- Not so interesting - I didn't find it very remarkable as tourist places go. I guess you have to look deeper for the special things.

- World's largest Island Tag means nothing If there was something special they'd mention it but they bill it :"The world's largest river island". I doubt it really is; surely there must be somewhere bigger in the Amazon, or Zaire or the vast lands of Siberia. It was a surprise to find I could walk the entire width from South to north in a couple of hours. Anyway size is not important it wouldn't make any difference if it were double or half the size.

- It's really not that much different from 5Km outside Guhawati City say like North Guwahati . It's flat dusty ricepaddies, 2 basic market towns and quite a few villages made up of bamboo stilt houses, some 20m long. One of the only obvious differences between it and the mainland is you don't often see bottled cola. The roads weren't great, but good on the government for they were mostly being blacktopped and electricity being brought to the villages.

- True it is the foundation of the Satra (Hurtra) culture, but the Satra's being simple aren't architectural wonders to look at.
- Antoni from Poland stayed a month at Hatra and all he could say was that the monks were very kind and absolutely stuck to strange rules about not touching impure people etc .. He didn't even know about Apong.

- Tribal People - It does seem to be mostly tribal people so you can learn one or two things like Meshing villages breed pigs and they have a few special foods like the rice beer Porro Apong (black) and the cheaper Nagjin Apong (white). To me it seemed that mostly like the rest of edge of the Indian subcontinent with the Hindi- movie being culturally dominant and people being unable to eat foods without heavy spicing.

- I would guess at festivals different types of culture would be more evident. I covered the North West by bicycle, but didn't visit the South East where there are some potters villages and mask making villages. Almost all families had women handweaving fabrics on large looms, but I think Ghandi was wrong that seems pointless when machines can do the same job 1000 times more efficiently.

- There are quite a few NGOs and young man guides like : Jyoti Narayan Sarma 09435 657 282 Majulitourism@rediffmaiill.com
Danny Gum has gone to work in Kaziranga they say.

- It was surprising to see army patrols and a machine gun post. Some people said that the Island is a key hideout for militant separatists cos it has not been inundated by Bagladeshi migrants like the rest of the state. Others mentioned the shooting of a local social worker saying it cos he was so successful he trod on the toes of other NGOs who are scamming money out of the government

- The was no bus until the afternoon ferry so I walked the 5Km to Garamur, which was almost the same as Kamalabari. Found the Maison Annanda which is 2 bamboo stilt houses and rushed back to the town... It was boring as hell.

- It was only when I got back to the Maison Annanda that I realised the people who run it are The Main event Their kitchen come restaurant was a real insight into Meshing tribal culture. ..

- The neighbour who is married calls himself a monk and spends his mornings in his own shrine chanting and banging his drum.

- 1. Bamboo bridge viewpoint behind the hospital

- 2. Cycled 15Km West ..nothing special except good to see locals blacktopping the road. There were a couple of Satras, but of course they are nothing to look at.

- 3. Local man called me over .. They were dark skinned, the mother was kind, but that man was a bit mean spirited when it became obvious that I wasn't a rich foreigner who would take him to work in England he basically told me to leave.

- I notice that some guys are mean spirited when I do my magic, they know how it's done; so instead of playing along they try to spoil it. When I change the trick to a different way which still works even though they try to spoil it they get annoyed.
- Similarly the same guys have real stereotypical views of foreigners being all millionaires with big cameras and when I dispel that myth with my broken phone etc and explanation of simple life they also get really annoyed.

- Cycled back and stopped at Garmur Satra. The whole compound is supposed to be so sacred you have to take your shoes off. Which makes no sense to it's the same old earth as outside with monkey crap and garbage.... A bus load of Guwahati Hindu Tourists turned up and I could see it means everything to them whereas it's nothing to me.
- They say there are no idols, but there were a couple I saw

Garuda carrier of the God's

- continued through the town back to guest house and along the road East .. Passing a male goat it actually charged the bike making contact with it's horns, but I stopped and we made friends. I turned off and 1Km up to a place called Luit Ghat.

- Turns out the guidebook is wrong cos it's dry season it's pretty easy to cross to the northern highway in 2 hours . After crossing 50m by ferry a Luit Ghat you go 6Km to another ferry 200m across then there's a bus to North Lakhimpur.. So this is what I will do.

- I cycled 5Km north to where another North South track goes straight across the island to Kamalabari, but I continued East passing road blacktopping work, a couple of Satras, a sadhu etc. I hadn't reached the Eastern Meshing or Deuri villages after 15Km so I turned back.

- 2 Km before the hotel I turned left onto a road which came into Garmur.

- Dry so 4 hours electricity cut per day. Came back and sampled some rice beer Porro Apong (black).. Very good like Korean Makoli

- I wasn't organised until 9 then I met an interesting French couple so I took them to the Meshing house for breakfast .. Then we walked to the nearby Satra and Garmur Satra - it being morning monks were doing chanting sessions, but it meant nothing to me.

- Internet all day same virus problem ... back to guest house met Jyoti the insurance salesman.

- In the evening a pilgrim family turned up ..they were visiting the same Satra that their family have visited for over 300 years.. someone said thay they felt the Satras had a lot of money that they were not using to help the local poor.. I felt there wasn't much poverty on acount of all the people seeming to have acess to land and grow their own food like pigs goats etc
-- why do Indians breed goats ?.. whereas we never use them as they destroy too much vegetation and crops.. here they roam destroying freely .. strange !)