Sunday, July 3, 2011

Next Time, Ride That Rhino.





   Chitiwan is a large national park in the plains and hills of Nepal with a small town outside the park mostly catering to park goers.  There are several guesthouses staffed with friendly Nepali people eager to share their beautiful scenery and life.  I met many people there who when finding out I work in the U.A.E. had told me they wanted to move to this country for work also.  They wanted to give up their jobs as guides in beautiful national parks and amazing nature to come and work as indentured servants in an ugly and barren wasteland for only $200-$400 a month.  However, in Nepal they were only making about $40 a month with little to no time off, so the meager wages and not so pleasant life of the U.A.E. was a life that most of them could only hope for, hoping for a way to provide for their parents or wives or children or siblings.  It is amazing to me sometimes how blessed I have been simply because I was born and raised in an English speaking country.  My whole life of the last 3 years, my work, my travels, my adventure, all of it is possible simply because I speak English and have a university degree from an English speaking country.  Something I had no control over at all is providing me with what I love most in life. 





  One night in Chitiwan after dinner I went to a Nepali culture performance.  A couple men played drums while about 20 young men danced around beating sticks in rhythmic unison, pounding sticks with the person in front of them, then to the rear.  There were several dances, one with a fire stick, one called the lady boy dance with a young man dressed as a woman doing a courting dance for another young man.  It was an interesting show.
  What I really went to Chitiwan though was the national park.  I began one morning and walked down to the river and jumped inside a long traditional canoe and slowly sifted through the calm ripples of the river for the next hour and a half.  The water was shallow and our dug-out canoe carved from the trunk of a local cotton tree scraped the bottom in several places.  Lilly pads and moss dotted the water in forest of kiwi green and birds chirped and whistled and cackled and walloped.  For bird watchers, it was an ideal canoe trip, with red and blue and white King Fishers and Igrits and Peacocks, and Hornbills and Swallows and dozens of others that fluttered and flew and sat in hanging branches. 
  After the slow traverse on the canoe and along with four other people, I began to walk through the park.  We walked around the marshy river spying on 15 foot crocodiles and walked through forest ducking under low hanging branches and spotting fresh signs of rhinos and sloth bears and Bengal tigers, but not the animals themselves, just claw marks in trees and fresh foot prints at watering holes and dung still warm.  We walked through tall grasses and marshes and past mud holes and prairies and spent hours on foot in the park with the sound of wind and birds and the light snapping and crunching under our own feet.  We didn’t see much wildlife, just the signs they were not far away.






 We broke for a long lunch and after hopped in a Jeep to make it deeper in to the park, out to the forest, then through the forest and alternating between grasses and trees.  We were more fortunate with the Jeep and saw many deer and monkeys and wild boar and more crocodile, none of which is what I had hoped to see.  I hoped to see wild one-horned rhinos, Chitiwan being one of the few places in the world to do so.  I got my wish, and we ended up spotting 10 rhinos in the wild foraging in the tall grass for a late afternoon meal.  I wanted to jump out and sneak my way up closer, but had to restrain myself and be content with staying in the Jeep and watching them run through the plains or munching on grass.  I also saw a large sloth bear, its black body running through a field and hiding behind fallen trees.  I had come to see the Rhinos, the bear was added bonus.  Bears have always been my favorite animal, and while sloth bears are not the great brown bears of North America or wild Russia, still they are bears and seeing them roaming freely in the hillsides of Asia was a thrill nonetheless. I really do need to do a proper African safari.  It is high on my list, and perhaps if I stay in the U.A.E a while longer I will.  Flights to Africa are cheap from here and not too far a distance.





 
  It was a long day in the park, canoeing, walking, jeeping, and returning late for a pleasant mill and some friendly chat with people I met at the guest house.  In the morning I was back at it, up early to head back in to the jungle.  I found a ride out to another part of the park I had not yet visited and sat myself on top of an elephant trodding through the jungle for about 2 ½ hours.  We went through the thick mass of trees in the park, crossed over a river with swimming crocodiles and into a dim jungle of tall trees and light shyly filtering in through the leaves and branches above.  It was morning calm and quiet and animals foraged for breakfast and seemed only half interrupted with the trod of elephant feet through the jungle, as though an elephant were natural there and not to be feared.  True, they do have wild elephants in the park, though I do not think they are a common sight. 
  The jungle was still, with the only noise the crackle and thud of elephant steps on damp fallen leaves and snapping branches and rustling of an elephant’s trunk with the occasional huff and guff of elephant breath.  We rode out to a dark and shaded pond where a large rhino stood in the water soaking his skin in the muddy brown pool.  He turned and twisted his head and fluttered his ears in photogenic fashion, but his body was ice still.  He seemed curious at the gawking hump on an elephant’s back, though not at all concerned.  It was the highlight of the ride. Next time though, I want to ride the Rhino.  I have now ridden elephants in three separate countries.  I have ridden camels, horses, and water buffalo.  Now I need a real adventure and try riding something like a moose or an elk and really show up my old man, or perhaps I’ll go for the gold and ride a wild bear or shark.  That would be the kind of thrill I’d be up for.  












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