Elephants, Tigers,and Crocs, Oh My!

Monday November 3 finds us near Sauraha in southern Nepal, in the (former) Royal Chitwan National Park. The “Royal” is being scratched out on both public and private signs all over. Nepal is Maoist now, the King and Prince formally deposed overwhelmingly by the Parliament last spring. I guess the park will become “People's Chitwan National Park.” The Maoists seem to understand that tourism and tourists are good. (I am still carrying my Chinese flag and little red book of Mao's sayings just in case). The former palace in Kathmandu is being transformed into a museum. Hey, it worked for France, and no guillotine nor other unpleasantness, either.

We flew from Kathmandu to Bharatpur Sunday morning on--I swear I am not making this up--Buddha Air (“fly the transcendent skies”) and then taxi'd into the park and our lodgings, the Chitwan Adventure Resort. I give the Nepalis high marks for humor in naming their airlines—in addition to Yeti Airlines and Buddha Air there is also “Cosmic Air.” On the other hand, maybe airlines are not exactly the right business for levity. Anyhow, the resort is OK, certainly a step up from the Khumbu guest-houses of the past three weeks, with hot and cold running, AC, and other amenities. Food is Nepali, pretty good, and the atmosphere distinctly Hindu. We are just miles from India itself. The staff is wonderful and the chief guide can give you the common English and Latin names of all the critters, including the scores of different birds here. Lots of storks and peacocks, the national bird.





Vicki is better, still in considerable pain, but not enough to keep her from a canoe ride on the Rapti River (real crocodiles), and a visit to the national elephant breeding center (real elephants, including real elephant babies; not as cute as pandas). We did not see any rhinos today, but we did see some very fresh real rhino tracks at a mud hole near the river. I know Vicki is better because on the jungle cruise she kept cracking jokes, intelligible only to me, about Disney World. The thirty foot long dugout we were in was not on rails and the crocs were not animatronics. She even managed to cross the Rapti on a 150 foot two-log bridge (no handrail), a personal best. Lest anyone be alarmed, I should add that the Rapti at this point is only about a foot deep. But there are crocs and other nasties. We have decided to put the elephant bath and elephant ride off until tomorrow. Also the tigers.

It is HOT here. Despite the haze, one can still see the big mountains off to the north, not a hundred miles away, 7,000m peaks. But this is lowland Nepal, sub-tropical if not tropical. Every kind of crop imaginable is being grown here, rice to bananas to mustard and corn, and what is not being tilled is either jungle, savannah, or, as in the case of our “resort,” lush and colorful garden, with citrus, hibiscus, bougainvillea, palm, ficus, cactus, succulent, and dozens of other plants I admire but don't know. And, oddly, no mosquitoes. Last night we visited a local Tharu village (clay and dung mud huts), viewed some camels being introduced here, and saw the sunset over the Rapti. There are 4 or 5 other parties at the resort, one English, one French, one Netherlands, one French-Algerian (lives in Scotland currently), one Russian.

We'll be here another day, return briefly to Kat, and then depart Thursday for India, Varanasi specifically, where the real adventure begins.