Chitwan, Nepal

Nepal
Since Nepal is known for its elephants, we decided to go that route with jokes:

Q: How do you kill a blue elephant?
A: With a blue elephant gun.
Q: How do you kill a yellow elephant?
A: Hold his nose til he turns blue then shoot him with a blue elephant gun.
Q: How do you kill an orange elephant?
A: With an orange elephant gun of course!

This joke loses much of its luster when written, but when spoken it’s certainly good for a pity laugh.

Before I left, friends and family frequently asked me “Where are you most looking forward to going?” Each time, my answer was the same: Nepal.  Being one who has an affinity for mountains, Nepal appealed to me from the moment I first looked at our itinerary.  We rolled in from India and were greeted by a more relaxed and calm atmosphere than we had experienced for the past few weeks.  Nepal looked promising..

Our first stop was Chitwan, home of Nepal’s most frequently visited national park.  Throughout the entire trip, we’ve had options for a variety of excursions and planned outings, and on most of these occasions Awal and I have passed up on these options in favor of wandering around town.  To do this in Chitwan, we would have had to blindly stroll into the wilderness with rhinos and who knows what else, so for once we actually splurged for the $120 package that included all meals and several excursions.  Thankfully, it ended up being worth the investment.  On our first full day, we had a sunrise boat ride down the river to our departure point for a jungle walk.  Our well trained guide pointed out a variety of birds and otherwise hard to spot wildlife as we leisurely floated down the river.  We came to a gradual stop and I heard grumblings from the back of the boat about a potential crocodile.  Sure enough, our guide dipped his paddle into the water and with a violent splash, a medium sized croc emerged thrashing and snapping.  Screams and minor freakouts ensued from our group but we proceeded unscathed.

We arrived at our spot on the riverbank and split into a few groups for our jungle walk.  About this time, the slight drizzle that had accompanied us all morning turned into a moderate downpour.  Shortly after we got off the boat and began to walk through the jungle, we were all drenched from head to toe.  I’ve been on a few game drives before, but they’ve all been in Kenya where you’re prohibited from exiting the vehicle.  Here, we’re on foot, so that level of feeling immune to your surroundings  is gone.  Trudging around in the pouring rain was a blast.  Whenever it rains, seems like I’m always trying to avoid getting entirely wet, so whenever it’s appropriate to embrace the rain and get soaked, I feel a bit of childlike freedom.  After only 30 minutes or so of walking, our guide stopped us and pointed straight ahead toward two rhinos slowly grazing 90 feet away.  Initially, these guys didn’t seem too bothered by our presence, but after a few minutes they huffed and puffed and briefly headed our direction.  Our guide hurried us behind a tree in case they charged, but they moseyed on their own way. (I’m not so sure the tree would have done much to help us, but I heard years ago that if a rhino charges, you stand your ground until it’s about 15 feet away and then dive out of the way.  To pull that off you’d have to remain calm and have some major stones.  Not to say that I could do that move for sure, but I had convinced myself that it would work)  We wandered around the jungle for two hours or so and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery, rain, and mud.  One not so lovable part…each of us kept having leaches attach themselves to me.  For some reason, Nepali leaches love me.  At one point I pulled eight of them off my leg, one of which had buried both sides into my calf.  Leaches sound bad, but they’re actually not painful, they just steal your blood…jerks (our guide had a fantastic quote “If leach bites you, no problem, you can also bite leach”).

We ended our jungle walk by walking through a river (not so deep, just above my knees) which happened to have 2 more rhinos about 50 feet away from us. They were busy hanging out in the water and paid us no mind.  After coming out of the water, we took a short jeep ride back to the lodge where we were told that in a few minutes the elephant bath was starting.  Not knowing exactly what we were getting into, several of us walked to another part of the river (each of us still soaked by the way) where our guides were with two elephants, playing in the water. (these were trained elephants mind you)  Each of us then took turns sitting or standing on the elephant's back as she threw water over her head and drenched us.  I'm not really sure why I expected any different, but man...an elephant can fit a whole lotta water in its trunk!  We swam and played with the elephants for a good 30 minutes until it was time for the elephants to leave (though I'm not sure where they went...home maybe?

After a morning of encounters with rhinos, a crocodile, elephants, and leaches I took a long nap, ate some good food and played guitar to wind down the night.  All in all...Chitwan was fantastic.