| Nov 10, 2005 - Safari in Nepal
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 | Monkey temple in Kathmandu
| | Buddhist monks spinning prayer wheels at Monkey Temple
| | trek wrap party back in Kathmandu
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 | | | | | | | Elephant safari
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| In order to relax and recover from the "Khumbu cough" we each acquired on the Everest trek, we decided to take a safari in Chitwan National Park in Nepal. Against the advice of DACHAUER (who you will remember from Croatia, Slovenia and Venice entries) with whom we had another brief rendezvous in Kathmandu...he said it was the 'most boring' thing he's done. No sex, drugs, or Van Halen in the jungle, afterall. ;)
We slept nearly the entire six bumpy hour bus ride to Chitwan before arriving at the Island Jungle Resort, appropriately named given the wooden cabins lit by kerosene lantern were set on a small jungle island in the national park. The resort owns their own small herd of elephants equipped with platforms which hold four passengers for jungle safari. We twice plowed through the jungle on elephantback nearly becoming decapitated by tree branches and seeing not much more than a colorful bird and some rhino tracks. We were convinced, however, that we kept hearing the growl of the elusive Nepal tigers which are very rarely seen, until we realized the sound was actually our elephant...pharting. Oops.
Unfortunately we napped through the key event of our two day safari, the elephant bathing. This is where you get into the river on elephantback and get a shower from the trunk Flintstone-style. I don't believe in six months I've seen Paul so disappointed to miss something. I tried to arrange another bath opportunity before leaving and instead they offered us another elephant safari for the next day.
The following morning at 6:30a.m. we mounted our elephant for the final attempt at seeing some wildlife. Almost immediately our elephant guide began hooting (literally) with other guides on other elephants in other parts of the jungle. The next thing we knew we were nearly in full gallop to see a rhino! The rhino was much bigger than I expected and truly looks prehistoric with the plates armoring its body and giant horn protruding off its nose. Very exciting. This is why I love safari over the zoo, you have to earn your views of the animals and they get to lead a more normal existence in the wild. It was really fun to spend so much "personal" time as Paul called it, with the docile elephants. Hmmm...a trip to Africa in our near future? |
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