Elephants Rock!
Chitwan National Park
April 5-7, 2007
I thought it would be difficult to top our jungle walk, but Gupal still had more surprises in store for us. That afternoon, he took us to the Baghmara Bufferzone on the outskirts of the park where we did an elephant safari.
Apparently, elephants aren’t afraid of anything (even mice) and nothing in the jungle is stupid enough to attack one so we felt perfectly safe from our high perch. This time, over the course of 2 hours, we got to see 10 different rhinos, including mothers with their babies.
They seemed unperturbed by our presence as they bathed or grazed serenely while we snapped dozens of photos. We also saw many monkeys, mongooses (mongeese?), peacocks and exotic birds before our elephants dropped us off by the river to watch the sunset. What an amazing day!
The next morning, Gupal took us to the Elephant Breeding Centre where we learned all about how elephants are bred and trained.
While the adults were kept chained up, the baby elephants (under 3 years old) wandered freely and were as curious about us as we were about them.
One young elephant had a particularly good time playing with a dirty rag he had found.
After our visit to the breeding centre, Gupal took us back down to the river where we were met by the elephant and mahout from our elephant safari. Gupal told us it was time to give the elephant a bath, but what he really meant was that the elephant was going to give us one. Claude and I took turns climbing onto the elephant’s back with one of the kids where we got a refreshing shower before being unceremoniously dumped into the river.
When Claude and I went together, however, all bets were off. With the kids, at a command from the mahout, the elephant would slowly roll onto her side and we would have plenty of time to jump to safety. However, with Claude & me on her back, the elephant would suddenly start shaking her shoulders back and forth like a mechanical bull until both of us went flying.
As we clambered back on, she would suddenly sit down so we would slide off her back or roll on her side and we would have to jump for our lives. I’m not sure who was having more fun, us, the mahout or the elephant. The icing on the cake came when the mahout showed us how to use the elephant’s trunk like a sort of elevator to climb onto her back.
Way cool!
We had been the first victims of the day, so as we dried off and enjoyed a drink in the sun, we got to watch other unsuspecting tourists get a similar treatment. Despite repeated warnings from the guide to remove her glasses, one lady insisted on keeping them on. Before long, though, she had learned her lesson and meekly handed them over to the guide for safe-keeping. Later that afternoon, Gupal took us game-viewing at 20000 Lake where we saw more crocodiles, rare birds and lots of deer. Gupal never ceased to amaze me with his uncanny ability to not only spot birds from a great distance, but to accurately identify the species and show us a photo in his bird book. The lake is a favourite picnic spot with the locals and we happened upon a group of women who were eating and dancing. They insisted that I join them and attempted to teach me some of their moves (unsuccessfully, I’m afraid).
For our last evening at the hotel, we were treated to a traditional Nepali meal of dal baht and the waiters were delighted with us when we ate it Nepali-style with our hands (right hand only, though). Believe it or not, after a month in Nepal, we had discovered that it is actually easier, and not too messy, to eat dal baht with your hands.
After a final early morning bird-watching stroll, we had now reached the end of our Chitwan jungle safari and all agreed that it had been a fantastic side-trip. The kids felt like part of the Hotel Parkside family and were very sad to leave. The owner took them and a bunch of local kids for a wild Jeep ride before there were hugs all around and we were back on the road to Katmandu.
If you ever visit Chitwan, please stop by Hotel Parkside and say hi from Tamara, Claude and the kids.
To see the rest of our Chitwan photos, visit our web album:
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Tags: Hotel Parkside, Nepal, Travel
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