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Published: January 26th 2007
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Finally finishing this entry. We woke up the next morning to a white and dripping world again- this is a very foggy time of year in the lowlands of Nepal. After receiving our lunch boxes (each containing 4 boiled eggs- maybe the kitchen staff thought we needed a lot of protein?!) we walked down to the river where we boarded the dreaded dugout canoes again. With 7 people ours was riding very low and the top cleared the water by about 8cm. The slightest movement made the thing rock wildly and for some reason I felt personally responsible for keeping it stable, although in reality my efforts to hold the thing still probably had little effect. This meant I was unable to relax for the full hour and a half we were floating and I soon started experiencing pain in my shoulders and lower back from the tension.
To take my mind off my suffering body there was plenty of wildlife on the banks- at first mostly wading birds but soon we spotted gharials or needle-nosed crocodiles, which are not man-eaters, and a couple of the much more dangerous marsh mugger crocodiles, who are apparently quite partial to a chomp
The first rhino
Actually before seeing the rhinos from the elephants we saw another one on foot but this is the only photo I was able to get of it- you can see its ears if you look hard enough, I swear... on a human if they get the chance. Seeing these made me even more determined that our dugout wasn't going to roll- I'm surprised that my muscles didn't snap from the stress! There were also a number of sightings of log-o-diles and leaf-o-diles- your mind starts playing tricks on you after a while and everything looks like a large toothy flesh-eating lizard.
Finally we were able to leave the world's scariest form of transport and start our rhino-spotting hike. We walked for several hours on mostly flat terrain without seeing any land-based animals, plenty of birds though. We bushwhacked through some of the 3-metre high elephant grass to see if we could find any rhinos coming down for water, but none obliged and I fell asleep. I imagine being a wildlife photographer or film-maker includes a lot more sitting around seeing absolutely nothing than we actually realise.
Moving off down the bank we found 2 Nepali villagers cutting grass and not far from them, our first rhino sighting. The villagers have a healthy respect for rhinos and were keeping a safe distance, our guides however went off after them. They were unsure whether the rhinos were fighting or
River crossing, Nepali style
Lucky elephants have built in snorkels... preparing to mate, they were communing in some way apparently. The zoom on my camera is pretty weak and in the only photo I got of these ones all you can see is one pair of rhino ears, and then you can only see them if I point them out to you. I know what I'm looking at though!
Back on the main path we reached a bend in the river, where I had to climb into the dreaded dugout yet again, luckily with fewer people this time so it sat a bit higher. Climbing up a hill we arrived at our lodging for the night- a safari camp with small huts made of smooth mud, each containing 2 beds and 2 mosquito nets. No electricity here, and after it got dark there were several hours to kill before bedtime. It was particularly cold there due to proximity of the river I imagine, and only a couple of brave souls had a cold water shower. Even the normally scrupulously clean Toru- even if he gets home at 3 in the morning after a night out he will have a shower before bed- passed on that one. I would rather
Gharial crocodile
Not man-eaters, these ones be warm than clean any day so decided that 48 hours without a shower wouldn't kill me.
Dinner was followed by an India and Nepal trivia quiz. Many who know me will have realised that I am a trivia geek- I was in my element here, although I missed the one about the captain of India's national cricket team- I thought it was Sachin Tendulkar, but it turns out he was replaced by Rahul Dravid some time ago. Our team won anyway.
Yet another early start the next day, we continued along the same path- one more rhino sighting but only a very brief glimpse that time. After checking out the gharial breeding centre- they need some help apparently- we crossed a bridge- no more dugouts, yay!- and climbed onto open topped jeeps for what turned out to be a very, very long, very bumpy, very dusty and very cold ride back to the hotel. The guides kept spotting deer and various birds, stopping and whipping out the binoculars to look at them, but it was about here that I realised I will never be a dedicated naturalist- I was totally beyond caring about anything but getting back
Walking haystacks
People from the villages wade across the river in dry season to cut grass for their roofs to a nice hot shower and removing the dust I was by now coated with.
After a lightning shower back at the hotel we headed off in time to see the finals of the elephant races. Once the boat race and the ox-cart races had been concluded, the elephants lumbered out onto the course. They were sponsored by various foreign companies, and by coincidence our safari guides were part of the team sponsored by a Japanese travel company. They wandered around looking for a Japanese girl to sit on their elephant, but it seemed there weren't any Japanese girls in Chitwan that day, so the job went to Toru. At first we thought that they wanted him to sit on the back and wave the Japanese flag during the preparation, pose for some photos, and then get off before the race started so that someone who knew what he was doing could ride in the race. As non-participants started to leave the field though we realised that not-only did they expect him to ride in the race, they wanted him to hold on with one hand while waving the Hinomaru with the other! That elephant was the biggest in
the field, probably half as tall again as most of the other competitors and I started to have visions of him bouncing off the elephant's back and being trampled underfoot. I was just running over to ask him not to do it when I saw him climbing down- it turned out that Bill the leader had vetoed it and told our safari guys to replace him. The travel company can be sued if customers injure themselves or worse apparently, and he wasn't taking any chances.
Greatly relieved, we watched the race- great excitement on the part of the locals. Although they had used elephants to push everyone back to a safe distance- kind of like how police cars drive through several abreast when there's a parade about to start- people crowded forward onto the field to see the end of the race. The Japanese-sponsored elephant had a great start but really slowed down on the second leg (the bigger an elephant is, the older it is as they don't stop growing, so ours must have been quite a veteran) and I think came last, although it was chaos so it was hard to tell.
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