Nepal Revisited

We were told, urged and advertised that the next stop on Nepal's golden triangle was Chitwan National Park, home to rhinoceri, tigers (much more than at Ranthambore), wild elephants, cheetahs, crocodiles and more. Located on the Terai, the lowland southern stretch of Nepal, it made for an interesting visit after the mountainous north. As a contrast to our backpacking henceforth, we accepted an offer for an all-inclusive two night / three day package for a decent price. Our travel agent (the very friendly proprietor of our hotel in Pokhara) hand-wrote a letter to the hotel in Chitwan of the style "Please provide Messrs. Haaland and Borg with a deluxe room and your full tour package, all meals, transport and tickets..." and we enjoyed feeling rather distinguished as we were ushered in to a pre-paid taxi taking us to the bus station. However, our illusions ended there, as the bus was already packed full, and we were assigned 1 1/2 persons worth of backwards facing bench space up by the noisy driver, for the full five hour ride. But we met our Hong Kong friends from the lodge in Ghorepani again on the bus, and the mountain and river gorge scenery was amazing the whole way.

The view from Hotel River Side's deluxe rooms. On the far bank: Chitwan National Park.

Nicely situated on the bank of the exceptionally biologically diverse river Rapti, arriving at our aptly named Hotel River Side was a pleasant surprise. The management was super-friendly, there was a nice garden and chairs all the way down to the river, and our top-floor room had a great view over the river, banks, grass and forest beyond - perfect for wildlife watching, and we were constantly waiting for the rhino to come and have a drink! After (a sub-mediocre) lunch shared with a friendly danish family, we went for a short walk through the village and surrounding woods, learning about the culture of the local Tharu tribe, and visiting the elephant stables. In the evening we were sent to a Tharu cultural dance show.

Just as we turned in to the hotel driveway after the show, we met the danish family storming out in to the street. "There's a rhino up on the bank!" They were just going to look for crocodiles by the river, when the first rays of the nine-year-old's flashlight struck a rhinoceros! We hurried excitedly after them, and surely enough, right below us on the river bank (we were just up on a raised walkway) was an enormous Greater one-horned rhinoceros. What a magnificent animal! We watched it munch peacefully on the grass for probably ten minutes, before lowering itself into the river and swim across, out of flashlight range. An amazing experience, and worth the entire visit alone!

Wooow! Worth the entire trip!

Exhilarated, we returned to the hotel late for dinner. Alex couldn't get down much of it, though, he's been feeling worse since the trekking, and that night he got real sick. He stayed in bed the next morning as I left for the day's busy program, promising to call the doctor if he wasn't any better.

With Alex in the safe and caring hands of the hotel staff, I was treated to a morning with a private nature guide, consisting of a bird- and crocodile-watching canoe trip (dugout canoe) down the Rapti river, an exciting jungle trek and a visit at the elephant breeding center, which also had a small museum about the government's elephant breeding project. Especially the jungle trek was neat. As it's Chinese new year these days, most attractions are brimming with Chinese tourists, which if you don't mind our saying are for the most part noisy, crabby and brightly colored, and I didn't have high hopes of seeing much wildlife in that kind of company. But since it was just me and the guide, he took us a long loop through a less-visited part of the jungle, and we didn't meet or hear anyone else the whole walk and saw lots of wildlife.

A ride in one of these offered storks, egrets, kingfishers, cormorants and migrant ducks from Siberia.

An Asian elephant mother with her 7 month old son. They start training at one year!

I returned to the hotel to hear that Alex was at the doctor's clinic, and I was driven there immediately. It was to great relief I found Alex smiling in the office of a very professional and helpful doctor, who had diagnosed him with a common traveler's stomach infection and given him antibiotics and electrolytes. Alex was feeling much better, and pleased that the doctor said it was okay for him to join the afternoon's elephant-back safari!

For the safari we were stuffed four at a time in to a tiny wooden cage strapped to the back of an Asian elephant. The uneven rolling and humping with the elephant's step felt absurd at first, but we got accustomed soon. We got an exciting new perspective of the jungle, walking above the bushes and low trees, crossing rivers, and we saw lots of animals, including three species of deer, lots of monkeys, peacocks and even a wild boar. No rhino, but we were still flying high after yesterday's unreal encounter.

Successfully mounted in our elephant-back cage and ready for safari.

Our Danish friends crossing a river. Their elephant wasn't friends with ours!

The next morning (yesterday) we were sent on by bus to the capital city, Kathmandu. Alex is feeling much better, sticking to plain and easy food. We've enjoyed seeing Kathmandu again, which we also visited in 2010 with Seljord Folk High School when we were studying music there together. Today has been an impressive day of sightseeing and city-wandering, and tomorrow we're going rock climbing again! 

The monkeys at the monkey temple were more interesting than the alleged
festival in honor of the Hindu goddess of education...

On a high Kathmandu hilltop stands this impressive Buddhist stupa.