Further Wanderings

Our trip from Pokhara to Chitwan National Park in the south of Nepal was always going to be a bit of a mission.  Even when one is driving on one of the few good roads in the country, the volume of buses and trucks makes for a slow journey.  Thankfully we were on board a “standard tourist bus” which, while not in any way luxurious, held no more passengers than it was designed for, and carried their luggage on the roof.  We did, however, get an added bit of difficulty in that students in the town of Narayangat, 30km or so from the park, were holding a bandh, or strike.  They had been attending a new year’s classes for weeks, but still had not received their books.  In response, they blocked the main road connecting the town with Kathmandu.

Just a small part of the huge queue of traffic that built up outside of Narayangat during the bandh.  Enterprising Nepalis set up stalls and wandered between vehicles selling refreshments along the length of the jam.  

After a bit of walking, rickshaw riding, bus sitting and jeep bumping, we finally arrived at our the Parkside hotel, a couple hours late, but pleased to be there. 

Elephant Drive Through.  I’d LOVE to try this at a fast food restaurant in Canada!

Chitwan is one of Nepal’s premier attractions, and one of the greatest wildlife experiences in the world.  With many sections below 300m in altitude, it was a big change from the Himalayan peaks we’d recently been walking amongst.  And with the change in geography came a change in climate (the temperature and humidity had shot up), flora (Most of Chitwan is covered by jungle) and fauna (the park is home to Asian elephants, rhinoceroses, and even tigers.)

  

Our three day-two night package trip to Chitwan was a birthday gift from my parents, and a fabulous one for which they deserve much thanks.  Some of the highlights of the trip included:

Tharu Stick Dancing… Vaguely like Brazilian Capoeira, it’s a dance based on the martial arts of the indigenous people of the Chitwan area.  At the end of the show Sarah and I got up and danced (sans sticks) with the performers!

Elephant Cookies! 

The elephant breeding centre.  They use an interesting method at this place right on the border of the national park.  There are no adult male elephants in the centre.  When a female is ready for breeding they simply leave the gate open and wait for a wild male elephant to wander by.  Clearly it works, as there were two new babies (two and ten days old) at the centre when we visited.  They were still on a 100% milk diet, but we got to feed “elephant cookies” (which were, in fact, not disimilar to low-sugar human cookies) to some of the other youngsters. 

A pair of blue, jewel-like kingfishers.  Yes, I know it’s not a very good picture, but I wanted to include one of some of the beautiful birds we saw, and it took a fair bit of work to turn them into more than just a pair of blue dots.

There were lots of beautiful peacock feathers strewn near the trail during our jungle walk, but we only saw a couple of the birds themselves.

The canoe trip/jungle walk.  Though it wasn’t where we saw most of our big wildlife, the jungle walk was one of my favourite parts of the trip.  We saw a wild rhino from about 40m away, a gharial crocodile (they can grow up to 7m, but thankfully, are fish eaters) and loads of birds and amazing insects.  Late in the walk, we even saw a big male wild elephant, which explained the dozens of local villagers who suddenly give up their wildgrass cutting and sprint back to their canoes that we’d seen in the distance earlier. 

Several species of red beetles were very, very common in the jungle.  Entirely harmelss fellows though, so no worries

Unlike this guy, an Asian Long Horned Beetle.  Okay, they really aren’t DANGEROUS, but this one did give our guide, Gopal, a nip on his finger that drew blood.  Apparently they’re pretty rare, so I’m pleased that I spotted this one

The elephant bath.  Perhaps the most fun you can have outdoors on a rainy day.  We climbed on to the back of one of the hotel elephants (who had thoughtfully laid down near the bank) and took our seats, as the mahout (elephant trainer/driver) stood behind us.  For the next five minutes or so, the mahout kept yelling “ba-ba-ba-ba!” (or something like that…) which would spur the elephant to fill its trunk and toss the water over her head and on to us.  Which, given that an elephant can hold 9 litres or so of water in its trunk, finished off any dry spots left from the rain shower.

Most of our elephant bath was spent seated on her back, but we did manage to get to our feet for 30 seconds or so.  And didn’t even fall off when we got smacked in the face with a trunkfull of water! 

The elephant safari.  The piece-de-resistance of our time in Chitwan was a couple of hours spent riding through the park on elephant back.  Each elephant carried four tourists in a wooden framed box on its back and a mahout (driver) riding on its head.  The other animals in the park are very used to having elephants around, so they don’t really get worried when they happen by.  Further, elephants are the real kings of the jungle.  NO ONE  messes with them, so animals that would otherwise be quite dangerous to be around are nothing to worry about when you’re on the back of an elephant.  The different perspective on the forest was really cool, but, of course, the wildlife we saw was the most memorable bit.  Over the course of our ride on the elephants we spotted 10 rhinoceroses (including two youngsters, about a year old), several hog deer (BIG south Asian deer), wild boar (with piglets!), a beautiful spotted deer, and a small wild cat (not a tiger or leopard by a long way, but at least we got something from the right family :)) 

A pair of rhinos (and my foot.)  At our closest, We were less than 5m from the rhinos!

A pair of Hog deer

A pair of Rhinoceroses.  We saw so many of them that by the time our elephant safari was done seeing a few more almost seemed not worth getting excited over.

Our hosts.  The people at the Parkside hotel were great.  I spent an hour talking to the co-owner, Shir, about Nepali politics and why, despite the success of the recent elections, he feared for the country’s future.  The head waiter got to know me very well, and by the time we left was bringing seconds of everything without my asking.  The drivers were always quick with a smile and to ask how we were doing.  And our guide, Gopal, was perhaps the best of the lot.  He seemed to know everything about the jungle, and could instantly spot and identify birds that it took me 5 minutes to see even after he pointed them out.  He was also entirely honest about what our chances were of seeing various animals, and about which additional paid activities were actually worthwhile, and which weren’t.  Finally, he never stopped worrying about whether we were enjoying our trip, and was always looking for ways to make it better.  True, much of this could have been him trying to improve his tip, but his constant smile while we were in the jungle suggested that he also really LOVED his work. The trip to Chitwan was wonderful, and I could hardly have asked for anything more (well… except maybe to see a tiger, but they’re pretty secretive, and even the guides only spot one or two of them a year…)  We were even considering sticking around for a few more nights and going for a long walk in the jungle.  But eventually I decided that I’d rather visit my parents one last time before their departure from Nepal. 

Us, with our guide Gopal at the Sauraha bus park

So with a few last smiles and waves goodbye, we climbed aboard a bus bound for Kathmandu, and said farewell to the magical world of Chitwan.

Sunset over the Rapti River, the norhtern boundary of Chitwan

Tags: Chitwan, Llew Bardecki, Nepal

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 12:20 am and is filed under Nepal, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.