Kingdom of Tides The muffled thrum of the boat is the only sound
in the mist coated forests of one of the world's largest
estuarine deltas. The mangrove forest of the Sunderbans forest
breathes in an out in drips. Trees emerge eerily in the dew
soaked exhalation of the land. Within the rise and fall of the
tides, mangrove forests that by low tide revealed strong
petticoats of latticed roots holding them stubbornly in place,
now seem to rise and float. A lone egret takes flight from the
skeleton of a waterlogged tree, slicing its way through the mist
with a lonely cry. We tourists are still recovering from our
early morning wakeup call and the world here seems reluctant to
free itself of the cloak of night. It feels as if we are
navigating the lungs of a Nation. Formed by silt washed down
from the Himalayas by the River Ganga and Brahmaputra, the vast
tract of the Sunderbans stretches along two hundred and sixty
kilometers of the coast of the Bay of Bengal, spanning India and
Bangladesh in an area covering nin