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Time for a show down...
I think I know who would win Well we made it to Chitwan - but arrived a day later than intended.
We woke up at a lovely 5am on June 1st, packed, checked out, and hauled ourselves to the bus stop only to find out that the buses were all on strike. Great. Back to the guesthouse, back to bed until the restaurants opened and we could have breakfast. After cruising the town a bit, it came to our attention that not only were the buses not running, but 90% of the stores were closed. Holiday? Nope. We asked around - turns out that it was a caste strike and that one of the lower castes collectively decided to take the day off. We ended up spending the day reading and playing cards in our hotel garden.
The next day, we went through the same ordeal, only this time with more success. We made it to Chitwan in about a five hour drive and were fortunate enough to run into a young Canadian couple and their daughter on the way. We were practically mauled by all the touts as we descended from the bus - it was as if we were on a Hollywood red
Kicking Back
relaxing by the river... carpet or something. People shoving their hotel's brochures in our faces and trying to outbid each other for a chance to take us on an elephant ride. Competition was fierce, but in the end we decided to go to the same lodge as our new Canadian friends...who turned out to live in Etobicoke - small world!
The next day we went on a four hour jeep safari deep into the rainforest. We were lucky and saw a Mummy and Baby rhino and got quite close to them, maybe even a little too close. At about 3m away the Mumma rhino did not look very pleased with us and looked as if she were about to charge. Our driver's defense was a metal pole that looked like it was once part of the jeep's engine. Awesome. We did make it out without causing too much of a disturbance, and headed over to the Gharial Crocodile Conservation and Breeding Centre. Gharials have very narrow snouts that look like needle nose pliers and it was really interesting to see the different litters of crocs at different ages and stages. In the conservation area there was also an enclosure with a tigress who
Not a place for swimming
...it's almost as dangerous as Lake Ontario had been taken out of the wild as a cub for killing and eating human children in nearby villages. It is said in Nepal that as soon as a tiger tastes human flesh they will not want to eat anything else...so she unfortunately was not a candidate for re-naturalization.
That night there was a massive storm and the power was out at our guesthouse from about 4pm until noon the next day. We stopped to talk to our friends for a split second on the path and both almost got taken out by the branches of a palm tree that came down because of the wind. In the morning (today) it had subsided, however, and it was actually quite cool out...a nice change from the brisk 41 degrees it has been averaging in the Terai.
Today was absolutely hectic. We woke up early to catch a morning elephant ride through the park where we were lucky enough to see two more rhinos taking a mud bath. We've also seen lots of macaque monkeys, deer, wild boar, peacocks, really interesting birds and flowers and butterflies. Our elephant was a gigantic male named Monty Python. He was 45 years old,
The Tigress
Gorgeous but deadly which is young by elephant standards (they live on average to about 150), and was about 12 feet tall. We bought him some bananas to eat on the ride, and he ate the whole bunch whole, followed by an entire row of coconut biscuits! At one point our mahout (elephant driver) let Heidi, and later David) get up front and "drive" the elephant. Which basically means that instead of sitting on the platform on his back, you get to sit up front straddling his neck.
After the ride we got to take Monty for his bath. We took him to the river, took off his little platform and rode him bareback into the water. He liked to spray his trunk back and get us soaked - which was a welcome refreshment. Monty also like to roll over onto his side for a little swim, which sent us flying into the water a couple times, but it was a lot of fun.
Once we got back to the lodge we sat down to a game of double solitaire and some drinks and got about two minutes in before we overheard the manager telling our Canadian pals that there was
Snack Time
It's kind of hard to peel them without fingers - so he ate them whole a bus strike today and that "negotiations had not gone well" so it looked like the strike could continue indefinitely. Wonderful. Two strikes in four days. A bunch of the local lodges put together a very last minute "emergency" charter bus to get all the tourists out of Chitwan. We asked the manager when it left, because if there was going to be a bus back to Kathmandu, we wanted to be sure we were on it. "Well, pretty much, ya, NOW!" was his reply.
What ensued can only be called chaos. We abandoned our drinks, ran to our room, threw our things into our bags, and hopped into the jeep. It was probably the fastest we've ever packed anything in our entire lives. But we made it. It cost us a little extra for the bus ticket, seeing as the driver was not supposed to be operating that day (but a little extra cash works wonders, hey?) and it was well worth it to be able to leave the malarial zone and get back to a place with banks, computers, an airport, and plenty of taxis to bribe to drive you over to the Indian border on a
Mud Bath
complete with frog-on-the-back treatment minute's notice should things go awry.
We just got into Kathmandu tonight in time for dinner. The restaurant we chose happened to have a sitar and tabla concert on tonight, which was really interesting to see. David also sampled some of the Tibetan tongba (millet beer), which he wasn't overly fond of but which was an experience nonetheless.
Hopefully the buses get back to operating soon, as we were planning on heading east over to Darjeeling in India, and eventually to Sikkim. As of right now, however, we have no idea when we'll be able to make it to the border. As a side note, while in Darjeeling we plan on visiting the Tibetan refugees' carpet shops, where beautifully made carpets allegedly sell at a fraction the price paid in North America. So if anyone is in the market for a carpet, drop us a line.
Overall, Chitwan was really great. It was really too bad that we got there a day late and were forced to leave a day early, but that's life in the developing world, it seems.
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Anthony Ruta
non-member comment
...........the adventure continues..........
David/Heidi: Did the pole that the driver used to hold of the rhino off look anything like a Festivus Pole? If so, please go back and get it. None of us should complain the next time the TTC is running behind schedule. Makes the TTC union look like a bunch of pansies. I have to admit, the presence of banks, computers and airports doesn't seem to make that big a difference.........the wrong things just go wrong faster. Miss ya both, Love Dad