Rhino spotting in Nepal and Buddha's birthplace
Trip Start
Oct 09, 2008
1
4
10
Trip End
Jan 16, 2009
Lumbini,
Nepal
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Yes, indeed, there's a tropical jungle in Nepal. Quite a bit of it actually with a few national parks set aside as well. The largest of these is Chitwan National Park and the great lure here is spotting one of the 200-odd resident Bengal tigers. Yet these are largely nocturnal and visitors are not allowed in the park at night so hoping to spot these great cats (other than in a depressing cage) is futile.
So the real king of the visible jungle is the wild elephant, with the asian one-horned rhino coming a close second. There are also equally evasive leopards, Gaur (Asian buffalo), various deer, 2 types of monkeys and various smaller mammals, 2 types of crocodile, various other lizards, snakes and amphibians, countless insects and (most importantly for Peter as a budding "twitcher":) birds.
Chitwan reaches as low as 100m above see level and roughly covers a vast area of about 500 square km.
There are a large number of budget and mid-range resorts on the banks of the river that marks the park's border. Many of these guest houses are virtually empty and reflect busier times before the troubles wth the Maoists began. Apparently over the last few years there was hardly any business so most of the established guides who spoke foreign languages well withdrew their considerable experience and emigrated. Now business is slowly picking up again and as a result there are a bunch of youngsters filling the gaps.
We stayed at a beautiful lodge, the "Adventure Jungle Camp" the pleasant owner of which was also visiting with his German wife (He's now an alternative medical practitioner in Germany and lets out the premises).
We had booked ourselves into a 3-day walking tour of the park and paid quite a bit for "2 guides". The first guide was one of these guys new to the guiding scene with a big ego, but little guiding skills. This macho called Bobs quickly made sure that the whole trip had a very unpleasant taste to it. He only knew a few things about mammals, nothing relevant about plants or other animals, hardly communicated with us at all and was certainly and was a lousy leader. In the end, once we'd extricated basic information like walking distances out of him we started making clear to him what we expected to do. A very icy athmosphere resulted and Regine was fuming throughout the entire walk. This already started with a power march of 30km on the first day which gave us no opportunity to linger anywhere, the other 2 days where spent silently wandering along jeep tracks from lake to lake where we'd stop at a viewing platform (at noon where all sensible wildlife is fast asleep) and instead of actively looking for wildlife our guide would lie down for a nap from which we would then wake him when we felt we should continue our journey... The second "guide" was a lovely 20-year old named Sudas who was a true gentleman and became a good friend, but sadly spoke virtually no English, was not a qualified guide and was in fact on his first ever jungle expediditon with tourists (he still spotted most of the wildlife...probably because he was actualy interested).
We did stumble across some wildlife and altogether saw 3 rhinos, a wild elephant, several dear (sambar and spotted dear), monkeys (langurs and rhesus macaques), wild boars, mongeese and crocodiles (gairal and marsh mugger). It's something else turning a corner and suddenly standing in front of a rhino where neither you nor it now which direction to run. Rhinos often charge (we were fortunate enough not to witness this) and the appropriate response is to either climb a tree (rhinos do not have a repuation as good climbers...) or a least hide behind one (they also don't exactly turn very elegantly given their mass). And of course we saw many birds Peter got very excited about, the most notable being bright yellow orioles, various kingfishers, ruddy shellducks, Indian peafowl, drongos, ospreys, lesser adjutant storks and Indian pond herons.
On our return we sighed a sigh of relief and enjoyed another day in our little honeymoon bungalow. We also met up with Esther and Beat again with whom we exchanged stories and played another round of cards before they were to embark on their own jungle tour.
We really enjoyed our birding morning walk with a true expert, Baju, the vice-chairman of Nepal's birding association who among other things organises educational sessions for schools and farmers on nature conservation and avoidance of poisons. He puts a part of his profits into these projects. A big problem for the declining vulture population is kidney failure and cardiovascular death through high doses of Diclofenac (Voltarol(R), a painkiller)in the water buffaloes and cows whose carcasses these elegant (if ugly) giant birds of prey feed on. Baju certainly had an increadible eye for and knowlege of the local bird life. He also introduced us to a few medicinal plants. He and his team at Mowgli travel are certainly a good port of call for organising jungel trips if you want to avoid disappointments like hours.
We watched the daily washing of elephants one of which Peter rode rodeo style only to be splashed with a trunkload of water and shaken off the big fella's back with a roar. Great fun!
We also visited the 2-week old twin baby elephants at the elephant breading centre. Absolutely cuddly. The elephants here belong to the government. The mothers are chained up, only to be released when they venture into the jungle to feed in the morning, accompanied by their young. We found this a bit sad, but very understandable as some tourists came way too close to their young and would otherwise have initiated a bloodbath by a protective mother. The young elephants roam free, though, until they're about 2 years old and were a great laugh. One particularly had found out that the food packets that the mothers get contain a core of sweet molasses that he would constantly try to hunt off them much to the dismay of the wardens and the amusement of the visitors. Plan B would be getting cookies off visitors. As a result the crowds drew closer and closer around this little mischievous marauder and quite a few people ended up being pushed to the ground as the little rascal was navigating though his new friends. Hilarious to watch, but surely scary if you're one of the uncautious tourists concerned.
We then decided to board a pachyderm and had a somewhat crammed (4 people in a basket on the big lady's back) but very enjoyable elephant safari chancing upon a wild boar, a deer and a rhino, more than we'd hoped to see. And the animals were largely undisturbed by the elephants coming very close.
Lumbini
Next stop was to be Lumbini: Buddha's birthplace a few bus rides (and 2 breakdowns) away near the Indian border. Sitting on the bus's roof while having a puncture fixed we couldn't help noticing the busloads of red-robed tibetan monks making their way past us. A large banner later on revealed that our visit in fact co-incided with the 10-day annual international gathering of the Sakyapa order in Lumbini, one of the big 4 Tibetan Buddhist orders.
We were lucky to find an overpriced room in the tiny village of Lumbini. The higher rank Buddhists were staying in the few guest houses as well, or directly in the large Sakyapa monastery, while the common monks stayed in a tent camp. This had a festival athmosphere about it with many Tibetan food tents on the periphery and a large central cooking space with humungous pots to serve the expected 4000 monks. On an evening visit to the monastery we came across colourful sand-mandalas leading the way to the large terrace from where the main dignitaries where to preside over the meeting. The mandalas would be gone the next morning illustrating the transience of all things on Earth. We were invited to join in with the prayers for world peace the next day and certainly felt compelled to do this given the atrocities from the Mumbai terror that had started the same day.
So the next day we quietly joined in, unable to chip in with the Tibetan chants. We were sat up on the terrace among a few other western converts to Buddhism and joined into the traditions of throwing rice while praying/wishing. The ceremony was presided over by the great Sakya Rinpoche, resident in India, whose pictures we'd seen in many Tibetan monasteries (among them of course the fortified Sakya monastery which we visited on the anniversary of the Buddha's birthday). Also on the podium were his two sons. Apparently the Sakyapa presidency is inherited so that certain high level monks and teachers are permitted to have children to secure the lineage. In prayer breaks certain audiences were granted and we were witness to a small Japanese delegation handing out 100 rupies to every single monk present. The catering was excellent and young monks kept a steady supply of rice and tea from large buckets/pots going throughout the ceremony which was, with small breaks, to last from 6 am until 6 pm. Draining!
We left the monks after an hour to take a cycle tour with fellow traveller Lisa through what I call the "concrete playground": the area of modern temples around Buddha's birthplace. This is marked by a stone in a complex of old monastic ruins surrounded by Bodri trees and nothing really spectacular from an archeological point of view. The surrounding temples have sprung up over the last 30 years and are all masterpieces in cement. Everything that would normally have been created from stone, wood, metal or tyling was crafted from concrete and then ornately painted. Most monuments do not really have a lot of charm. The ones we liked best were the Korean monastery with its quaint wooden floored prayer room, it's delicious free food and potential for free board and the German temple, surrounded by a kitch-y sculpture park depicting the Buddha's life, but also a beatiful central hall with intricate paintings on the outside.
The next day we shared a ride to the Indian border with Lisa and Susan, a 68 yr old New Yorker cosmopolitan who was very inspiring. She travelled 10 months in a year and had been to over 150 countries. Susan showed us her 2 valid passports which with all the extra pages in them were as thick as a Sheik's wallet. She certainly had a few tricks up her sleeve and was well known to both the Nepali as well as the Indian immigration officials. Asked about past travel experiences she said that her favorite countries to travel to had been Birma and Pakistan, with her least favourite being Paraguay. Very interesting stuff! We shall surel;y never meet a similarly seasoned traveller again.
