suranepal 2015-2016: October 2007

“Welcome to Chitwan National Park! Before we step out into the jungle for our first “nature walk,” let me share three very important pieces of advice with you. Please listen VERY carefully. It could save your life. First, if you come upon a rhinoceros, run to the nearest tree and climb 8-10 feet up. If no tree is in sight, then run in a zig-zag pattern as quickly and as far away as possible. Rhinos have poor eyesight, but a very keen sense of smell, and they can run 30-40 kilometers per hour. They are very dangerous and powerful. Second, if you come upon a bear, quickly come together into a group. Shout and clap your hands, stomp your feet, and sing a song to scare the bear away. Bears are the most dangerous animal in this jungle. They will unquestionably be aggressive and try to attack unless they are scared away. Third, if you come upon a tiger, stand extremely still, be silent, and pray to G-d. Now, if you just follow these three simple pieces of advice you will be safe and we will have a good time on this jungle walk. Any Questions?”

With this “simple” set of instructions, the group of eight tourists and one fearless jungle leader set out on foot in the Chitwan jungle. Let us mention that we were not just in the jungle, we were on an island in the jungle. We had arrived at The Island Jungle Resort less than an hour earlier after traveling 5 hours by bus, 1 hour by SUV, and 15 minutes by boat. Sudhir’s brother’s friend, Abhishek, owns the place and he set us up in a deluxe cottage, complete with running water and all of the amenities. We looked around and were surprisingly pleased by how “civilized” the Jungle Resort was, including well-maintained cottages, a riverside bar, lounge, and a nice dining hall. Feeling confident and comfortable, we put on our hiking boots and our camouflaged clothing, we strapped on our cameras, water bottle, and binoculars, armed ourselves with DEET bug repellant and lined up for our first jungle walk. After the short and sweet briefing by our guide, Santa, we headed off into the jungle, tip-toeing, whispering, and casually following him. At the time, we weren’t alarmed that he carried nothing but a pair of binoculars and a 3-foot long walking stick for protection. After fifteen minutes, Santa slowed his pace considerably and gave hand signals for us to stop. He peered down into the mud and back out into the jungle brush several times, then explained that the tiger footprints that we were following were three days old. He was not at all alarmed, so we continued on with what we considered to be a fairly fast pace for jungle walking (we had to run to catch up if we stopped to take a picture or tie a boot). Thicker into the jungle brush, we came across another set of tiger footprints and heard a loud barking sound in the distance. Simultaneously, everyone in the group seemed to start breathing a bit faster and move in closer together. Santa calmly chuckled and explained that the tiger footprints were old and that the sound came from harmless barking deer in the distance. Twenty minutes deeper into the jungle brush, we were visibly starting to sweat and get nervous. Coming to a water hole, Santa suddenly stopped and motioned for all of us to stop in our tracks and be silent. He crept forward to peer through the brush and made a hand signal to tell us that there was a rhinoceros within view. As we crept as close as 8 people can possibly stand behind one person, the rhino slowly tottered into the water hole less than eight feet away from us. At this point, our hearts were beating in sync at an extremely fast pace, and Santa, our fearless guide, was visibly nervous and beginning to make moves to “protect” us. The rhino lowered its head to the water to drink, then, as if he caught a whiff of 8 meaty tourists, he raised his head just slightly and peered directly at us with one big blurry eye. The middle-aged woman next to us didn’t quite get the seriousness of the situation and she kept moving around to get a better view, showing her red shirt in plain view, which we were warned was the color that attracts the animals’ attention. We were thinking of the Spanish bullfighters at this point, and with shouting whispers tried to get her to stand behind and quiet down. The red shirt seemed to seal the deal with the rhino, because all of a sudden, he started charging across the tiny water hole towards us. Santa, unbelievably clever and quick, charged towards the rhino with his puny 3 foot stick. He shouted and banged the trees and made himself look the size of 4 rhinos. Meanwhile, the eight of us tourists were absolutely useless and clueless despite the sage advice that we had been given when we started the trip. Rachel was shouting at Sudhir, “What to do?! What to do?!” as he was preparing to run off into the bush. We had the three pieces of advice flashing through our minds, but in such a panic, could not remember which one was which. Do we climb a tree, run in zig-zag, pray to G-d, or get together and shout and clap??? Thankfully, Santa, our savior, showed an incredible amount of courage and savvy jungle skill when he approached the rhino in such a way. The rhino turned around and went galloping off into the jungle in the opposite direction and we were left standing on shaky legs, perspiring profusely, watching our hearts beat through our chests, which was loud enough to drown out the thumping of the rhino retreating into the bush. We laughed for a few moments to keep back the tears of fear and watched Santa regain his composure. (He was visibly shaken and stirred by the incident). He said with a big smile in Nepali, “That rhino was about to come and kneel at our feet.” Apparently, rhino sightings are common on the island jungle, but it is rare to have a close encounter with a rhino that aggresses towards the group. We gathered our bedraggled and bewildered selves and trudged off into the jungle for another, less eventful, hour walk. It was clear that those three pieces of advice were given for a reason. This jungle walk was the real deal!!

After consuming a tasty meal and downing several cool beverages, our heart beats had slowed considerably and we slept soundly through the night. The 5:30 AM wake-up knock on our door brought the chill of the events from the day before right back to mind. We dressed hurriedly, chugged a cup of tea, munched a few biscuits, and again set off into the jungle for an adventure, not knowing exactly what to expect. This time, we were going for an elephant ride through the jungle. The Island Jungle Resort has 4 domesticated elephants that they take good care of and use for riding around the island. We were happy to climb aboard a friendly elephant named Heerakali, who carried us through the jungle for an hour. We were pleased to realize that riding on top of the elephant up in the trees, meant that we looked like an elephant, not a group of meaty tourists, to all the other jungle creatures. Heerakali lumbered through the jungle without posing a threat or a problem for the animals, and we were able to get up close and personal with another rhino. We got to see the rhino drinking at a water hole. He made eye contact several times with the elephants, then walked away casually through the brush- clearly a different scenario than when we were on foot. We came back to camp, had a hearty breakfast, and tried to prepare ourselves mentally for our next jungle walk.

Santa greeted us with his calm, cool, and collected smile, and again lead 8 meaty tourists off into the jungle. This time, no one doubted the sincerity of his advice and the serious nature of our jaunt into the jungle. Everyone kept close to Santa and followed his hand motions and instructions without question. Though we didn’t have as close an encounter with a rhino as the day before (and no one dared to wear red), we did meet rhinos on two occasions that were close enough to warrant Sudhir shouting in a whisper, “Climb that tree! Go behind that tree!” at Rachel repeatedly. Several times, we stood with our hearts pounding, listening to a rhino rumble around in the bush within feet of us. We were “lucky” enough to find a fresh tiger footprint path, which we followed for about 30 minutes through head-high grasses before it veered off in an impassable direction. At this point, Rachel was heard saying under her breath, “Tiger prints are enough for me. I’m all set. I don’t think I really need to see a tiger!” At another point, when we were standing in wet bush, waiting for a rhino to move away, Valerie, a sweet Swiss woman, noticed a leech squeezing into her shoes through the mesh. After several attempts, the leech was pulled out, but the event caused a huge stir. Everyone started checking themselves for leeches, meanwhile we were still standing in a wet spot, literally inviting them to latch onto us. Needless to say, we survived the leeches without any big bites, moved onwards into drier bush and spotted some barking deer, before retreating back to camp. Safe again! Though we didn’t want to admit it to the whole group, we certainly sighed relief when we reached the confines of our room!

The second afternoon was the highlight of the trip for Rachel. The maute (elephant trainers) brought three of the elephants down to the river to bathe. We were given the opportunity to swim with them and surprisingly few people wanted to. Rachel went in first, somehow more intrigued by the prospect of swimming with the elephants, than worried about the contents of the river or any other harmful creatures (crocodiles!!). Sudhir captured some beautiful photos and then went in for his turn. We actually were with Heerakali again, much to our delight. He was docile, peaceful, and agreeable to soaking us over and over again with his trunk full of river water! Soaked and grinning ear to ear, Rachel was a little less than pleased to find out that we would be heading back out into the jungle for another excursion. This time, however, we would be on elephant-back, therefore a bit safer than on foot.

We climbed aboard our trusty Heerakali again and sitting beside Valerie and Jocelyn, the Swiss travellers that we befriended, we sauntered out into the jungle. We were soon in the thick of the jungle, seemingly lost and wandering in amongst trees, tall grasses, and dense brush. After about twenty uneventful minutes, the maute stopped the elephant and peered into the bush. Everyone was silently trying to follow the maute's line of vision, but we were not sure what he had spotted. All of a sudden, he said, "Bhalu, Bhalu!" in a harsh whisper. At this point, Sudhir was videotaping with our digital camera just in case we spotted something and Rachel can be heard asking frantically, "What is bhalu? What is bhalu?" Rachel's question was answered as the elephant pushed closer to the bush and a SLOTH BEAR could be seen huddling with two cubs (baccahs). As Heerakali brushed the bushes aside with his trunk, the bear jumped forward into plain view and the babies followed. At this point, despite the fact that we were high up on the back of an elephant, our hearts were again jump-started and we were all anxious and excited. The maute made whistling signals to alert any other guides in the area that there were "bhalus" in view, which, we all remembered were the most dangerous jungle creatures. One guide appeared out of the bush behind us with 8 tourists following him. He appeared visibly unnerved by the possibility of meeting a mother bear and her two babies on foot with a load of tourists. From the top of Heerakali, we could see that the tourists were alarmingly clueless about the situation and weren't even following the guide's directions. In the mean time, our maute commanded Heerakali to step closer to the bear to scare it away, since we were "safe" on the elephant. The bear jumped out of the bush suddenly and growled while pouncing towards the elephant. Heerakali fearlessly broke the tree branches in front of the bear and made a loud racket with the bushes around him using his trunk as an amazingly accurate mechanism. The bear retreated with her cubs back into the bush and everyone seemed to let out a simultaneous sigh of relief. The guide with the walking group stuck close with our elephant for much of the next hour, zig-zagging his path back and forth through the brush as to always be close enough to us that he would have the protection of our elephant if we had any other close encounters with the bears. We wandered our way out through the jungle at a painstakingly slow pace with only one more close encounter with a rhino. Somehow after all the rhinos, the fresh tiger prints, and now the bear encounter, we were fully satisfied with our jungle excursion and didn't want any more risky ventures. Upon returning to camp, we had a few cold beverages with Sunny (Sudhir's brother) and the Swiss couple, and all admitted to one another that the jungle seems more dangerous and unpredictable the more time you spend in it.

The next morning, we had a brisk bird watching walk and then took the boat back over to the main road and headed off to Sauraha, a small town just outside of Chitwan, known for sunsets and relaxing restaurants. Of course the adventure was not over yet... as we passed through a small village, three young boys came running towards the truck to stop us. They had caught a 10 foot Python in their village that morning and somehow managed to get it into a rice sack. We all lumbered out of the truck and Sunny bravely maneuvered the python out of the bag and onto the ground. Needless to say, we were excited to see the snake in a semi-controlled situation, not in one of our rooms at the Jungle Island Resort!! Apparently a month earlier, a python had wandered into the Jungle Island Resort kitchen searching for a midnight snack and gave the kitchen staff a bit of a fright!

We finally made it to Sauraha and watched a beautiful sunset at riverside. We saw the silhouettes of two wild elephants walking along the jungle edge on the other side of the river and one crossing the river a while later. After dark, the stars came out in full form. Abhishek, who has lived in the jungle for many months now, gave us a detailed lesson on the constellations that were out. We had a wonderfully relaxing night and retreated back to Kathmandu the following day.

So...that is our attempt at giving you a piece of our adventure here in Nepal. Hope you enjoyed. We look forward to remembering these exhilarating (and heart-pounding) events for years to come. More soon... Love Sudhir and Rachel