The Hike

Perhaps the toughest difference between India and Southeast Asia is that in south Asia we can not fly out to our sites in helicopters. This resulted in us having to hike for two days to get to the base camp.

Getting ready to set out.

We hiked through fields of grain.

This is where I slept at the intermediate over night camp. We were lucky and it did not rain that night.

I am not going to lie. It kicked our butts. I am proud of the accomplishment. While I was certainly not the fastest hiker, I was always somewhere near the front, which is not bad for a civilian science geek.

Flight to the Abor Hills

After a delay in Dibrugarh due to getting all of our final permits, we finally flew on to a small town in the Abor Hills to the north of the Brahmanputra River. The image below from google earth shows the large braided channel. It is about 5-6 miles wide at Dibrugarh.


This is what the river looks like when you are flying over it in a helicopter.



This is a panorama of the Abor Hills as we circled in for our landing.


The helo's shadow on the trees.

Hindu Deities

Hinduism is a very large and diverse religion. For an outsider not raised in the tradition it can be difficult to understand and down-right complicated and confusing at times. The deities in particular. While there is one god, Bhagavan/Ishvara, there are numerous manifestations of this god in terms of Avatars and Devas and Devis. There are 10 main avatars, 23 primary devas (male deities) and three principle devis (female deities). There are also often multiple forms of each of the Devas and Devis, all of which have unique names and are depicted differently. The devas and devis also have numerous avatars, each with their own name. Oh, and the different sects and branches of Hinduism places varying levels of importance on all of the things that I just mentioned. See what I mean by complicated.

The numerous deities are represented in countless iconographies which are displayed in almost all aspects of daily life. Fortunately, these common artistic manifestations be appreciated without having to understand all of the subtle intricacies.

A Vishnu tile outside a temple. Vishnu is the all pervading essence of all beings in the past, present, and future.

A Durga outside of a temple. Durga is the one who can redeem an individual in times of extreme distress. She is also the embodiment of creative feminine force.

An intricate ceramic depiction of the elephant-headed god of luck, Ganesha.

Hanuman, the monkey king, who famously helped Rama defeat the evil king Ravana.

Kali, and incredibly powerful warrior is often considered to be the goddess of death. At the same time she is also thought of as the goddess of fertility because she is considered to be the controller of eternal energy. The statue above was inside of a small shrine along the river. The statue below was in a public park.

Small pictures and paintings of the various deities were