Operation Wanderlust

An elephant bath for Marc near the Royal Chitwan National Park border

Royal Chitwan National Park was our third and final stop in Nepal.  The nearest town, Sauraha, was a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu and Pokhara.  We enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere, lack of touts, and the friendly people.  We easily could have spent another day or two if we weren’t in such a rush to get to India.

Our sole reason for this excursion was the chance to ride on an elephant.  Although we have seen our share of wildlife lately I was excited about the chance to get close to an elephant.  We checked out some mid-range lodges but the community run lodge we were interested in didn’t have availability.  Instead  we booked a cheap hostel in the town of Sauraha and made the safari arrangements on our own with an agency called United Tours after we arrived.

Since we didn’t arrive from Kathmandu until the afternoon our activities the first day were minimal.  We took a very bumpy horse carriage taxi to the government run Elephant Breeding Center.  Here, we think, elephants are bred and trained for the safaris.  Also, we saw twin baby elephants, a rare occurrence according to guide we overheard talking.  Afterward we had dinner by the river and then went to the community’s cultural (Tharu) show, which was quite spectacular with various stick dance performances and singing.

Elephant safari

Most of the excitement occurred on the second day.  Our day started at 6:30am when we met our elephant for the next two hours.  From what we understand, the same driver (mahout) and elephant work together for years.  We weren’t expecting to see much on this elephant safari. The thrill came from actually being on the back of an elephant, but we were pleasantly surprised nonetheless: two Asian rhinos resting in a mud pool, a male peacock, some rhesus macaque monkeys, and two types of deer (barking and samba) were encountered in the community forest.  To control the elephant the driver puts his feet behind the ears and uses pressure to turn left or right.  Most drivers also carry a stick of some kind for control but fortunately our driver only used it to keep the elephant in place while we were mounting and dismounting the small sitting platform.

The highlight of the day occurred just before lunch when we went down to the river for the “elephant bathtime”.  Marc jumped at the opportunity and paired up with our morning driver and elephant.  The driver would command the elephant with both physical and verbal commands.  To command the elephant to blow water at Marc the driver would jump up and down on the elephant’s back and shout something I didn’t understand that sounded like “Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut!”.  To knock Marc off the elephant’s back the driver would wobble back and worth, which would result in Marc sliding off the elephant’s back into the river – sometimes with the elephant collapsing dangerously close to him.  Marc has described this experience as an Operation Wanderlust highlight, and now I wish I had had a bath, too.

Staring down an Asian rhinoceros

After a leisurely lunch watching more elephant bathtimes we departed on our jeep safari into the national park itself.  In hindsight we probably should have booked a walking safari since the jeep was packed with eight tourists and two guides and the road was extremely bumpy.  These conditions, combined with four grumpy French passengers, made for an uncomfortable four hours.  Even though we spotted only a few animals it was still rewarding.  We glimpsed several groups of spotted deer, the third of four types of deer in the park.  Later our guide first spotted an enormous wild elephant and we barely stopped for photos.  As we had learned on our Tanzanian safari, you don’t want to mess with wild elephants: they are deceptively quick and will readily charge a vehicle.  Later in the afternoon, we spotted another rhino in a marsh area, a kingfisher diving for food, a hoopoe bird, fresh tracks of a python and tracks of a tiger.  The real excitement occurred as we were returning to Sauraha when we spotted another rhino in the brush.  The jeep inched up close to it until it appeared that the rhino was contemplating charging us.  It started to walk toward us and the driver threw the jeep into reverse.  It then walked across the road and studied us while taking a long pee.  Although the driver revved the engine and the guide started banging a stick against the side of the jeep, the rhino still appeared interested in us.  Again, it turned toward us like it would run in our direction and the driver put the pedal to the metal and started  yelling, “Is it coming?”.  Thankfully, the rhino eventually walked away from us and afterward the driver somehow attempted to collect the rhino’s urine (apparently it has some medicinal value) before heading back to town.

Passengers on the way out of Kathmandu

So yesterday was a bad day but I guess it could have been worse. Our morning started with breakfast at 6:15am.. We are a bit tired of walking so we splurged on a US$1.50 taxi ride to the tourist bus park (they don’t seem to have bus stations here, just big dirt parking lots filled with various buses and vans). It took us a few minutes to figure out which bus would be transporting us to Kathmandu since about 15 were lined up next to each other. Easy, right? Nope.

Right after we were settled on the first smelly bus the ticket taker told us to get off, grabbed our bags and then brought us to another bus that looked much more comfortable. We were pretty happy about the change until he led us to our bench seats located in the cab (next to the driver). “Good seats”, he said. I was about to have a panic attack because there was no way I was going to sit in the crumple zone (actually more like the crumple zone’s crumple zone) for 5-7 hours on a bench watching every near miss on a single lane road that frequently clings to the edge of a cliff. I would much prefer to be in the middle of the bus ignorant of the road conditions and traffic. Marc said I should try to work it out (Thanks, hubbie!).

I went back to the ticket taker #1 who provided no assistance. He kept saying the bus is full, it is a national problem, and the bus we were but on was for those with “Loyal” tickets (the name of the bus company). I almost lost my temper when I saw a woman get on the bus who bought her ticket from the same travel agent we did (again, since there’s no bus station, everyone buys bus tickets from tourist travel agents who can also book you a rafting tour, trekking trip, Everest overflight, international flights, etc.). I asked this woman if I could see her ticket to confirm that she too bought her ticket from Worldwide Travel and the ticket taker was in apparent disbelief that that it was from the same company. Later I realized that the bus was probably overbooked and since we were the first foreigners to arrive without a Nepali guide ticket taker #1 passed us off to another company.

At about this time Marc walked over to the only ticket reseller’s office nearby who stated that on all the buses outside there were only two seats left and wouldn’t you know those seats were on our reassigned bus. The ticket taker on bus #2 said it was a mistake and then got ticket taker #1 involved. Both, for some reason unknown to us, denied the existence of the available seats even though we said we would pay the difference (if there was one). Eventually ticket taker #2 relented and gave us the seats in the last row of the bus.

The buses here make many, many stops so after about 1.5 hours of driving we stopped for breakfast. After about another 1.5 hours we stopped for lunch. We figured we should eat something and walked into a pretty dirty restaurant and despite our (warranted) misgivings we ate lunch there. Two-thirds of the way through his vegetable fried rice Marc found a decent sized insect in his veggie fried rice. We are counting it as an exotic food experience.

Our 5-7 hour bumpy bus ride turned into a 12 hour ordeal for two reasons. First, outside of Kathmandu there was a lot of traffic. The only explanation I could decipher was that a van stalled in the middle of the road and since there wasn’t a shoulder for the driver to pull off onto vehicles needed to be directed around the van. Second, there was a political protest. Not just any political protest with signs or banners, but a Maoist protest where the hundreds of protesters were carrying big sticks of fire! Our bus was sandwiched between the two roads that the torch carrying protestors were using so it looked like they were surrounding us when in reality the protesters were using the

View from our bus of the protest

nearby bridges to cross the pond. At first Marc and I were the only two passengers to notice the steady stream of torch carrying protesters behind us. Marc asked a trekking guide that was still on the bus if this was a normal protest. He nodded yes and his client nonchalantly mentioned this had happened last time she was in Nepal.

Meanwhile Marc and I were freaking out because even though the protesters appeared to be peaceful it was quite disconcerting to see a few hundred torches in front of and behind us. Apparently we were the only people who seemed to be unsettled since everyone else was waiting patiently for traffic to resume and had looks of annoyance on their face rather than fear. Once the bus finally reached its destination we splurged on another taxi to our hotel where thankfully there was a room available for us.

Today, we were hoping to leave Kathmandu and go to Chitwan National Park but there is some kind of strike (related to the protest, we believe) which is preventing us from departing the capital. We decided that today we would just relax a bit in the hotel’s peaceful garden instead.

We’ve arrived in Kathmandu after a thirty hour travel odyssey. We left Logan Airport at 5:30pm on Thursday, March 18, on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, Germany. After a short layover Friday morning we boarded an Air India flight to Delhi. We arrived in Delhi Friday evening (~11pm local time) and our flight to Kathmandu didn’t depart until 7:45am the following morning. We couldn’t leave the airport because our Indian visas are single entry and we plan to return to India when we finish the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. Anyway… this meant we were stuck in the Transit Area overnight, which wouldn’t have been terrible except for the incredibly loud, continuous flight announcements in Hindu and English over the PA.  Very clean bathrooms, though.

With a few hours of pseudo-sleep under our belts we got our Jet Airways tickets and headed to the security checkpoint. In Delhi they have gender-specific security screening and the screeners were thorough in their frisking protocol. After more waiting near the gate we finally boarded our third flight segment to Kathmandu. While delayed on the tarmac waiting for the weather to clear in Kathmandu we were able to watch a few movies. Beth Ann fell asleep watching “Up in the Air” and I finished “Fantastic Mr. Fox”. Eventually we were cleared for takeoff and ninety minutes later we were treated to glorious views of the soaring Himalaya range as we approached the airport. It was incredible to consider that many of those peaks were above 25000 ft and our plane was cruising at 30000 ft!

Once on the ground in Kathmandu we grabbed our bags and met our transfer to our hotel.  We had the afternoon to explore the city but when we woke from our “short nap” it was 7pm and dark outside.  We elected to grab a Nepali dinner of thukpa, curry, and momos along with some tasty milk tea.

Lodging: Hotel Ganesh Himal