Word: riverred
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...smoke of the village cooking fires mingles with the evening mist rising off the Kameng River as two Indian engineers appear on the balcony of the Dewana Hotel. Our heads are surrounded by a hungry halo of mosquitoes, and on the street below, a Nishi tribesman wielding a sword wanders drunkenly among yapping dogs - until a half-century ago, his people had engaged in the quaint practice of headhunting. "You're perfectly mad to come here for a holiday," one of the engineers bellows. "For us, this is a punishment posting...
...engineers' punishment posting is one of the reasons for my presence in Arunachal Pradesh, a northeastern Indian state. I had joined an expedition to raft down the Kameng, a savage, white-water river, which roars out of the high Himalayas through jungle canyons that are home to wild elephants, hundreds of orchids and three different species of leopards and tarantulas. The engineers' mission is to divert a tributary of the Kameng and harness its hydroelectricity, and this would be one of the last chances to raft the river before it loses its quicksilver fury. (See pictures of the turning points...
...Kameng being aslither with the incredibly venomous pit viper. Between the Nishis, the tarantulas, the leopards and the pit vipers, I begin to wonder if a trip down the Kameng is more than I'd bargained on. Luckily, our expedition is led by two of India's most skilled river guides, Yousuf Zaheer and Anvesh Singh Thapa, who supply cooks, tents and the oarsmen who will steer our inflatable rafts as we paddle like crazy through the 75-mile (120 km) stretch of whirlpools and roller-coaster rapids. (See pictures of Hinduism's sacred annual pilgrimage...
...eagle feather. One night, three silent Nishi fishermen carrying torches pass our camp. We watch their silhouettes flicker and vanish into the steep night forest. They had lit torches to find their way, and to scare off tigers and evil spirits. I shiver, glad that we're on the river, and just passing through...
...based expert on regional migration for the International Labor Organization. "Migrants workers often tolerate all sorts of abuse and deprivation just to stay and earn a wage, to avoid being sent home." Recent cases of undocumented workers getting pressganged into near slave-like conditions aboard fishing vessels in the river deltas of Southeast Asia have dramatized how vulnerable destitute migrants are to exploitation. Abella also warns that women migrants may fall into the sex trade and become prey to networks of human traffickers...