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Published: October 28th 2007
Kalu the Mechanic
If raft guiding doesn't work out for him, I think he has a bright future in the auto repair business.Following our amazing trip down the Sun Kosi, we were back on a Nepali bus again, preparing for an eight-hour ride to Chitwan National Park. Once again, our bus ride turned into quite an adventure of its own. Less than one hour in, we had to pull over for a flat tire. Two hours after that, there were riots in the streets of a small village we were going through so we had to find an alternate route. Lastly, about 8:00 in the evening, the bus broke down and we were stranded in the dark in a small and strange village, somewhere very near the border of India. After three hours in a hot & steamy, mosquito-filled bus and the removal and repair of the rear differential (or so we were told), (did we really want get back on this bus after that?!?!) we were back on the road to finish our journey. Sixteen hours after leaving the river, we pulled into our hotel at Chitwan around 5:30 in the a.m. Just in time for breakfast J
After a quick nap, we met our guide, Fule, who took us on a nice bike ride to the elephant breeding center. This
Royal Chitwan National Park
Our gracious hosts and tour guides, Kalu and Leen! was the Nepali version of a petting zoo…we were able to touch, feed, and pet all of the elephants. The babies were especially friendly!
Day 2 we woke up to a great breakfast and a canoe trip down the Rapti River. Fule is really into birds, so he pointed out tons of species we'd never even seen or heard of (wish you were there, Scott & Kylee!!). We did run into a few animals that we had heard of…the good old crocodile, for example. We were cruising along in our tiny little canoe and less than 10 feet to our left, Fule points out two different crocs ( The Marsh Mugger and The Gharial). Both equally intimidating and uncomfortably close! The birding canoe trip was followed by a walk through the jungle. Here we saw the beautiful Langur Monkeys, and and some pretty crazy wild roosters. This is a great place to see rhinos and although we encountered a couple of tracks, we weren't lucky (or unlucky, depends if you ask Mikey or myself!!) enough to see one.
The highlight of our Chitwan adventure was the elephant washing…a little strange at first (their rough and hairy skin is
Leen
We arrived at Chitwan right in the middle of the Dasain holiday (celebration of the victory of the goddess Durga over the forces of evil). Because of this we were all treated to Tika's ( Nepali blessings on our foreheads) by Kalu. a little uncomfortable), but we got over it quickly and really got into it!!!
The final activity in Chitwan National Park was the elephant ride through the forest. This was a real-deal safari as these animals were taking us places that a Land Rover would never dare to go!!! An hour into our ride deep into the forest, we finally stumbled upon (and by this, I mean we were literally 10 feet away!) a rhino and her eight-month-old baby…pretty incredible!!!
We finished it all of with a native stick dance, another great meal, one more night of playing cards, rum & cokes, and early bed times (closely resembling a raft guide retirement village!) before we were off to Kalu's village, Fishling.
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