Chitwan part 2 – Going deeper

Our morning hunting for crocodiles was incredible. We weren’t sure how safe we felt on the water in our tiny boat with large shadows lurking beneath us, but we’re still here to tell the story and we’re thankful for that!

In the afternoon of what was already turing out to be an exciting day, we joined a small group of people and got back into a boat. After crossing the water and back into the Chitwan national park, we walked for a few minutes before an opening in the jungle revealed a fleet of tiny Suzuki 4×4’s. After reaching ours, all 6 of us climbed into the back, with another in the front and our guide who clung onto the back. tThe plan this time, would be to go deeper into the jungle where hopefully there was a better chance to spot more wildlife.

It must have been around 3 and a half minutes later that the truck came to a quiet stop. With everyone being as silent as possible, we all peered into dense forest. Sure enough, lying down in the bush there was a huge one horned rhino. He appeared to be waking from a sleep. It all happened in a bit of a dream. So close to where we started and also in the exact same area as we had been walking just hours before! As I steadied my hands, I took photos before we moved on – our guide pronouncing that we were a very lucky group…and we felt it!

For an hour or so since that first sighting, we didn’t see any more ‘big’ animals, however, plenty of monkeys, large birds and hundreds of crocodiles…at the crocodile farm! After the farm visit and in what felt like tropical forest heat, we again hit the track. After a few minutes, we spotted another truck full of people waving their hands. We edged closer. They all appeared to be giving us different signals, some to come closer, some to stop, some seemed to say go away! We got closer, until we were parked directly behind them. What they had seen, and we were now looking at, was a huge bison. Unfortunately, we could only see the top of its back and it’s wagging tail, but apparently it was coming out of the bush. After 5 minutes of looking, it didn’t seem to want to play and stuck to the covering of the trees…when all of a sudden Malene points behind us and shouts, “look, rhinos!” Everyone turned on their heels and saw the baby rhino and its mother crossing the track. By pure chance (and Malene’s observational skills!) we had seen 2 more beautiful rhinos, this time walking along the track. The sighting was brief but incredible all the same.

A few more minutes of driving and we reached a watch tower that over looked a watering hole and open grass land. We would spend a few minutes here and hopefully might catch a glimpse of some animals. It really was, our lucky day. Off out in the distance, walking through the grass (again) Malene spotted something medium sized and black in colour. As we both peered out, we thought at first that it must have been a wild dog, maybe one of the guides had a dog? We continued to watch it as it slowly came a little closer. It wasn’t a dog. In fact it was a very rare sloth bear with a baby cub on its back. These are apparently as rare to spot as the tigers and we were loving every second of it!

For the remainder of the trip, we came across 2 more rhinos in the forest, crocs on the waters edge (not in a farm!), peacocks, deer and a host of other beautiful animals. It had certainly been a productive day! Up close and personal with vicious, meat eating crocodiles in the morning and huge rhinos and savage sloth bears in the afternoon. WOW!

It wasn’t just the national park that we loved here, but the small village and of course the amazing lodge where we stayed. In fact, this was Malene’s favorite place so far, and its easy to see why. Quiet, peaceful and incredible nature surrounds you here and for those reasons, we both fell in love with Chitwan.

Next up, Lumbini: the birth place of Buddha. Time to get back in touch with our spiritual side.

Chitwan – The real-life Jungle book

I would never normally recommend hitching a ride anywhere in the world, perhaps especially in Nepal. The roads are half built (at best), the cliff drops and falling rocks are everywhere and the speeds at which everyone drives, would surely make even Schumacher’s stomach turn. However, our journey from the hills where we went canyoning (see previous post) to Chitwan, was pretty entertaining. As we clambered up the mini ladder and into the hot lorry cab, we sprawled ourselves across the bed-like area which we shared with a ‘co-pilot’ and all our bags. In all honesty, I reckon this form of transport (and this isn’t me recommending it!) is far more comfy than the local buses, even the tourist ones. The only problem were the tiny windows which didn’t let much air into the stuffy cab.

A couple of very bumpy hours later, we reached what was apparently Chitwan. We of course had no idea as both the driver and his co-pilot didn’t speak a word of English. But they were very nice, smiled a lot and helped us with our bags before they disappeared in a cloud of black smoke leaving us wondering if we had made the right choice. It certainly didn’t look like Chitwan.

However, we were in luck. Almost immediately, a couple of taxi drivers surrounded us, obviously smelling fresh meat and an easy ticket. One however, claimed he could take us to the river-side (6km) for free if we looked at his lodge – adding “no pressure to stay”. Malene and I looked at each other and even though we had heard the same story from touts all over India and always rejected them. We thought on this occasion, why not? We felt strong enough to walk straight out if his lodge – The Crocodile Safari Lodge and Camp (bit of a mouthful), if we wanted to try our luck else where.

From the town where we had been dropped off, we squeezed our bags (4 now!) into the drivers little, windowless Suzuki truck. As we sped off down the road and out of the industrial town, the countryside soon opened up to us. Field workers were still labouring hard in the afternoon sun and as we bumped our way down the road, the trees started growing taller and thicker…the jungle was arriving.

What can I say? The Crocodile Safari Lodge and Camp, although terribly named, is the most beautiful, unassuming and honest place we have stayed in. With a well kept garden, quaint narrow paths and small sun terraces, we had found a gem. Our room was spacious, with mossy net and a private terrace equipped with deck chairs that made us feel like we had landed in heaven. The food was delicious, the staff were kind and always smiling…I could literally go on and on. One small drawback was the generator. Like everywhere in Nepal, powercuts are part of the daily routine. With electricity only lasting a couple of hours here (slightly worse than Kathmandu and Pokhara) you really need to chose what appliances you want to charge. But normally in the evening, in order to send power to a few auxiliary lights, the generator is fired up. This one happened to be quite loud, but we couldn’t complain, this place ticked all the right boxes and we knew when to be thankful for such a place.

Early the next morning, we joined two fellow backpackers and the hotel manager (same man that picked us up the day before) and set off down the street towards the river. Within a couple of minutes, we had arrived at the river-side and carefully clambered into the extremely narrow boats. Carved from a single piece of hollowed out tree, the boats were barely wide enough for us to squeeze our bums in and didn’t feel incredibly stable. Still, we slowly drifted out as the boat man extended his pole into the shallow water and pushed off. The sun was just waking up and the early morning mist covered the water like an eerie introduction to a horror movie. After asking our guide if there were crocs here, he claimed he couldn’t see any right now, but was sure we’d see a few soon…we all placed our hands back inside the raft.

Being the first on the Rapti river that morning, we relaxed into our seats, forgetting the imminent danger that lurked beneath and soaked up the beautiful nature that surrounded us. We were introduced to so many different birds. My favorite being the kingfisher with its electric blue body, and we saw many. From the river we saw deer grazing near the shore and even got a taste of some baby water rapids – tiny compared to our day on the Trisuli river, but in this raft, we all felt like we were walking on a tight-rope, one sneeze and we would be swimming.

Back on dry land, our guide explained to us the dangers of trekking in animal infested jungles. We would most certainly come across wild animals and would need to know what to do in case one confronted us. There were different strategies for tigers, elephants, sloth bears and rhinos, but by now, we were switched on and taking mental notes.

After a quick dash through the jungle, we came back to the waters edge where our guide abruptly span round, hands up in the air as we all stopped. His finger slowly covered his mouth and told us to be very quiet. We were told to watch where we were walking and, I quote “don’t break any sticks” – not an easy feat in the jungle! As we all huddled together and peered round the long grass, a huge crocodile was soaking up the early morning sun on the river bank, no more than 5 meters from us. Our guide whipped out his telescope and as we peered through its lens we realised just how close we were to a fully grown, basking mugger crocodile – and that’s not the vegetarian type!

Before long, a dark shadow crept forward through the water and out crawled a second crocodile. As we watched them in awe our guide had already spotted a different croc. This time the long, narrow jawed Ghariel crocodile had perched itself up on the bank and appeared to be watching us. Luckily, this was a fish eating crocodile and apparently of no danger to us, although I certainly wasn’t going to test that theory.