Time for a bit of blog catch now on a Friday afternoon!
Two weeks ago the NAYADS (Nepal AYADS) rented a van - with driver attached - and took off south to Chitwan NP. We went the van option as we only had limited time and were told that a local bus could take up to 6 or 7 hours to cover the 150km, or only 4 hours by going the private option. So with that in mind we left from Kathmandu at about 730am Sat morning.
So here we are driving driving driving along the winding roads that scale the KTM Valley rim, eager for our first glimpse of what life outside of the surround hills is like. And before Erin could say "Ugh, I'm car sick", we got that glimpse and guess what.....life is exactly the same! OMG! Nonetheless we pushed forward, our eagerness still intact, only to join the upcoming traffic jam. Ya see - I told you nothing changes outside of the Valley!
About four hours into our trip now and we're thinking we must be getting close. The driver then pulled over to a little hillside restaurant for a break, when he mentioned that we are now halfway. Your kidding! Halfway. It took a while for the news to sink in. To make matters worse however, when we had just finished calculating how much more time we had to go, a local bus whizzed past with Nepali's sitting on the rood wooohoooing in delight as the wind past through their hair.
But alas, we arrived! And we even picked up Danielle, an EWB volunteer who is staying in a small village on route. We had booked a couple rooms in the Parkside Hotel which turned out to be a great place with a nice vibe. The group split that afternoon with the girls having booked themselves into a group package and Carole and I opting for the 'do it yourself' option. We then rented a couple of bikes and rode off to the elephant breeding centre. It was a lovely ride through some small villages with mustard fields to our right and the river to our left. Once at the elephant breeding centre we ditched our bikes and strolled across the bamboo bridge onto the island where the elephants were housed. We weren't too sure what to expect from the centre, and it was actually just aswell. With barely any information about how the centre is run and so forth, we just wandered the grounds and had a look and the various elephants hanging around eating grass. At one point however we started chatting to a group of school kids and their teachers. They had driven about 8 hours that day also to check out Sauraha (the village we were staying), and were then driving back that night! And to think i was complaining before! It was fun trying to communicate with the kids who took a real interest in us. So much so that even though there were some huge elephants just to our left, the kids decided to photograph us instead. Hilarious!
The next morning we booked ourselves into a jungle walk. We were up at 630am filled with enthusiasm about what the day would bring. It didn't take long as Gopan (the hotel guide) grabbed us from the breakfast table and lead the way past a few houses into an open field to check out a wild rhinoceros that was enjoying some fresh grass for breakfast. An amazing site and a great start to the day. After breakfast we met up with our guides - Rajendra and Krishna - a couple of young lads who had grown up in Sauraha. They took us down to the river where we boarded a canoe made from a hollowed out walnut tree (i'm not 100% sure it was walnut. It could have been plastic) and we set off down the river. It took about 2 minutes for Rajendra to say, 'hey look over there, a couple of crocodiles'. Jesus. We had no idea there were that many crocs here and these two were about 30metres from the town! For me that seemed crazy that animals such as rhinos and crocs were naturally living so close to quite a sizeable human settlement.
I had just got my back in the perfect position to really enjoy the canoe trip (it had been about 2 hours at this stage), when we pulled off to the river bank to start the jungle tour. Carole and I marked our territory like any good land dwelling animal, applied some sunscreen, tried to find a whacking (i mean hiking) stick and set off down the jungle path. With our eyes peeled to see if there were any panthers or jaguars nestled in the trees, we realised that we might miss other jungle critters that were roaming about. So Carole and I devised a monitoring system that I had learnt in my first year at uni, and have used many times since when working as a British Gourka in Kashmir, to make sure we had a set of eyes on the trees, left side, right side and food bag at all times. And the plan seemed to work as within about 5 minutes, Krishna motioned us to stop and keep quiet as he had spotted two sloth bears down the left side on the dirt road eating some termites. Sloth bears are thought to be extinct (they are also referred to as Dodo Bears), and have not been seen in the park for about 8 years. So this siting really was incredible which I captured on film and have since presented to the National Wildlife Association of Nepal (NWAN) at their Kathmandu office. Armed with rocks and some nasty drum n bass on my ipod, we crept closer to the bears. They were indeed chowing down on some termites which got me thinking about dal baat. The wise mother bear must have smelt my cologne and realised it was a cheap copy that i had bought at the local market place, and bolted off into the bush. The baby however had not yet acquired such a keen sense of smell and didn't mind being basked in the fragrance of Kevin Klein. The mother, now behind a thick set of bushes, all of a sudden let our a mighty roar which sounded alot like the time my own mother scolded me for hanging out with the wrong crowd, causing baby bear to also dart off into the bushes. At this point we were no more than 15metres from the bears but by the way Carole was using me as a human shield, it was probably a good thing that the bears left. I will however ensure that I apply a more socially acceptable cologne the next time I enter the jungle.
After the bears came Claudia to the spotted deer who was terribly camera shy, followed by John the Macauc monkey. John was a polite guy who swung from tree to tree like a good monkey should when there are visitors in the jungle, and didn't mind waiting for me to run and grab my camera and then dart off after him. He soon became fed up with my voyeuristic ways and swung off. Gary the rhino came next but we caught him at quite an inconvenient time as he was bathing (which takes about 3 hours), so he couldn't prepare us anything whilst we waited. We all did take a naughty peak at him as he washed behind his ears which got me thinking about how nice it would be to have a lazy bath in the jungle. So i crept a little closer to ask Gary if he'd mind if I joined him but you should have seen the look on his face! I think he may have misinterpreted my motivation for wanting to join him in the swamp, and got a little antsy with the whole idea. So I thought it better to not outstay my welcome and leave Gary until he wants to catch up again. Carole wrote our mobile numbers in the mud so that he can get ahold of us.
After such a wonderful day in the jungle catching up with everyone, we were quite exhausted and decided to sit on the rivers edge back in Sauraha and enjoy a few beers with Krishna and Rajendra. We had a blast with them and also swapped numbers under the pre-tense of catching up sometime soon, but also in case Gary had lost ours whilst getting out of the swamp.
