Head Hunters

or, rather, their descendants. They have nice hats, those poor hornbills. via Jungletrader

"The Nishis gather as we prepare our vessels at the water's edge. "Is it elephant skin?" asks a boy, poking our raft. A Nishi unsheathes his sword from a monkey-fur scabbard, and waves it over his head, dancing. In broken Hindi, he calls out: "Hey! Next time, you bring me a foreign woman!" The Nishi has been impressed by the posters of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in a tea shop up on the road, and believes they may be worth a few wild cattle in trade. As we head into the current, a few younger Nishi gather on a bamboo suspension bridge above us, snapping photos on cell phones pulled from their monkey-fur pouches; in our wetsuits and helmets we are just as much an oddity to the Nishi as they are for us."

Sounds like an exciting river journey.