Benemma

This next post begins at lunchtime on Sunday 27th, following an easy five-hour bus ride from Pokhara, out of the mountains to Chitwan National Nature Reserve in southern Nepal.

As I said before, we had paid a little extra for our safari trip on the advice of our charming hotel owner, Ramesh. We knew we had scored high when, awaiting us at the bus stand amidst the jeeps and touts was a skinny horse and cart with our names on it. In our room at the Lodge, too, all the furniture was covered in freshly-picked red flowers – the owner’s sons had run out early that morning to pick them after learning that we were on our honeymoon. The Lodge itself was unlike any of our previous accommodation. Five pairs of small suites, each with a veranda and bathroom, encircled a masterfully kept tropical garden crawling with birds and butterflies.

For two and a half days the owner, Lama, and his family treated us as “their Gods” in the terminology of Hindu tradition. On the first day they escorted us through the surrounding mud villages inhabited by Nepal’s first nation, the Tharu people, and treated us to a traditional war dance rendition. I must admit, to the sound of “Traditional Village Walk and Cultural Dance Show” I had groaned before but the real thing was an enthralling spectacle. But after that day, it was all about Nature.

In my last post I had sung Pokhara’s praises for its capacity to support wildlife but that was before we had ventured into the green southern lowlands, which is where all the water from the mountains must go. Every leaf, reed, tree, cow, chicken, native child, you name it, it grows, bright and healthy towards the blue sky. The villages are a circus of happy livestock, surrounded by that strange luminous green of rice paddies. Beyond that, wild savannah and jungle where tigers lurk.

JUNGLE RIVER, TEEMING WITH LIFE

Early the next morning, Emma and I, along with two Nepali girls we later came to befriend, were hearded to a wooden platform about three metres tall, on the edge of the jungle. The elephant handlers lined up, ready for the morning’s jaunt, and the largest one by far, Mohtti (I just make up the spelling phonetically if I don’t know it), reversed up to our platform to allow us onboard. Soon we were deep in the forest, moving slowly through shadow and hazy rays of sunshine, bushes parting like curtains under Mohtti’s bulk. Besides the squawks and rustles of the jungle, I was lulled by the steady scraping sounds of Mohtti’s thick skin and the sploshing of his feet in the mud below.

Then, there! A rhino! No, two! Quick, get the camera. Stay still, please, stay still… Got the shot? Yep. Take a minute to watch with your own eyes. Oh, now she’s moving. Rustle of bushes. Snort from rhino nostrils, and they’re gone. Move on.

Now, roaring and snapping of branches. Some furious battle perhaps? Not a tiger – too elusive, we won’t see one of them. What then? It’s coming closer. A shadow, there! Where? There! Wild boars, loads of them. The males are chasing each other, bashing, squealing, roaring, smashing through the undergrowth barely aware of us. Then they’re gone, but two spotted deer are resting in the shade below us. Not two, there’s a baby there also. And there, in the distance, on that branch, see? A fish eagle. He’s gone, taken off.

What now, viewed from the open plain? Monkeys – golden macaques – swaying through the high canopy and sitting like wisemen on branches.

DAWN SUNSHINE STREAMING THROUGH THE TREES

MOHTTI PRESENTING HIS TRUNK TO HIS RIDERS

We had expected our elephant ride to be the highlight of the trip but after breakfast that day was perhaps a more enjoyable activity, as we waded out into the Rapti river to bathe the elephants. We took it in turns to scramble onto their backs as they squatted in the water, then attempted to balance as they rolled over to toss us back off. On the other river bank, a Gharial (fish-eating crocodile), slipped into the water and egrets flocked overhead. Then we scrubbed the elephants with stones and splashed water over their ears to keep them cool. It may just be anthropomorphic fantasy, but it seems they actually enjoyed themselves.

These Pachyderms – “thick-skins” – are misnamed, even though they make us feel as parasites to their concrete stature. With every raised foot or curled trunk they exude grace like few other creatures. And in those dopey, butterfly lashed eyes there is a wisdom that commands respect. Captive these ones may have been but we were their servants.

Over the rest of that day (Monday) and the following morning, we took a ride in a dug-out to look for crocs (I didn’t see any but everyone else did!), played with baby elephants at the sanctuary, befriended some of the other guests for late-night whisky and chats, and tramped through the forests and riversides in the heat of day. Then, deep in the night, we awoke to crashing sounds above our suite as a civet, a big cat, bounded around on the tin roof.

CROCODILE WATCHING ON THE RIVER RAPTI

Chitwan had been a luxurious and nature-filled jaunt for us, topping-up our adoration of Nepal, its people and its landscape. Then we hauled out, back through the mountains, diesel engine crawling higher and higher, skirting huge cliffs and rapids far below, up, up through hairpins over an alpine pass as the sun set and thunder clouds pummeled the hills below. Then, in the dusk twighlight, laid out like a carpet of jumbled Lego, was Kathmandu, waiting for us.