Off To The Jungle For Big Game Hunting

Chitwan National Park, about 120Kms south of Kathmandu is a reserve, home to rhinos, tigers, elephants, monitor lizards, crocodiles, leopards and many other slightly less exiting creatures. For the price of a single day's budget in China, we had paid for the two of us to have a three day trip to the park. The price included accommodation, all food, all transport, a trip to the elephant breeding center, a jungle trek, canoe trip, elephant safari, cultural performance, traditional village tour and park entry fees - not bad!

The bus journey was a fairly effortless 6 hour ordeal though our promised free pick up from our hotel turned out to be a man standing waiting to lead us on foot across town to the bus station. Our hotel was a little basic but nice enough and the five of us soon settled into the routine of being ordered here and there by the hotel staff who were keeping us on schedule for the hectic series of events.

It felt like the off season, with all the hotels being almost completely empty and a lot of construction work going on around the small town. There were about 8 to 10 staff members in our hotel who did everything from the jungle guiding through to serving in the restaurant, cooking the food, driving the jeep and building the extension out back.

Night 1 and we visited the breeding center and saw the elephants chomping down on their elephant snacks while the baby elephants looked on in jealousy (they were too young for Dumbo junk food). Next we were shipped down to the cultural exhibition hall to see a series of tribal dances with sticks which was all very entertaining. The performers consisted of about a dozen male dancers who reenacted tribal boogies for our entertainment. The best bit though was the one dance that actually had a part for the women. Rather than share their earning with a couple of girls for the sake of one dance, the two newest members got bedecked in skirts and lipstick and pushed out onto the stage. The audience politely pretended not to notice.

It was up early the next morning and out to go rhino hunting. Our weapons for the hunt were cameras to shoot them with and elephants to find them with. We had two elephants and we sat in baskets on their backs for three and a half hours while we explored savanna, rivers, forest and grassland in search of what is not known to be an easy to hide animal, given it's size. Our hunt was unsuccessful but we had a great time sitting atop an elephant, our legs dangling while it waded through the water and marsh. It is quite the odd sensation at first as sitting just behind it's shoulders, you lurch back and forth and side to side. Despite their size, they are incredibly gentle and there isn't so much as a hint of their approach from their completely silent footsteps.

Lunch followed and then it was out into the jungle this time to go tiger hunting. First we had a boat ride down the river to reach the heart of the jungle. The boat, a dug-out canoe, was not very stable as we were carried down stream and the five of us sat in a singular terrorised row as we pondered what would happen if we toppled into the crocodile infested water. We might have been less concerned if our guide had not shown us a crocodile lying smiling at us in the water as we got into the canoe. We made it safely to the jungle and then, as an echo of the monsoon opened above our heads we entered the undergrowth looking for our prey. Due to the sudden down pour, our guide stopped his safety speech early and we didn't actually find out what we were supposed to do if we did find a tiger, and if it rather considered that we were the prey. Our only defense was our guide's stick since all weapons are banned from the reserve. As it was we needn't have worried as the closest we came was a fresh paw print and a couple of trees with big claw scratches in them, marking favourite scratching posts. By then end of the day we were knackered and an early night saw us up early again the next morning for our traditional village tour.

We were then due to have returned to Kathmandu but decided to stay for an extra day and pay 75 pence each to go and wash the elephants down at the river. We decided that with the size of the elephants, and their stomping and rolling and splashing in the water that the crocodiles would keep a wide berth and they seemed to do just that, or at least if they didn't, they didn't seem hungry. The biggest danger seemed to be having an elephant roll over on top of you or getting washed away in what was an incredibly strong current, not that the elephants seemed to notice. We had a lot of fun down at the water and got to ride the elephants bareback and get lifted up onto their backs by their trunks. Nic and I were a little disappointed because we thought the emphasis of the whole thing would be on us giving the elephants a good time and a bit of a scrub but it rather seemed the opposite. Still, we decided that if they weren't down splashing around with us as scooshing us from their trunks, they would have more likely been standing out in the very hot sun somewhere and they still seemed to be having a good time too so we decided our money was still in the elephant's favour. The afternoon was spent with a few beers and more splashing about, this time in the swimming pool of a near by, slightly posher hotel.

We had a nice last night with Valerie and Nicolas who we had now spent about two and a half weeks with. They had not spent much of their trip before this point with many other people, and neither had we. Our jeep buddying for the trip out of Tibet could not have been a better choice as we found that couple to couple, we had quite the number of similarities between us and interests. The following morning we parted ways as we got on different buses and as Nic and I returned to Kathmandu we wondered how we had managed such a perfect match.

Thanks Guys.

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www.gnous.ch