A Little Adventure…Dodging Wild Rhinos!

19 June 2009 Comments

Ok, so I have to admit, I never actually got the chance to..well.. dodge a wild rhinoceros…but I did see one! And according to my guide throughout my three days at the UNESCO listed Royal Chitwan National Park, wild rhinos are the least of our worries – it’s the wild elephants that will charge you and attempt to rip your limbs apart by stepping on you with a foot and then wrenching your body apart with their trunk. This was essentially my welcome speech when I arrived at Chitwan. The whole group of VSSN volunteers decided to book an eco-friendly tour down to Chitwan together so that we could get a deeper discount and get to know each other more along the way. The four of us from Pharping joined the three VSSN volunteers (doctors) working at a hospital in a different small town in the Kathmandu Valley, Chapa Goan. The seven of us all trouped down to Chitwan for a weekend of elephant safaris, jungle walks, a canoe trip, and tours through the small native towns in the south of Nepal.

I have to confess…I had some really high hopes of just glimpsing some of the endangered animals – the single horned Asian rhino is endangered and lives in the park, as does the Bengal tiger. I have a small obsession dating back to childhood with tigers and wouldn’t have minded spotting one (I did know that the likelihood was almost null). But at the same time I was glad that the animals are staying away from the touristy-ness. So, to sum up that part of my dream for the visit to Chitwan –the tiger spotting didn’t happen but the rhino put himself on full display.

I loved the Eden Jungle Resort and Lodge; they fed us fantastic food (it wasn’t even good in comparison to the dal bhat we normally eat every day, it was just plain awesome). The resort organized the entire weekend and our group had a personal guide taking us around the national park. First up on the list was a walk through a local Tharu village. The villagers have lived at the border of the national park for decades and still live largely in the same traditional manner despite all of the tourists coming through. The houses seem to virtually grow out of the ground with their thatched roofs and clayed walls – it was really neat to walk on the outskirts and just get a glimpse of the villages without feeling intrusive and like a tacky tourist.

We started out our first morning in Chitwan with a canoe ride and jungle walk. One of the women with us, Jess, was particularly freaked out by the prospect of a jungle walk after our guide’s pep-talk about the danger of wild elephants and rhinos but she decided to stick out her fear and join in on all of the activities anyway. To skip the jungle walk she would have missed the leisurely early morning canoe ride down the Rapti River; we canoed down the river and then walked back through the jungle.

I have another confession to make –bird watching is about as interesting for me as watching paint dry or perhaps sitting in on a three-hour lecture on the intricacies of macroeconomics…it’s just not my style. But with that said, the canoe trip down the river was entirely engaging because it was so very calm and relaxing as we cruised down the river looking to spot wild elephants and rhinos. In addition to the copious species of Kingfisher and egrets pointed out along the ride, we also passed by groups of local children clowning around in the river entirely unconcerned with the canoe-load of tourists.

The canoe ride led into to the jungle walk…this was largely uneventful. I have one picture of a rhino that was sitting amongst the trees –it’s very “Where’s Waldo” esque though so I didn’t post it. Our guide was a bit prone to dramatics at some points…or maybe he really was hearing/seeing things we didn’t, but at about the time he picked up a big stick for protection the seven of us definitely tightened up the line and were a bit more aware of the fact that we were in the jungle and perhaps it’s a bit more dangerous than a stroll through Central Park. Though we didn’t really spot any animals on the walk we did see some fairly new footprints of a leopard, some deer, and a few other animals that could probably have killed me if they ever happened upon the seven of us gentle tiptoeing through the jungle.

The best part of the whole trip to Chitwan was the elephant bathing after the jungle walk.We spotted the group elephants taking their morning baths and were eager to help these animals cool off while also having a bit of fun. The Mahout (elephant trainer) commanded the elephant to tip us at various points and to generally just play around a bit in the water. After our frolicking session we headed over to the shallow water and spent a few minutes rubbing Lakshmi (our elephant) down and scrubbing her thick, course and hairy skin. It was a really amazing experience to interact with the elephants on such a level without feeling like I was exploiting the animal for the mere sake of my entertainment…more of a trade-off really.

Once we were thoroughly cooled off and Lakshmi was headed back to work for the day we headed back to rinse off and spend the heat of the day indoors.

The evening was capped off with a traditional Tharu dance performed by a large group of the middle and high-school aged children. All boys, the Tharu dancers spent thirty minutes shaking every limb of their body and dancing to the beat of their clacking sticks. As a person who just fails miserably at doing any sort of shimmy, I give these boys mad props for their performance and the skill that it took throughout to captivate the crowd and entertain.

We went to bed happy campers – the only bummer of the day was the electricity situations…with the electricity situation as it is in Nepal our fan didn’t always work and Helen and I were sweating buckets throughout most of the night.