Elephant Safaris and Elephant Bathing
Trip Start
Jun 29, 2008
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52
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Trip End
Nov 27, 2008
Chitwan National Park,
Nepal
Monday, October 27, 2008
In order to get to Pokhara, we had flown the short distance (a flight of 30 mins) on Yeti airlines (yes, they did have a plane crash the week before our flight with them and no, we did not let the member of our group who was scared of flying know this fact pre-flight). The alternative option of driving would have taken us 6 plus hours. Our return to Kathmandu was to be by road, however, with a bus taking us to Chitwan National Park and subsequently onwards to Kathmandu. The member of our group scared of flying had not realised she could be so scared of driving until our bus trip to Chitwan National Park. The roads were horrendous, our bus had no suspension, and the driving was naturally hair-raising (a given in Nepal)
Elephant Safari
. The lights above our heads had been smashed in some cases, and it was thought this was probably the result of a large bump in the road followed by the bumping of someone's head! The roads were pretty free of traffic until we neared Chitwan when we hit a major traffic jam - the reason for this, we discovered, was a little skirmish between the Maoists and the non-Maoists. We did finally get to Chitwan after about 6 hours on the road and were delighted to have made it there safely, and also to have seen the ardent picturesque countryside en route.While staying at the National Park, we went on 2 Elephant Safaris, with 4 of us seated upon each Indian Elephant on a seat strapped on behind the 'driver'. We were lucky enough to have encounters with one-horned rhinoceroses, wild boars, deer (sambar and spotted) and a range of birdlife. Unfortunately, we failed to see any sloth bears (there was a brief sighting by one of our guides and one member of our group) or any tigers (endangered due to poaching). We also went on a canoe trip down one of the rivers, allowing us another view of birdlife as well as sightings of the local crocodiles (including the marsh-muggers). We probably would have enjoyed this more if the canoe felt more stable and we had not been told to lean at all either way (with 12 people in our canoe, it would only take one false move as someone went to take a photo and we would all topple in)
One-horned Indian Rhinos
. Our canoe trip took us to the Elephant breeding centre where we were blessed with seeing three 5-6 month old elephants (they are cute, but a warning - they still have quite a bit of weight behind them).The highlight of our time, however, was the elephant bathing (which would more appropriately be referred to as tourist bathing). For this adventure, we climbed on the backs of our friendly elephants, who were then instructed by their carers to spray us with their trunk and then repeatedly tip us off them (sideways or backwards), so we could then climb back onboard just to have the whole experience repeated again. The elephants love this part of their day, and do get a scrub by their carers once all the willing tourists have been thoroughly wet through. This is a must-do experience that comes highly recommended (don't forget to keep your mouth closed though!).
