Mopping Up
Perhaps the foreigner in Nepal just isn’t meant to understand the local mindset. Consider this example: a few days ago, an elephant at the breeding centre near Chitwan National Park unexpectedly calved twins, an extremely rare occurrence among elephants and one worthy of being front-page news in the Kathmandu Post. The staff at the breeding centre were pretty excited about it all, which is perfectly natural. But here’s the incomprehensible part: to celebrate bringing an extra living creature into the world, the staff promptly nullified this by slaughtering a goat. Naturally, the Post did not report – nor understand? – any irony in taking a life to celebrate a birth.
Maybe the Nepalis understand the foreigners a little better, or perhaps they just want to sell newspapers. Last Thursday, the vendors in Kathmandu approached tourists with far more vigour and confidence than I had seen in previous days. “Good news – president!” said one, beaming, as he held up his copy of the Post with Barack Obama on the front. “Obama, hi hi. Obama, hi hi,” said another seller as he boarded our bus, making me wonder if his sales pitch on other days followed the same template – “Street riots, hi hi” or “No electricity in Kathmandu, hi hi.” After watching eight hours of CNN the day before, we opted against the newspaper, but appreciated the enthusiasm in any case.
But back to the travel.
Last week we did a two-day white water rafting trip on the Bhote Kosi river, the toughest in Nepal and our first time rafting together except for a very tame trip we did in Colombia three years ago. On the first day on the lower part of the river it was pretty low-key going down Grade 2 and 3 rapids, but very intense and a lot of fun on the second day as we rafted down Grade 4 and 5+ rapids with a few lucky escapes. One of the other tourists with us got thrown out of the raft during an early rapid, but he was quickly rescued with no injuries. In the middle of another, particularly thunderous rapid we almost capsized and lots of water filled the raft, but we stayed afloat and the rest of the way was exciting but fairly incident-free.
Having finally left Kathmandu after almost three weeks in total spent in the city, we headed south away from the Himalaya towards the plains. On our last day in Nepal the day before yesterday, we took a two-hour elephant ride in Chitwan National Park and saw seven rhinos, about 14 deer including three different species, two crocodiles and a peacock. The one-horned Indian rhino, with its armour-like skin, was the highlight of the trip and we were lucky enough to see a mother and an infant. Seeing a tiger in the wild remains an elusive goal but one that, insh’allah, we may have attained within a few weeks as we continue south to India.
Tags: Asia, Nepal, rafting, rhinos, slaughtering goats, South Asia
Nick