ROYAL CHITWAN NATIONAL PARK (Day 15)

This is Nepal's first national park, established in 1973. The shorter grass makes February through May the best game viewing season. There are basically three ways to tour the park: by elephant, by jeep or by foot. We decided to do all three... starting with the elephant ride.

It was quite misty out as we walked to catch our 8 am tour. Six or so elephants were loitering about, waiting for their morning passengers. These were Indian elephants, much smaller than their African cousins and with smaller ears. They are the only trainable kind.

Unlike with the camel, which lowered itself to you, you have to raise yourself to the elephant. We climbed up a tall wooden embarkment platform and then, one at a time, squeezed into the small wooden saddle platform mounted on the elephant's back. The platform (which carried four passengers; the driver sat apart up front) was tied on around the animal's stomach and hooked under its tail. Even though we were technically much higher than on a camel, it felt safer.

The elephant moved forward with slow heavy lurching movements. On flat ground it was fine, but on steep inclines, it was a bit difficult to hang on (even in spite of the low, tight rail that our legs were pinned under). We learned our elephant was a 30-year old female. I cringed every time the driver whacked her extremely hard with a stick to get her to do what he wished. She even got hit whenever she tried to snatch a passing bite from a brush or tree.

To enter the park, we crossed the river and headed out towards the big tall grassy plains. Within no time, we saw several other tourist-laden elephants all rushing toward one spot. Some rhinos had been spotted! Naturally we went too. I expected we'd only see them from a distance, but our driver kept pushing his elephant right on top of them. The rhinos definitely didn't seem pleased, but they didn't make too much of fuss either. They just slowly and gradually moved away. Apparently an elephant is the only thing a rhino won't attack.

Getting VERY close to some Greater One-horned Rhinos

We started to make our way toward the dense jungle. At the outer edge, we saw an explosion of peacock feathers. We had seen several living ones in the trees and fields, but this one had clearly become somebody's dinner. With a few more hard whacks, the driver had the elephant pick up several of the feathers with her trunk.

The jungle was very dense and we got smacked by many tree branches and the tops of tall bushes. Birds were everywhere, as were bees and huge hives hung overhead. We also spotted a small brown deer which didn't flinch a muscle the whole time we were near it. But that was about it.

Eventually we left the dark jungle and crossed back over a narrow yet rather deep river. We could tell we had left the boundaries of the park from the amount of trash and the occasional hut. Suddenly somebody saw a small fishing cat sitting not too far from the water's edge. It was light beige and matched the grass perfectly. It just lay there watching us.

Five minutes later we were unwedging ourselves from the elephant saddle. We had some time before our jeep tour so we went back to the animal museum. According to a recent census, there were around 450 rhinos in the park and 107 tigers.

As we wandered through town, we saw two elephants being washed in the river. They were lying on their sides and being VIGOROUSLY scrubbed with a sturdy brush. Each elephant lay perfectly still until their respective man yelled and hit them to get them to turn over. One man flipped his elephant's ear over and stood on it with one foot pinning it down while he scrubbed the animal's head. After a few minutes of serious scrubbing, the men would splash the elephants with water. For the most part, the elephants kept their trunks under water except when they lifted it up ever so slightly to grab a breath. As we continued through the town, we saw an elephant completely painted up with a restaurant advertisement.

After a large lunch of dal bhat, a large, green, VERY old Russian military jeep with no top (just a handrail frame) or windshield came to pick us up at our resort. The controls were almost completely corroded over. We then picked up five more tourists at different hotels. The old open-topped vehicle was almost as bouncy as the elephant, but we could cover much more ground.

We drove through the deep river, passed a checkpoint and entered the park. There were two guides with us: one who drove and the other who spotted the various animals. And believe me when I say the barking deer really needed to be pointed out! Often times it took us a while to find them even when we were told exactly where to look.

We crossed over the small, creaky, wood-planked bridges VERY slowly. The whole thing had a very Jurassic park feel to it. We passed through a second checkpoint and continued deeper into the jungle filled with huge clingy vines, large sandy termite hills, black faced monkeys, peacocks... and a third checkpoint.

We then entered the large grass plains. Following along a murky green river, we saw a medium-sized grey crocodile sunning himself on a bank. There were also plenty of herons and kingfishers. Then suddenly one of the guides spotted something! A sloth bear! The animal didn't seem to notice us (it was busy digging for termites) so the guides allowed us to get out of the jeep. Apparently the bears are far more dangerous than tigers because they are highly aggressive and territorial. All in all, there are about 200 bears in the park. We spotted a second bear in front of the first one. It disappeared for a moment behind some shrubs but then reappeared as it kept heading closer and closer in our direction. It disturbed a family of peafowl who flew up into a small tree. Finally the bear spotted us. It took a few steps more steps forward, but some clapping from the guide scared him lumbering away (although we had all piled quickly back into the jeep just to be safe!).

A curious Sloth Bear moves closer.

Back in the jungle, we continued along the bumpy dirt roads. We were casually driving along when suddenly a rhino emerged from around a bend in the road... walking right down the road toward us. We stopped and waited since it was too difficult to turn around and go back. Eventually it wandered to the side of the road. The guides waited, hoping it would continue on... but it just stopped there, grazing. Eventually they decided to risk a pass. We drove up very slowly but just as we started to pass, it turned and started a very quick sudden charge! The driver almost popped the clutch in his desperate rush to quickly get away from the quickly approaching beast. The rhino came very close to catching us but fortunately quickly gave up. We rounded the bend, crossed another steep stream then arrived at another checkpoint.

A rhino blocks our path. A few moments later, he charged our jeep.

We made a stop at the Gharial Conservation Centre where efforts were being made to re-populate the local supply of these thin-nosed little crocodiles. The amazing creatures all lay perfectly motionless, unblinking, unbreathing, and in all sorts of odd positions. They were like slices of life frozen in time. Every now and then, one would open or close its mouth to prove it was alive. They also had some large grey crocodiles called muggers. These grew to 8 feet or more and lived about 20 years.

Some gharials

Back on the road, two large wild boar went bounding through the brush along side of us. They were hard to see with their dark grey-brown color through the trees. We reached a small intersection and started the return drive back along our same path.

As sunset drew near, the long black and orange striped tall grass began to glow. We crossed the river out of the park and got to enjoy the bright red reflection of the sun of the sen in the purple water.

We told Mahendra about having seen the fishing cat and he was extremely impressed. He hadn't seen one before and only a tiger once in several years of jungle walking. Later that evening, we stood outside watching some lightning and fireflies in the humid weather.

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