Change In Plans

SUNSET IN ROYAL CHITWAN NATIONAL PARK

Greetings from Kathmandu.  This post is about our last two days down in the Royal Chitwan Park and the Terai lowlands of Eastern Nepal, and the slightly scary trip back to Kathmandu today.

On our second day at Tiger Tops Lodge, we skipped the afternoon jeep safari, and drove about 20 kilometers to an animal-rescue project in the village of Kusara.  When we stopped at the army checkpoint near the park’s entrance, a civilian-clothed Nepali army captain informed us that we would be giving him a lift to the bus station in Kusara.  He was reasonably polite about it, but even in Nepali it was clear that this was not phrased as a question.  Government troops in this part of Nepal were attacked frequently by rebel forces during the (only recently resolved) Maoist uprising, and the army camps and the men in them seemed deadly serious. 

During the 45-minute drive, Zola subjected the young English-speaking officer to a highly detailed explanation of his Pokemon book.  This made an otherwise slightly tense situation slightly comical instead.  The soldier listened politely and asked a few questions, and Zola talked on and on.  By the time we reached Kusara, I think he may have regretted riding with us.

The animal-rescue camp is mostly devoted to gharials.  These are Asian crocodiles which have normal big scaly crocodile bodies, but are distinguished by their disproportionately narrow snouts.  They are extremely endangered, but to be honest, they are sort of funny looking.  The camp had scores of gharials in separate fenced-in outdoor tanks, segregated by birth year.  In the wild, 99% of gharial eggs and babies are eaten before they reach maturity.  This breeding program goes a long way toward restoring the strength of the species.

GHARIALS ARE ACTUALLY SORT OF FUNNY LOOKING

The camp also had a female tiger which it had rescued from an injury.  The tiger was contained in a big rectangular pen, with 6-meter walls made from wooden slats.  There was a rickety ladder to climb to an observation site, but the ranger (and India) got very nervous when Tallulah and I were up there, so we had to come down quickly.  As we looked through the slats at her from the ground, the tiger made a few little feint charges at us.  Cage or not, it was scary to see her coming at us.

Back at Tiger Tops, we were delighted to find that another family with kids had checked into the lodge.  The Kleemeiers live in Saudi Arabia, but are originally from Wisconsin and from Beirut.  The family has three girls, aged 14, 10 and 5, and our socially deprived kids were overjoyed to have new friends to run around with.  While the adults drank wine and talked, the kids played hide-and-go-seek and flashlight tag. Eventually, all five kids went up to one of the rooms to play cards and tell stories. Zola, in particular, was in a state of social bliss, but all of us really enjoyed their company. 

OUR KIDS WERE OVERJOYED TO MEET SOME FRIENDS

On Monday morning we went on our final elephant safari.  Again, the morning fog was so heavy that everything seemed other worldly.  We tromped through dense jungle, and through patches of elephant grass that were 10 meters high.  The best moment was when we came upon a sleeping rhino, lying on her side and snoring away in the tall grass.  She snuffled and pawed the ground, like a hound dreaming of the hunt, but did not wake up.

The kids had a final game of freeze tag, we said goodbye to the Kleemeier family, and we boarded a small boat for the trip down to Tiger Tops’ sister camp, the Tharu Village Lodge.  As we paddled and poled down the shallow river, we saw about a dozen gharials lying on the bank, warming themselves in the late-morning sun.  Knowig how endangered they are, that was a truly special thing to see.

At the Tharu Lodge, we were the only guests.  The manager told us that December was quiet, and that most of the staff was going on leave as soon as we departed.  The “whole staff” includes 46 people working at the lodge itself, 12 working on the adjacent organic farm, and 8 teachers at the affiliated school.  I felt some implicit pressure as I put money in the communal staff tip box this morning.

The Tharu Lodge is a place of incredible tranquillity, in part, I guess, because we were the only people there. We went on a walk yesterday afternoon to visit the five villages surrounding the lodge.  As with our walk in the mountains, the villages were a little richer than I had expected: electricity, running water, good irrigation, very healthy-looking kids.  It wasn’t exactly Switzerland (no cars and practically no motorbikes, only one satellite dish), but the farms seemed productive, and the familes stable and generally happy.  We were told that the Maoists had difficulty building popular support in these villages, and in the elections the voters were strongly in favor of the Congress Party.

Maybe the best thing about our brief stay at Tharu Lodge was that we got to play sports together.  Aside from swimming (which Lu and I have done almost everywhere), we played a lot of ping pong, and also got to play badminton and tennis. Our six weeks in India and Nepal has been inspiring and thought provoking and generally great, but not much laugh-out-loud fun, particularly for Zola and Tallulah.  Between the Kleemeier girls and the Tharu Lodge, it was wonderful to hear our kids laughing and running around like kids again.

This afternoon we flew back up to Kathmandu from the commercial airport in Bhadrapur.  The 30-minute flight ended up being an all-day event, and ended up being more nerve-wracking than we would have liked.  

We were flying Yeti Air, and the flight was initially delayed for about 90 minutes for unknown reasons.  India is a generally nervous flier, and was not confident at all about the old twin-engine Otter prop plane that eventually showed up to take us to Kathmandu. The plan was to fly back 10 minutes back to the Tiger Tops landing strip, pick up more passengers, and then fly 25 minutes on to Kathmandu.

Five or six minutes after we took off from Bhadrapur, we heard a soft thud and felt a bump.  Stupidly, I kept reassuring India that everything was normal, and that the noise was nothing.  Meanwhile, the pilot made a sharp u-turn, and descended from about 2,000 feet to about 300 feet.  A few minutes later we made a quick landing back at Bakhtapur.  We had hit a bird, which took a big chunk out of the leading edge of the port wing.  I don’t know if we were in any real danger, but it was very sobering to see the mangled wing, and the look of relief on the pilot’s face when we stopped.  My guess is that I have taken at least a thousand flights in my life, and this was my first emergency landing.

YIKES! BIG HOLE IN THE WING

We debated driving back to Kathmandu instead of flying, but it would have taken 5-6 hours (for 150 kilometers), and I think the roads are more dangerous even than the ancient Otter twin engines.  After waiting around for nearly two hours, a replacement plane showed up.  With great trepidation, we boarded and made the quick flight (with the long-overdue pick-up at Tiger Tops) back to Kathmandu.  We were very glad to be on the ground again.

Tomorrow morning, however, we get back on a series of (jet) planes to get us down to the Maldives.  We will be on an island near Male for four days, before we head to South Africa on December 15th.  

We have really enjoyed our time in India and Nepal, but we are ready to be settled in Cape Town for a while, a place that truly feels like home.

Namaste from Kathmandu, where we finally have internet (and cell phone) coverage again.  We have spent the last few days exploring Nepal’s Chitwan National Park.  Until the Maoists overthrew the king and came into power in May 2008, the park was known as Royal Chitwan National Park.  It isn’t clear whether the running-dog, oppressor monarchical name will stay, or whether the new government will come up with something more egalitarian sounding.  Regardless, this short post is about our trip down to Chitwan, and our first morning there.

On Saturday, the morning that we left Pokhara, the clouds finally lifted, and we had spectacular views of the Annapurna and Fishtail ranges of the Himalayas.  We borrowed two flat-bottom canoes, and paddled out into Lake Pokhara to get a better view of the mountains, and to admire their reflections on the still water.

More precisely, when India got back from an early run, she and Zola took out a canoe, and left Tallulah and me sleeping.  I woke up about 15 minutes later, to find the hotel room door wide open, and Tallulah gone.  I rushed into the hallway and down the stairs, and out into the garden.  After a few anxious minutes, I found her wandering happily in her Princess Jasmine nightgown and bare feet.  Relieved, I carried her down to the dock, where we took the lodge’s second canoe, and paddled out to catch up with Zola and India.

Most of the drive from 160-kilometer drive from Pokhara to Chitwan was slow, scenic, and uneventful.  The road was pretty poor (which is why it took nearly five hours to go 100 miles), but as we came down from the highlands, the views of the lime-lightened green rivers, and the steep valley walls were amazing.  We got a flat tire; ironically it was on one of the very few well paved sections of highway.  This meant that as we blocked part of the road to change the wheel, cars and trucks were hurtling past us at 70 kph, instead of the normal 40.  This is about as fast as anything moves in Nepal.

DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE

We stopped for lunch at a riverside resort (called Riverside Resort), which gave us an opportunity to walk down and explore the river that we had been driving next to for hours, and to put our feet in the rushing water.  Amidst a scene of great natural beauty and tranquillity, we found a corporate-sponsored (men’s) beach volleyball tournament in full, noisy, pop-music-accompanied swing on the alluvial sand next to the water.  This is a land of surprises.

We arrived at Chitwan just after the last match of the world elephant-polo championship finished.  They were taking down the goals as we drove up.  One of the English teams won, beating out the defending champion Scots.  Apparently, New Zealand and New York both also played well.  Again, this is a land of surprises.

Getting from the edge of the park to the Tiger Tops Lodge involved riding in a small bus, crossing a broad river in two flat-bottom canoes, transferring to a roofless old Land Rover, and driving through dense jungle for 40 minutes.  On the drive in (and the short twilight jeep safari which followed) we saw a few one-horned rhinos, many spotted and barking deer, wild boar, “marsh mugger” crocodiles, and a troop of shreiking langur monkeys.  Somehow I wasn’t shocked to find out they had no wi-fi at the lodge.

Back at the lodge, two rhinos wandered across the lawn in front of us during cocktail hour.  The staff said this was a first.  One-horned rhinos are wildly endangered, with only about 2,000 left in the world, but at Chitwan they seem well protected and almost as common as big ground squirrels.

We were woken up at about 2 am by the loud, tuneless trumpeting of the lodge’s elephants, giving repeated alarm calls.  As we lay awake, we then heard the deep, guttural growl/purr of a tiger, who must have been wandering amongst the chained elephants and creating anxiety.  Even lying in a comfortable bed, in a treehouse 20 feet off the ground, the tiger growl generated some primal fear among the Baird family in the middle of the night.  

A few hours later, we woke up for good and went off for our first elephant-back safari.  We had ridden elephants in India (for polo and on the ride up to Jaipur’s Amber Fort), but the elephant safari is unique to Nepal and to Chitwan.  The dew was so heavy that the sound of it dripping fooled us all into wearing our raincoats.  As we  lumbered out of camp, the fog over the dense elephant grass created a completely other-worldly picture.

ELEPHANTS IN THE MIST

We saw many more rhinos and baby rhinos on our morning safari.  They are skittish animals, and would go bounding through the deep grass once we got close to them.  The elephants followed the retreating rhinos, and we created a huge swath of stomped vegetation as the big animals all hurried along.  We did not see any tigers, but overall it was a great way to see the park and a lot of its wildlife.  Glamour-loving Zola was excited to find out that his elephant was the same one ridden by Princess Diana when she visited Tiger Tops in 1995. 

At Tiger Tops they keep everyone busy.  After breakfast we went on an hour-long nature walk.  Zola spotted (that is, nearly stepped on) a long green and black snake with a bright red neck.  The elderly Nepali ranger leading the walk gave us great confidence by saying, “Oh, he is not poisonous.  Well, not very poisonous.”  Tallulah rode on my shoulders for the rest of the walk.

NOT POISONOUS, OR AT LEAST NOT VERY POISONOUS

The next post will describe our second night and day at Tiger Tops, and then our time at a Tharu village lodge about 30 kilometers away.  Nepal is definitely a wild place

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