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Published: December 22nd 2009
Our bus to Chitwan NP was everything I had expected of Nepalese buses - kind of like a sardine tin on a rollercoaster but with slightly nicer decorations; but no matter how full ours was it couldn’t compete with another we saw in which the driver was actually sitting on someone elses lap! The trip from Pokhara to Chitwan was only 5 hours and was relatively painfree although we didn’t manage to escape the obligatory stop at a friend’s restaurant for half an hour…
We had decided to book a room at Sapana Village Lodge for Chitwan - it got quite a good rap in both the Lonely Planet and on trip advisor. It’s about 1.5km from Saruaha (the town on the edge of the national park) and is 50% owned by a Dutch NGO who feeds their share of the profits back into community projects. As we pulled up in our jeep I knew we had made the right decision. The lodge is situated beside a small river which feeds into the larger one which surrounds the national park. The three accommodation buildings are built to look like (large) Tharu huts and are connected by stepping stone paths which
make their way through nice gardens. The restaurant area has wonderful lounge seats along the river side with heaps of pillows so you’re nice and comfortable. Our room was absolutely gorgeous with coordinated furnishings (wow) and soft, fluffy, normal sized pillows without lumps in them (even more wow). Perhaps the best part of the lodge for me was the resident elephant, Champuckally, who had moved to the lodge from India (along with her mahout) only about 2 months earlier. She cost 18,000euros, but earns 1000euros a month - not a bad investment. She is 35 years old and has a wonderful nature, shes so gentle and well trained and her mahout clearly loves her and looks after her really well. We spent the remainder of our first day relaxing in the restaurant area, reading books, watching the villagers tend animals, swim, fish, wash their clothes and go about their normal lives and chatting to the staff.
Our second day began with an early breakfast followed by a canoe ride up the river and then a jungle walk through the national park. The mornings are quite foggy at this time of the year which gave the river quite a spooky
feel. During our 45 minute trip up the river we saw lots of birds (including peacocks and kingfishers) and a few sleepy looking crocodiles with just their heads poking out of the water. Our jungle walk began with a briefing from our guide on how to escape from the animals. Rhinos are relatively easy to get away from - climb 5 feet up a small tree or hide behind a big one and you should be right. Sloth bears are slightly trickier as they can climb, but he assured us that if we just stood in a big group and made lots of noise the four of us (us, guide plus another Nepalese speaking guide) should be able to scare them off. Tigers are harder still; you have to try and not run away and stand your ground, make eye contact and slowly back away. Hardest of all was a herd of elephants…pretty much you’re screwed if you come across an angry herd!! The walk was very enjoyable; the scenery was really beautiful and we made our way through the forest/jungle to various rhino friendly areas (grasslands, water holes…). I’m pretty sure that the rhinos were all watching us from
behind the bushes as we always seemed to be very close (fresh poo, fresh tracks etc) but not close enough however we did manage to see a lot of deer, birds (including peacocks) and a very fresh tiger paw print. After about two and a half hours of walking we headed back to the lodge for lunch and free time before heading out on our elephant safari at 3.
Twice a day all of the elephants owned by the hotels and some government owned elephants get loaded up with between two and four tourists and head into the jungle in search of rhinos. We were quite lucky with our elephant as the mahout (driver) only had a bamboo stick instead of a horrible metal hook which some of the mahouts use to control their elephants. We set off with another elephant and about 10 minutes into our walk we came across a massive female Samba deer sitting in the bushes relaxing. It’s so strange being on the elephant as the animals don’t seem to notice the people on top of it at all; even when the people are having a conversation about how strange it is! After watching her
for a few minutes we continued our search and only 10 minutes later I noticed two massive grey lumps about 3 meters from us - I tapped our mahout on the shoulder and said rhino just as we all noticed the other massive rhino a little further away - 25 minutes in and already three rhinos! The rhinos were the same as the deer; they just didn’t seem to notice the people chatting and taking photos. It was really nice being with just one other elephant as we have heard that sometimes it can feel a little like a rhino hunt as there are 10 or more rhinos crowded around one poor scared rhino; this wasn’t like that at all. We watched them for quite a while; two of them were laying down and one was slightly more wary of the huge elephants and stayed a little bit back from us; although I’d be pretty freaked out if two elephants walked through my house… After a while we continued walking; we saw more deer and peacocks as we walked through the jungle and then up along the river. We were really happy with our rhino spotting and were just enjoying
Peacock
Canoe tripthe ride when we noticed another few grey lumps up in front of us! Three more rhinos! This time one was a baby and the other two seemed to be its parents. They were happily grazing on the grass and we were only about a meter away from them - pretty special. After a while our mahout asked us if we had watched it for long enough and then when we said yes he proceeded to call out to the other mahouts in the area to let them know we’ve found rhinos. An hour and a half after we started we headed out of the jungle, hopped off our elephant, gave her a few pats and headed back to the lodge for a tough night sitting around the fire chatting and eating.
Our third day began with a short jeep ride to the government owned Elephant Breeding Centre. There are between 25 - 30 elephants living there who spend the night at the centre and then day exploring the jungle and grazing with their mahouts on their back. At the moment there are 5 young elephants ranging in age from 4 months to 18 months. Two of the year
Jungle Lake
Jungle walk old boys weren’t chained up so they were free to explore and harass other elephants. They were really friendly and we spent ages patting them and watching them play, wrestle and bend the thick steel pipes that made up the fence. Full grown elephants apparently eat about 300kg’s of food a day and guzzle down 100L of water…wow. After we got back from the breeding centre we joined a group of locals washing their clothes beside the river to watch a few people from our hotel wash Champuckally in the river. It looked like so much fun as they struggled (and failed) to stay on her back as she sunk down into the water and slowly rolled onto her side. Once they were done washing the mahout asked whether we would like to ride her back to the hotel, so we eagerly climbed onto her (wet) back and bareback rode her back to the hotel. That afternoon we went on an ox-cart ride to a Tharu village. Sapana Village has a lot of Tharu culture based activities for their guests as they are trying to convince the communities that there is some value in holding onto their culture instead of
adopting western ways. The village was filled with animals and children who yell out “hello one-sweet”…who told them that our names were one-sweet? That night I wandered down to Champuckally’s house at the back of our hotel after she arrived home from the elephant jungle safari. I ended up sitting with the mahout and making her food which is made from rice stalks folded up with rice, salt and sometimes molasses in the middle which is all tied up with more rice stems into a neat little package. Clearly the mahout had had slightly more practice making them than me as my packages didn’t look quite so neat but Champuckally gobbled them up anyway! After a while Scott joined us - he figured that I’d either been hit by food poisoning or that I was living up to my new name: crazy elephant/cat lady. The three of us chatted while Champuckally ate; when she was out of food she smacked Scott (closest to her) with some straw and demanded more food!
On our fourth morning I was quite close to wetting my pants - it was time for the activity I was probably looking forward to the most; elephant
Sambar Deer
Elephant safari bathing. For people staying at the hotels in the town elephant bathing is all done at the one spot in the river and we’ve heard it can be a little like a circus. Another nice thing about Sapana is that the elephant bathing is done in the small river running beside the hotel so the locals can all laugh at the stupid tourists as they wash their clothes. We were really lucky as we had an elephant each so we mounted up (bareback) in the hotel garden and walked over to the river following the mahouts. The mahouts then climb up on top as well (via a very effective trunk lift) and you walk out into the river and the elephants then lie down on their side. Scott’s elephant had been trained to spray water all over the person on her back so he had quite a few high pressure (hopefully not elephant snot filled) showers while Champuckally spent her time rolling from side to side with her head under the water ignoring the mahouts commands until he gave up and let her stay submerged. After they were nice and wet we moved over to the shallows and both scrubbed
Rhino
Elephant safari our elephants with rocks while they happily lay there enjoying all the attention. After they were nice and clean we headed out of the river and our mahouts asked us whether we would like to try hopping onto the elephants back via the trunk like they do. Basically you grab the elephants ears and put one foot on the trunk and then she lifts her trunk and you gracefully slide onto the elephants back. Scott went first and managed to make it look about as awkward and ungraceful as possible. I think I was about as elegant however ended up sitting on Champuckally’s back facing the wrong direction. It was so much fun and I think I giggled the entire time. We enjoyed it so much we decided to do it again for the following morning. After we showered and ate we headed off to the town to join a jeep safari ride. The first hour or so it looked as if all of the wildlife had packed up and gone on holidays as we only spotted a few small brownish birds. Luckily things started to improve as we came to a large lake with heaps of crocodiles lying on
Deer
Elephant safari the banks. After watching the crocs for a while we moved further along the lakeside and spotted another three rhinos bringing the count to nine - not a bad effort! They were on the opposite side of the lake as us and could clearly hear us as their ears were moving around heaps but I don’t think they were feeling threatened as they just kept lying around being lazy. About a half an hour later as we were driving along our guide spotted another rhino in the grass! About 3 hours into the safari ride we came to the crocodile breeding centre which is in the middle of the park. They have literally hundreds of crocodiles of all ages which have been successfully bred, most of which will eventually end up being released into the park. The breeding centre also has a resident tiger which is kept locked up in a cage out the back - apparently they have had her for 10 years from when she was a cub as her mother had to be shot because she had killed at least three people. ‘Apparently’ tigers quite like the taste of human flesh so once they get a taste
Rhinos
Elephant Safari of it they are even more dangerous; unfortunately this cub had eaten her mother’s kill so she has to be kept locked up. It is a shame that they cant seem to find a larger area to keep her in as we think she’d probably get quite bored and angry being locked up in her 15meter by 20 meter enclosure. Once back at the lodge we went back down to Champuckally and helped feed her again, chatted to her mahout (apparently they both walked the 700km’s from India to Nepal), had dinner and the headed to the Tharu dancing show. We were quite skeptical about the dancing as sometimes these ‘cultural shows’ can seem a little artificial, however when the 20 or so guys came onto the stage and started spinning and banging sticks we were glad we had decided to come! It was more like martial arts than dancing and was really impressive; apparently they sometimes break fingers during training - we now understand why! They also performed 3 other dances, one with smallish drums which sounded really African, one with two smaller sticks and another twirling fire. The performance was really worth seeing. Once back at the lodge
Rhino
Elephant safari we spent the night around the fire chatting to the manager about Nepalese life. Apparently the Maoists are trying to form separate states for the different cultural groups, something like the partition of India. Unfortunately he thinks that this idea could result in Nepal descending into civil war (didn’t the Maoists’ learn from how badly things went in India?!).
Our final day in Chitwan began with elephant bathing, this time with the both of us on Champuckhaoli. It’s a hell of a lot harder to stay on her back when your lovely boyfriend is dragging you off into the water! Once again Champuckhaoli was very reluctant to emerge and the three of us (Scott, me and the mahout) ended up in fits of laughter as she would duck her head further under the water as the mahout yelled at her to stand up! The second time was just as much fun as the first - 100% worth the 4AUD to do it! In the afternoon we had a very leisurely bike ride to the Twenty Thousand Lakes which is near Chitwan National Park with a guide from the hotel. Along the way we chatted to her about her life;
Rhinos
Elephant safari - the pale one is the 'baby' apparently people who work in the fields get paid 200rupees a day and she gets paid 4000rupees (60AUD) a month plus food for working at the hotel. From what we could gather she supports her mother, which means that there is 30AUD per person per month - making her one of those ‘dollar a day’ people that you always hear about…and she is relatively lucky in that she has quite a good job. We really enjoyed our trip with her and even managed to see some crocodiles and deer! We convinced her to tell the staff back at the hotel that we had seen rhinos and tigers and a sloth bear so the manager looked really impressed and very very shocked when we returned! That night, the co-owner, Dhurba, was at the lodge so we spent ages chatting to him by the fire about how Sapana Village came about. He said that he was working as a waiter in a restaurant in Saruaha (the tourist town on the edge of the jungle) and a Dutch couple who had eaten there for a few meals asked him what he wanted to do with his life. He said that he wanted to
Rhinos
Elephant safari learn English, be his own boss and put something back into the community. Anyway, somehow they ended up giving him 9000 Kroners to start his own hotel, which he did quite successfully. Two and a half years later they came to stay at his hotel and he gave them the loan back in full and discussed his intention to start Sapana Village Lodge. He ended up buying the land (with the Dutch people’s help) and constructed the first building. Six years later he has built another two buildings for accommodation as well as the restaurant and now has a resident elephant. The Sapana Village Lodge Foundation (NGO’s share) is constructing a school just across from the lodge for disadvantaged children. They have also helped 30 or so women to form a factory in a shack and produce craftwork which is sold all over the world. Once the school is completed they will build a better building for these women and then hand over the building to them so that they are co-owners of their business as well as the factory. The next project will be a medical clinic (there are currently no doctors in the area) to provide healthcare to
everyone. Somewhere in there he also wants to construct a more permanent community house for the village elders who meet at the hotel every Saturday to discuss the happenings in the community. Dhurba is quite an amazing man who will clearly help the community a great deal - it’s really refreshing to see something that is already helping the community (everything in the hotel is locally sourced even if it could be found cheaper from Kathmandu) and hear about the vision for the future. We are both really really glad that we chose to stay at Sapana Village Lodge; not only did we have a wonderful time (successfully) spotting wildlife, but we got to hear a lot about the issues facing Nepal at the moment, the locals life and at least 50% of the money we spent will go straight back into helping Dhurba improve the communities quality of life.
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JD baba
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Awesome description
Its a awesome description. Feels like I myself is on the journey. Yeah its a great experience I have done this before.