Category: Chitwan

Woke this morning to the smell of burning spliff resonating from some farmer’s field nearby. Perhaps he was just having a crop burn off in the cool, damp, early morning hours. Today was safari day and first up, after breakfast, was the safari-on-an-elephant’s back safari. I have been on the back of an elephant’s back before and know two things: 1) It’s not the most comfortable experience continually rocking back and forth and side to side, and 2) it is not very ideal for trying to take pictures and change lenses with big bulky cameras. I reluctantly agreed to do the elephant ride as long as I could also do a jeep ride when I negotiated my tour with my Kathmandu hotel manager.

As it turned out, it was actually a really good way to see the wildlife. We weren’t actually permitted within the boundaries of the national park, but were permitted to explore trails in the surrounding buffer zone. Because elephants are natural dwellers in the area, the other wildlife didn’t seem to flinch when we approached them. I’m not even sure they knew humans were on the elephant’s backs! I was able to get very close to a whole range of native wild animals including a big adult rhino and lots of deer – just chilling out in the shelter of the forest.

Afterwards I was taken to where the elephants are rewarded for slugging 5 people around on their backs for 2 hours – a bath. They love water, so they walk them down to the river so they can drink countless gallons and spray and submerge themselves to cool off and clean up. They were allowing tourists to stand on the elephants backs for the experience of getting a good luck nostril spray, but I declined, not knowing how clean the river was of how sanitary it was to have elephant snot fired at you.

In the afternoon I headed out for a jeep-based safari that actually went into the national park for four hours. The safari required that we be paddled across a river in dugout canoes to get to the cheap Indian Tata vehicles. Unlike my solo safari in Sri Lanka, I had to share the vehicle with six others – although they were all very nice and equally interested in what I was interested. There were British, New Zealanders, and Germans on board. At first we were not having much luck, possibly due to it being a warmer than average day for the middle of February, but by the time we started to head back and things started to cool off we saw all kinds of great things. There were several rhinos, an Asian bison, an Asian bear with two cubs on her back, countless deer, wild boars, numerous peacocks, lots of crocodiles, several monkeys, but no tigers! The tigers are supposed to be pretty rare, but just over the border in India there are quite a few. All in all, a very good day I would say.

Woke up early in the chilly Kathmandu air to wolf down my breakfast and meet up with my driver so we could get on the road to Chitwan National Park in south-central Nepal near the Indian border. It was about a 4 hour drive on mainly switchback mountain roads that descended about 1200 meters back to the warm sunny plains. Although the traffic didn’t seem quite as crazy as it was in Sri Lanka, there were some horrible looking accidents and many, many broken down trucks and buses left out in the middle of the narrow road for everyone to try and negotiate around. Also, the road conditions were atrocious at times due to landslides that must have hit during the summer monsoon season. Lots of dried muddy stretches with massive pot holes. As it turns out, the road is the main drag between Kathmandu and India.

I arrived at a compound behind a gate with staff members dressed like Gurkha military soldiers. Probably not just a coincidence because Gurkha is a town just up the road from here. The gate rolled open and about five guys descended on me with juice on a tray and help with my bags. I was escorted into the reception area where I was greeted by the manager. He proceeded to sit down with me and go over, point-by-point, my schedule (with military precision) for the two days that I’m there. I will be awoken early in the morning to go on safaris, canoe trips, elephant rides, etc. All meals will be furnished as part of my stay at precise moments in time.

Oddly, while it is a moderately sized compound, I didn’t see any other tourists staying here. I have all these staff members at my beck and call, but it looks like they have no one else to serve. They seem very eager to please! Perhaps its a new hotel and they are keen to establish their reputation.

The hotel room itself is like many I have come across in my travels through Sri Lanka and Nepal. It appears on the surface to be a modern, well presented premises, but then you start to notice lots of broken and unfinished things about. The TV doesn’t work, or the air conditioning doesn’t work, or you sit on the bed and a large slat fall to the floor beneath you, or there is hardly any water pressure, or the fixtures in the sink haven’t been secured to the counter, etc. You simply pretend not to notice and when asked say you think everything is great!

By the time my late afternoon tour rolled around, it became apparent that I was, in fact, their only guest. It is a little weird to have an army of staff constantly standing around watching me eat and asking individually whether everything was okay. One guy in particular appears to be the one who will be taking me around on tour every day. He is very nice and quite passionate about the local culture here in the flatlands and the wildlife in the area, which is always nice. He’s not from the area so he is looking at things as an outsider as well.

Among the interesting aspects of the neighborhood, patches of marijuana freely growing everywhere. The locals were harvesting bunches to sell on to India and Kathmandu – even though it is still illegal here. They didn’t even seem to mind me taking pictures of them working their crop, stopping to proudly smile next to their piles of freshly cut weed.

Chitwan National Park is another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Evidentially, Nepal has more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country in the world – so much so that it is not permitted to have any more. The park is supposed to have elephants, rhinos, tigers, deer, peacocks, and plenty of other exotic birds. I will see what I can find tomorrow.

In the evening I was taken to a town hall where the locals perform traditional dances for the tourists. Most of the dances appeared to require very tight coordination because sticks were flying around smacking into each other – each being held by a separate dancer. One wrong move and someone’s head was going to get split open. Fortunately that didn’t happen!