moving about. As Shiva’s voice continues, we get the sense things may not be straightforward. Now he is returning, and gets silently into the vehicle. The nightwatchman has not slept there last night, he might be in another building. A few minutes later, another discussion in the dark. Once again, Shiva returns, I don’t know whether I imagine it, but there seems a dogged stomp in his walk. The nightwatchman has been found, drunk, but he does not have the key anyway, another man has it. We move on to a smaller hut, and Shiva again disappears into the dark.

By this time, we have wasted nearly an hour. We can hear the first stirrings of dawn birdsong. So we have already blown our chance of getting to our favoured location on time. When Shiva returns still unable to find the mysterious custodian of the key, we decide to give up. There is another location, not as far away, that we had checked out a day earlier. Whilst it is not ideal, it is our only option for the morning now. Feeling a bit slumped and silent, we follow the village roads north and west.

This could easily be the end of our Satkosia adventures, for the morning is a washout. The forest, whilst it looks good, is quite silent. It is curious how one can be in what appears to be rich and undisturbed habitat, but find it subdued and deserted of birdlife. So it is here. In the distance we can hear vehicle traffic, maybe a tractor in the fields. Sarah at least finds a picturesque stream flowing through the forest, and gets some nice shots of the first light hanging in the misty air.

Dewfall in the forest

Nearby, the Indian Forest Service has a captive breeding program for the Garial, or Indian river crocodile. Highly endangered, the Mahanadi has been recognised as one of the few remaining rivers where they can still be found. They are prehistoric-looking animals, with that curious little bump on the end of their snouts. We look at them lazing in their cages, and try and square this up with the vision of a crocodile infested river nearby.

At this point, the Mahanadi flows against the far bank, and a broad sandbank has formed below. We notice several of our picnickers now walking close to the water’s edge. As Australians, cautious of our saltwater crocodiles, it immediately occurs to us to be an unwise thing to do. A few hundred metres away however, we can see where a new tented tourist camp is being established on the sands. So maybe the crocs are not as numerous or dangerous as we imagine.

Walking back, we notice a delightful hand-painted visitor’s sign: “Be careful! Do not bend to touch water. A crocodile may shake hand with u!” So the mystery remains. Meanwhile, Sarah discovers the ladies’ latrine.

The following day, we return to our tributary junction, in hopes of getting some more sound from this magical location. I have about an hour of success, but shortly after sunrise we hear the first cyclists coming down the track through the forest, and decide to move on and explore further afield.

This becomes a day of exploring jungle tracks between one village area and the next, a frustrating exercise of following braided paths through fields and degraded forest. At one point we find some nice forest, but piles of still warm elephant dung convince us it is not a safe place to linger. In the late afternoon, we wind our way back to Tikapada, through rice-stubble fields grazed by docile cattle with accompanying Black Drongos perched atop their backs.

The following day is similarly unproductive. Roads become pathways and then fragment and disappear altogether. Shiva, we can tell, is becoming a bit tired of all this, and ever concerned about damage to his vehicle. But his desire to assist us is evident, and his good humour bolstered by the opportunity to a wash in a village irrigation channel.

Tomorrow is Sunday morning, and we plan to leave Satkosia for our next park; Kotagar in the hills to the south west. So we have one more morning at Satkosia. After our unproductive explorations, we are in a quandary. Where to spend our final morning? Then it occurs to us… Sunday, it will be a day off, the villagers may not be commuting. We could return to the tributary valley that has been the richest habitat we have found here.

Shiva is advised to be ready early, we leave at 5am.

We can see no sign of the great animal, but can easily imagine one being here. Although the landscape around is terraced rice fields with scattered villages, there are extensive swathes of dense evergreen forest and tall bamboo groves in the hilly terrain. The villagers are right to be wary, as elephants are unpredictable, and will occasionally raid crops that border their usual forest haunts.

This is our introduction to the forest of Satkosia. Armed with our newly acquired research permit, formalities at the park gate have been straightforward, and we motor on into the park. A mosaic of primary forest and villages typifies the area, as we pass between wild and cultivated areas. Eventually we arrive at the village of Tikapada, on the banks of the mighty Mahanadi River. The river, a half kilometre-wide flow of pale grey water, has cut a narrow valley through the surrounding hills here – the Satkosia Gorge the park is named after.

Visitors are accommodated in a collection of decaying guesthouse buildings set on the bank, and we are shown to the better of them, the ‘Bison Room’. Dinner that evening is supplied from a small canteen at the nearby village, a wooden hut with earth floor, where we are made an omelet comprising of two eggs and six green chillies. It is almost inedible, but our hunger overcomes the destruction of our tastebuds.

5.30am the following morning, and we set off along the track heading east, a dirt path following the river bank. To our right, a steep slope drops down to the still river below. The forest is undisturbed here, dense and quiet in the early morning gloom. Upslope, a tangle of ferns carpets the rocky ground, and lianas and vines hang between exotic hardwoods, some of which are truly massive trees. The track is winding, and we come across a bamboo bridge that creaks ominously as we proceed over it. Shiva is understandably nervous.

Even though we have left early, progress is slow, and we are missing any dawn chorus. After some 40 minutes the track ahead opens up into flatter topography, as we approach the junction of a small stream. Here bamboo grows in dense groves, and the forest is lush and verdant. For the first time, birdsong fills the air. An emergent tree is full of Bulbuls, chirruping away contentedly. A Malabar Giant Squirrel calls nearby, a loud, sputtering machine-gun chatter. The first rays of the sun are striking the crown of a rocky range of hills that overlook us.

Calls of Malabar Giant Squirrels

For the next half an hour I remain under that tree, contentedly recording bulbuls, while Sarah explores further on with the camera. Sunlight is now penetrating through the forest. As I listen, I become away of a birdcall that is unusual, a persistent repeated squeak. Its the kind of sound you would expect a small bird to make softly, but it is sounding some distance off. It is gradually getting louder, and there’s something not quite right about it…

Presently, a cyclist comes into view, riding one of those archaic village bicycles found throughout India. His legs, in voluminous white cotton pants, push the peddles laboriously round, and with each slow revolution; squeak…squeak…squeak… He rolls to a halt next to me, a quizzical expression on a face surmounted by a loose turban of colourful cloth. He smiles uncertainly, but is silent. We have no language in common. I can only imagine his thoughts on so unexpectedly meeting a lone westerner on his morning commute. He gazes at my gear; tripod, microphone unit, cables, the LED lights on the recorder still winking in response to sound levels. What can he be thinking of all this?

I smile at him, and his face too breaks into a broad smile. Still nothing is said, and I realise I have a problem. I would like to return to recording, but my new friend is showing no sign of losing interest in me and moving on. I am about to try some gestures when a movement catches my eye; another two cyclists are approaching. The awkward silence is soon replaced with animated discussion. I am being asked something. “Australia” I guess in reply. More smiles and rapid conversation, in the midst of which I catch; “Ricky Ponting”. Even here in remote jungle, Ricky Ponting.

But this area is not really so remote. No sooner than those squeaking peddles eventually make their way off and around the next bend, a new gaggle of cyclists appear, obliging another amicable exchange and suspension of recording. Shortly after, a vehicle trundles along, a 4WD precariously laden with people and goods for market. Yep, this bush track is a major highway.

Consulting the park map later it is easy to see why. The park is home to several traditional villages, and the river track appears to be a major commuting path, not only for local villagers, but for vehicles destined for towns downstream. If we are to find quieter recording locations, we shall have to explore further afield.

The story of how we came to make this recording begins not in the depths of the forest, but like many of our endeavours in India, in a major city, chasing down bureaucrats.

We have arrived in Bubaneshwar, the capital of the eastern state of Orissa, after a three day train journey across the subcontinent. We are exhausted. It is new year’s eve. We find our hotel, put ‘do not disturb’ on the door, and sleep.

6.55am: the doorbell rings. BZZZZZZT!! – a soul-piercing electronic jangle. The ringer sounds loud enough to be mounted in the bedhead. Roll over, whoever it is will go away. A minute later: BZZZZZZT!! We haven’t ordered breakfast, they must have the wrong door, they’ll work it out if we don’t answer, and go away. BZZZZZT!! Stick head under pillow. BZZZT! “We don’t want breakfast. Go away!!”…. pause…. BZZZZZZT! Sarah rolls out of bed, stumbles to the door and opens it a fraction. Standing there is one of the hotel boys, dressed immaculately as if on his way to an important ceremony. On his arm is cradled a silver plate, piled with bouquets of red flowers, one of which he holds out to Sarah. “Happy new year, Madam!” he says, his face beaming.

Later, at reception, we inquire about the location of the government offices we need to visit. “Oh yes sir, they will be open today, no doubt!’” “But it is new year’s day” we caution. “Not a problem, all government offices are open!”. The same beaming smile. One of the hotel boys disappears out of the lobby door onto the street to hail an auto-rickshaw, and tell the driver where we wish to go. Half an our later, we are rattling up and down a dusty arterial road looking for the office block in question. Eventually, we find it, closed and deserted. Only the guard is on duty at the gate. Today is public holiday. Tomorrow open.

The following day we arrive at 9am sharp, and ask to see the Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF). We are ushered through a gothic maze of corridors, past groups of office workers sipping their first chai of the day, into an office where a dynamic young official rises from behind his desk, smiling to welcome us. We have no sooner introduced ourselves and shaken hands, than there is a knock on the door, and a colleague enters, bearing a red flower. The flower is accepted, “Namaste”s exchanged, hands shaken and brought together in blessing, best wishes offered for the coming year, all with much smiling. The colleague nods cheerfully to us and backs out of the door. The CCF returns to us; “And where are you from?” he asks. “Australia”. His eyes light up “Oh wonderful!” he says. We anticipate being asked who is our favourite spin bowler, but before the question comes, there is another knock on the door. This time two staff members with their flowers and well wishes. The CCF then continues; “Australia – Steve Irwin!” It turns out that through the shows broadcast on Animal Planet cable TV, Irwin has been the inspiration for him embracing wildlife conservation as a career. His life story is interrupted by other visitors, culminating in a group of about 20, who crowd into the room, one by one offering their greetings. The desk is now covered in flowers.

“And so” he says finally, “What can I do for you?” “We wish to make nature recordings in the national parks of Orissa, and would like your permission and written approval.” “I have no problem with your request” he responds, “but I am not the person you need to ask. The person you must see is the Principle Chief Conservator of Forests. His office is on the other side of Bubaneshwar.”

Another hour later, we are in a similarly decrepit office. Every wall supports floor to ceiling mahogany shelves, bearing hundreds of dust-covered, manilla-bound files of official documents. Many have wax seals and are tied with string. I imagine a Medieval monastic scribe would be at home here. If my dust allergy survives this, I can survive anything.

The Principle CCF is a more austere gentleman, and if he has received flowers this morning they are now nowhere in evidence. He already looks harried on this first day of business. However he approves our request, and passes us on to one his staff to organise the paperwork. In finishing he asks why we have come to Orissa. I reply that the forests of Orissa are rich in unique birds and animals, and no one has recorded here before. His matter-of-fact response astonishes us: “You are the first western visitors we have had in this office.”

Later that day, we acquire a hire car, a rather glitzy 4WD (that is actually only 2WD), plus driver. Shiva is a solidly-built man with a ready smile, but little English. He chews pan continually, and as we leave Bubaneshwar that afternoon, weaving through frightening traffic, he occasionally opens his door to lean out and spit.

We are heading for Satkosia Gorge Wildlife Sanctuary, an area of forest where the Mahanadi River cuts a dramatic valley through the hills on its way to the coast. The river itself is certainly ‘Maha’ – Great. We cross it downstream via a kilometer-long bridge, then turn west to follow its course inland. We pass through numerous small villages on ruined roads, the chaos of rural life before us; cattle, traffic, people – all softened by a smoke haze in the glow of the setting sun.

The town of Angul is an hour’s drive from the park proper, and the local Range Field Officer (RFO), with whom we must arrange our visit, has his office there. But by the time we pull into town, all is not well. We are in the last weeks of our 3 month stay in India, and for the first time, Sarah is feeling nauseous and dizzy. We decide to stop in town for the night, finding a hotel named after Durga, the Hindu goddess revered as the killer of demons. Lets hope she can deal with tummy bugs.

That evening I leave Sarah resting and visit the RFO, who is very welcoming and helpful. But by the time I get back to the hotel, I too am feeling queasy. This is not a good start to two weeks in remote forest areas.

The next day, we are both still feeling weak and unwell. In the afternoon I decide to make a quick drive into the park, just to check the place out. Arriving at the park gate, I make a dismaying discovery. While Indian nationals can enter the park for a few rupees, foreign visitors to Orissa’s parks are charged 1000 rupees – per day, per park entry, per person. We have never encountered such fees in India before. Why have none of the officials we’d visited mentioned this? $US25 one-off is fine, and we don’t mind paying more than local visitors. But multiplying it by 14 days, 2 people and possibly multiple park entries per day… I calculate it will add up to around $1000 over the next two weeks. A complete budget blower. We simply cannot afford this extra expense.

Knowing the intractability of India, we feel crushed. Having come all this way, to be thwarted by something like this is so disappointing. Nevertheless, I phone the RFO to see what we can do. “These fees are set by the government, there is nothing we can do.” he informs me. “We actually feel a little embarrassed about them ourselves, but you are our first western visitors, so we have not encountered this problem before”. That night Sarah and I begin discussing our options and alternatives. Nothing we came up with seems very viable.

The following day, with no great hope, but recalling the words of our man in Bubaneshwar – “if there is any further assistance you require, please contact me” – I phone the Principle Chief Conservator’s office. “Unfortunately, there is nothing we can about the fees, they are set by the government…” he begins, “however we can issue you a research permit, which has a different fee structure; 1000 rupees per park, and you can stay as long as you need.” My hopes rise, minutely, this at least is an affordable proposition. “But we are not researchers” I reply, “We are not scientists, and not affiliated with any university…” “Oh this is not a problem!” he replies buoyantly “we can issue you a permit without difficulty!”

Cautiously relieved, I still expect wasted days returning to Bubaneshwar to obtain the magic piece of paper. But an hour later, our permit appears on the hotel’s fax. We are now honorary academics, a new aura of authority that will bemuse us over the coming weeks.

It is extraordinary how in India, problems can materialise, and then vanish miraculously, leaving you wondering what has happened. Was there ever a problem to begin with? Some times the only trace a whole episode leaves is on one’s shredded nerves. The next day, emotionally exhausted but physically somewhat recovered, we set off for Satkosia.