sand bank communities

When monsoon season comes, the river floods and these sand banks which dissect and clog the river at this time of the year are covered in water. During the cool, dry winter season, the waters retreat exposing the banks fertile with deposited silt and loam.
Villages strung along the ‘real’ river bank make the most of this bounty by upping sticks and building temporary dwellings on the sandbanks where families live in small communities for up to five months. The riverbank village has first rights to the adjacent sandbank and they bring everything with them, including oxen, pigs, carts, boats and, needless to say, the village dogs.
Peanuts, beans, onions, chillies, green vegetables and even sunflowers and watermelons are sown and grown in the loamy soils and the river provides fish. Extra produce is sold at local markets in small towns and villages along the river carted by ox carts to small sampan like boats travelling up and down the riverbank.

Other industry happens too and earlier downstream our guide ‘Mr Robin’ explained that in some areas plum seeds are crushed and the powdered stones and kernels exported to China were they are used for medicinal purposes.
It’s a messy process producing streams of red, watery waste. Banned in the village, plum crushers cart all their gear down to the sandbanks and set up house for a few weeks at water’s edge...into which the watery waste goes! mmmmm.