When I finally overcame my visa screwup and made it into Nepal, a car was waiting for me at the Kathmandu airport, where it was raining. We left about 3 pm and after traversing breathtaking mountain scenery that was mostly veiled by mist, we arrived at Pokhara at 9 pm. I don't quite know why our tour bothered to take us there, which is a major trekking center and very international (read American) in flavor in its glitzy downtown strip. I took one of my night-and-day series of photo from out on our balcony, and luckily my camera was facing in the right direction to catch a glimpse of the craggy peak of Annapurna in the morning, before the mist covered her.
We left the hotel about 9 am that morning and retraced our steps half-way back to Kathmandu before heading south towards Chitwan National Park, where we arrived in perfect weather and considerable heat around 3 pm. We stayed at the Parkland Hotel, the most modestly named establishment there (some others: the Rhino Hotel,), but they didn't have to show off. Exquisitely landscaped and serenaded by aviary prima donnas, the place breathed relaxation. The staff was extremely knowledgeable, friendly and accommodating, and we met some wonderful other travelers there, including two younger men traveling alone, Oliver from Vienna and Emmanual from Monterrey, Mexico, both of whom spoke nearly perfect American.
After freshening up Barbara and I took advantage of a trip to the elephant nursery, even though it was on the program for the following day. To get to the nursery from the parking lot you have to cross a charming caisson foot bridge that's held together with twine with railings of bamboo.
It was thrilling seeing the elephants up close, especially the way an elephant mother nurses its baby. The breasts of elephants are between their forelegs, analogous to their position in primates, not like cattle, in the rear.
And we saw one large 40-year-old bull elephant with huge tusks.
The light was wonderful, and seemingly out of nowhere a herd of goats appeared, tended by two women carrying huge bundles of grass, one of whom was quite old, and I marvelled at her strength. We hugged and caressed the goats, which were full of fleas, then crossed back over the foot bridge.
The goats soon followed. One the women was quite old, and I marveled at her strength.
After returning to the hotel, I went on a sunset walk to the river, where we spotted some crocodiles and garials, the Indian/Nepalese crocodilian. The sun sank into clouds, so it was less than dramatic, a "soft" sunset.
The next morning we were up at 5:30, I to take the river cruise on a pirogue, and Barbara to go on her jungle walk. We were 8 in pirogue, sitting one behind the other as in a toboggan.
The scene was idyllic. The sun rose beautifully on cue, without a cloud in the sky. We spotted crocs and garials, as well as the diminutive kingfisher--I was surprised at how small it was--and I managed to photograph one with a fish in its mouth.
After an hour and a half of this, we beached and began our jungle walk. The most spectacular things we saw on this walk were termite colonies, some as high as six feet, with fins, like surreal buildings. I decided to record virtually all of them for my possible Surreal Termite Colony Calendar, for which I have enough images for at least the next three or four years. The termites add their saliva to the local clay to create very hard structures that contain their myriad passageways. Certain ants invade these colonies and feast at will on their residents.
We also saw some wonderful birds: two owls (mother and child), a peacock, parrokeets, and an Asian openbill.
The walk ended around 11 am at the elephant nursery, where one of the baby elephants climbed over the barrier and romped with us for a little while before going off by himself.
They are chained to posts after one year old, except when they are being washed or fed from wild sources.
We were driven back to the hotel, where we had lunch and rested until 3:30, when we piled back into the truck and were taken to the elephant ride location. This was really the climax of our visit there. We climbed up stairs on a scaffolding, so we could squeeze (four of us) into the howdahs, the platforms chained atop each elephant, with our mahout, or trainer, riding saddle-less on the elephant's neck, giving commands by kicking barefoot behind its ears, or when the elephant was recalcitrant, using a sharp prodder on its ear. Sitting four to a howdah, our legs were splayed around each corner, our backs touching. There was one little girl with us (with her father), so this may have made for a bit of instability. But the howdah remained secure.
The amazing thing about riding on an elephant is that the other animals don't run away from you, and there were five elephants in our party. First we saw some deer--remaining perfectly placid as we approached and passed them; and then, after crossing a river (the elephant is an all-terrain, all-weather vehicle, said one of the guides), came upon two rhinos. These are one-horned armored Indian rhinos, a different species from the two-horned white and black African rhinos. They couldn't have been less interested in us. We got quite close, and I marveled at how much they resembled certain dinosaurs, notably the protoceratops, a one-horned dinosaur of I believe the Jurassic era. Could they have evolved directly from it? I always believed that mammals all evolved through some primitive mammalian that plied the forests at night during the Triassic and Cretaceous periods. But there were also warm-blooded and even hairy dinosaurs, the so-called mammal-like reptiles. Was this a direct evolutionary line?
The seat up there was comfortable on the butt--unlike the camel saddle--but I had to hold onto the railing, so I could never relax. I did managed to change lenses, however, and also run my GoPro mini-wide-angle movie camera that my brother had given me.
When we returned to the point of origin, we disembarked via the same elevated platform we had gotten on with, then we got to touch our elephant and lean our heads against her trunk. Her skin was tough, wrinkeled, and covered with dust. Oliver, my Viennese friend, and I photographed each other communing with our elephant. Then I put a 100 nrs. note into the fingers of her trunk, and she delivered it forthwith to her mahout in one continuous gesture. She apparently knew about money.
On the way back to the hotel I purchased a magnificent Buddhist painting from a local merchant for what I thought was a very good price. He wrapped it around a hard, narrow tube, and I packed it next to my tripod for strength.
We got back to the hotel, ate dinner, then went back into town for the "cultural dance program," at their local theater. This was nowhere nearly as sophisticated as the program of Indian dance at Khajuraho. There was no special lighting, no backdrop, no recorded music, and the seats were stone-hard steel folding chairs. But the program was very authentic, all within the local ethnic Tharu culture. The women sang, and the men beat drums and twirled sticks. There was one dramatic torch juggler, but the most fetching performance was a man dressed up as a peacock, who did a dance. It would have made Jim Henson proud. At the end we were all invited onstage to dance around with the troupe, and we did our best imitating the steps. My only complaint was that the numbers could have been a bit shorter, given the hardness of the seats.
The following morning I had one of the staff drive me to the village museum of Tharu culture, which was more significant as a statement of local pride than it was as a local museum. There were very few crafts, for example. Everything in it was an expression of a collective ethnicity, so it featured none of the usual oddities one finds in country museums.
By 9:35 we had said our goodbyes, paid our bar bills, left out tips and were on our way back to Kathmandu. We arrived just before three, and it began raining really hard. We had three and a half hours before we were to be picked up for dinner at the home of the owner of the tour company, so I took a taxi supplied by the hotel to visit the cremation temple that had so impressed Barbara during her day in the city before I arrived.
See the blogpost "Cremations on a Wet Afternoon" for that story.
We left the hotel about 9 am that morning and retraced our steps half-way back to Kathmandu before heading south towards Chitwan National Park, where we arrived in perfect weather and considerable heat around 3 pm. We stayed at the Parkland Hotel, the most modestly named establishment there (some others: the Rhino Hotel,), but they didn't have to show off. Exquisitely landscaped and serenaded by aviary prima donnas, the place breathed relaxation. The staff was extremely knowledgeable, friendly and accommodating, and we met some wonderful other travelers there, including two younger men traveling alone, Oliver from Vienna and Emmanual from Monterrey, Mexico, both of whom spoke nearly perfect American.
After freshening up Barbara and I took advantage of a trip to the elephant nursery, even though it was on the program for the following day. To get to the nursery from the parking lot you have to cross a charming caisson foot bridge that's held together with twine with railings of bamboo.
It was thrilling seeing the elephants up close, especially the way an elephant mother nurses its baby. The breasts of elephants are between their forelegs, analogous to their position in primates, not like cattle, in the rear.
And we saw one large 40-year-old bull elephant with huge tusks.
The light was wonderful, and seemingly out of nowhere a herd of goats appeared, tended by two women carrying huge bundles of grass, one of whom was quite old, and I marvelled at her strength. We hugged and caressed the goats, which were full of fleas, then crossed back over the foot bridge.
The goats soon followed. One the women was quite old, and I marveled at her strength.
After returning to the hotel, I went on a sunset walk to the river, where we spotted some crocodiles and garials, the Indian/Nepalese crocodilian. The sun sank into clouds, so it was less than dramatic, a "soft" sunset.
The next morning we were up at 5:30, I to take the river cruise on a pirogue, and Barbara to go on her jungle walk. We were 8 in pirogue, sitting one behind the other as in a toboggan.
The scene was idyllic. The sun rose beautifully on cue, without a cloud in the sky. We spotted crocs and garials, as well as the diminutive kingfisher--I was surprised at how small it was--and I managed to photograph one with a fish in its mouth.
After an hour and a half of this, we beached and began our jungle walk. The most spectacular things we saw on this walk were termite colonies, some as high as six feet, with fins, like surreal buildings. I decided to record virtually all of them for my possible Surreal Termite Colony Calendar, for which I have enough images for at least the next three or four years. The termites add their saliva to the local clay to create very hard structures that contain their myriad passageways. Certain ants invade these colonies and feast at will on their residents.
We also saw some wonderful birds: two owls (mother and child), a peacock, parrokeets, and an Asian openbill.
The walk ended around 11 am at the elephant nursery, where one of the baby elephants climbed over the barrier and romped with us for a little while before going off by himself.
They are chained to posts after one year old, except when they are being washed or fed from wild sources.
We were driven back to the hotel, where we had lunch and rested until 3:30, when we piled back into the truck and were taken to the elephant ride location. This was really the climax of our visit there. We climbed up stairs on a scaffolding, so we could squeeze (four of us) into the howdahs, the platforms chained atop each elephant, with our mahout, or trainer, riding saddle-less on the elephant's neck, giving commands by kicking barefoot behind its ears, or when the elephant was recalcitrant, using a sharp prodder on its ear. Sitting four to a howdah, our legs were splayed around each corner, our backs touching. There was one little girl with us (with her father), so this may have made for a bit of instability. But the howdah remained secure.
The amazing thing about riding on an elephant is that the other animals don't run away from you, and there were five elephants in our party. First we saw some deer--remaining perfectly placid as we approached and passed them; and then, after crossing a river (the elephant is an all-terrain, all-weather vehicle, said one of the guides), came upon two rhinos. These are one-horned armored Indian rhinos, a different species from the two-horned white and black African rhinos. They couldn't have been less interested in us. We got quite close, and I marveled at how much they resembled certain dinosaurs, notably the protoceratops, a one-horned dinosaur of I believe the Jurassic era. Could they have evolved directly from it? I always believed that mammals all evolved through some primitive mammalian that plied the forests at night during the Triassic and Cretaceous periods. But there were also warm-blooded and even hairy dinosaurs, the so-called mammal-like reptiles. Was this a direct evolutionary line?
The seat up there was comfortable on the butt--unlike the camel saddle--but I had to hold onto the railing, so I could never relax. I did managed to change lenses, however, and also run my GoPro mini-wide-angle movie camera that my brother had given me.
When we returned to the point of origin, we disembarked via the same elevated platform we had gotten on with, then we got to touch our elephant and lean our heads against her trunk. Her skin was tough, wrinkeled, and covered with dust. Oliver, my Viennese friend, and I photographed each other communing with our elephant. Then I put a 100 nrs. note into the fingers of her trunk, and she delivered it forthwith to her mahout in one continuous gesture. She apparently knew about money.
On the way back to the hotel I purchased a magnificent Buddhist painting from a local merchant for what I thought was a very good price. He wrapped it around a hard, narrow tube, and I packed it next to my tripod for strength.
We got back to the hotel, ate dinner, then went back into town for the "cultural dance program," at their local theater. This was nowhere nearly as sophisticated as the program of Indian dance at Khajuraho. There was no special lighting, no backdrop, no recorded music, and the seats were stone-hard steel folding chairs. But the program was very authentic, all within the local ethnic Tharu culture. The women sang, and the men beat drums and twirled sticks. There was one dramatic torch juggler, but the most fetching performance was a man dressed up as a peacock, who did a dance. It would have made Jim Henson proud. At the end we were all invited onstage to dance around with the troupe, and we did our best imitating the steps. My only complaint was that the numbers could have been a bit shorter, given the hardness of the seats.
The following morning I had one of the staff drive me to the village museum of Tharu culture, which was more significant as a statement of local pride than it was as a local museum. There were very few crafts, for example. Everything in it was an expression of a collective ethnicity, so it featured none of the usual oddities one finds in country museums.
By 9:35 we had said our goodbyes, paid our bar bills, left out tips and were on our way back to Kathmandu. We arrived just before three, and it began raining really hard. We had three and a half hours before we were to be picked up for dinner at the home of the owner of the tour company, so I took a taxi supplied by the hotel to visit the cremation temple that had so impressed Barbara during her day in the city before I arrived.
See the blogpost "Cremations on a Wet Afternoon" for that story.
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