Weekend Reflections- Transport

These coracles are used to cross the river Kali. The word 'coracle' has come from the Kannada word 'Harigolu' which means "God is my Staff"! The boatman uses a staff instead of oars to manouvre the vessel across the the river. The raft itself is a basket woven with bamboo canes and buttressed with buffalo hide. Passenger, 4 at the most, sit on the round stool in the centre, and the boatman sits on his special seat. It goes round and round noiseleesly in the river so that you could watch the water birds without disturbing them.

They have modernized the transport in Kariyar lake. Here , there are motor boats spewing fumes and making tremendous noise, to go across the lake. One cannot hope to view any water birds from a boat. Our boatman told us that even crocodiles give the boat a wide berth, which is a good thing.

My thanks to James for Weekend Reflections. You can see more pictures at

http://newtowndailyphoto.blogspot.com/

This is also my contribution to 'Transport' at http://www.everydaylifeatw.com/