Royal Chitwan National Park

We set out on the morning of the seventh for Royal Chitwan National Park, a nearly 1,000 sq km nature preserve in south central Nepal. Our bus ride from Pokhara to Sauraha took about five hours and was much like our other experiences on Nepali roads: paved but extremely bumpy, a few buses had fallen off cliffs on the side of the road, and occasionally we had to squeeze down to one lane because landslides had blocked the rest of the road. When we got off the bus, representatives from all the local hotels swarmed us and all the other people who had arrived on the foreigner only bus and quite obviously needed a hotel. Fortunately we had booked our hotel in advance and made our way to the Jungle Wildlife Camp quite easily. Our accommodations were right outside the park and thus on the cheaper end of lodging in the area but had an excellent view of a river and some grasslands. We could see elephants from our front porch!


We ran into two Dutch guys, Vincent and Robert, who we had met before in Pokhara and two Brits, Guy and Will joined us later. After a few hours of downtime and a short car ride, we arrived at the government run Elephant Breeding Center - the four elephants playing soccer completely made up for missing out on Elephant Polo a few weeks earlier.




We walked around the center and fed a number of baby elephants - their trunks are surprisingly dexterous!


On the ride home we stopped to pick up some firewood and were swarmed by Nepalese children who wanted nothing more than to say hello and shake our hands. They didn't ask for money or candy, just greeted us and then seemed to completely lose interest and run off. For someone who is not used to crowds of adoring fans, it was quite pleasant to have some!

The next morning we woke up early to go for a bird and crocodile watching canoe ride then jungle walk, which is exactly what you might expect. A quick ride in a canoe, followed by a walk through the jungle. The canoe was quite similar to those made by Native Americans, a large tree carved into the shape of a canoe with dug out seating.


We arrived at the canoe center and waited... and waited... and waited for two hours but our boat man didn't show up.I got bored and decided to borrow a canoe for a few moments and paddle around in the stream. Our guide must have taken the hint because we left shortly thereafter. We saw a number of crocodiles and storks. More interesting than either of these, however, was the local Tharu families washing themselves and their clothes in the river while fishing for their dinner in close proximity to the crocodiles. Our guide ensured us that those particular crocodiles ate only fish, but I was quite happy to stay away from them.


We saw wild monkeys and deer and some tiger tracks on our jungle walk but sadly no actual tigers.




The government run elephant safari center was a surprisingly commercial outfit. When we arrived we found a flock of tourists and easily a dozen elephants. At four tourists per elephant, there were a lot of people in the jungle. We even caught one Nepali man talking on his cell phone DURING the safari!



We saw some more deer and even the rare, one horned, Indian Rhinoceros a mother and child!


The tour was quite thrilling - and an experience that I was quite glad to have had but also one that I would not repeat. Some of the elephant prodding tools looked quite barbaric and I'm quite sure the elephant did not enjoy getting kicked behind the ears. Although people make analogies about the thickness of an elephant's hide for a reason, such a majestic creature certainly deserves much better treatment!

Had to do it:


We visited in the middle of the winter, but you couldn't tell unless you knew better since the weather was actually quite pleasant. Although you would be cold without a light fleece and pants at night, the days were warm, almost hot and anything other than shorts and a t-shirt at noon was far too much. The summers are, without doubt, oppressively hot. The local buildings we saw were a reflection of both these conditions and the available materials. The walls were very thin, nothing more than reeds woven together and covered in mud. The roofs were, for the most part, thatched but when possible people upgraded to wooden shingles or tin.


Between the well stocked rivers and lush vegetation all around, the people and animals were well fed, although not without difficulties. Three years ago Maoists bombed the area quite frequently but most of the violence seems to have subsided these days. Today the Maoists have been integrated into the political process and form a small but vocal part of the government. Still though they have been known to hassle trekkers and there has been at least one bombing in the past year. The most anyone would have to worry about is perhaps paying a small, "voluntary" donation (no more than Rs100 or about $1.60 per day) and the Maoists will even issue a receipt! It is a bit morally objectionable but far safer and easier than the alternative. That being said, the big cities and major tourist areas are completely safe from such attacks as the Maoists don't target tourists and most of the locals don't support them anyway. The Nepalis that we've run into have all been very friendly and many of them speak an impressive amount of English.

Tomorrow morning we are heading back to China for a few weeks and plan on visiting Chengdu, Xi'an, Shanghai, and Hong Kong in that order.

Fortunately we will not be flying Royal Nepali Airlines who, earlier this year, sacrificed two goats because one of their planes was having technical problems.

Finally, ChasingGoats in Bhaktapur, Nepal: