Adventure & Service the adventures of a dentist and an engineer
making a difference in the world

Nepal, a tourist destination for a safari? Why not? We now know why not but that hasn't stopped Nepal. Actually, I applaud the salesmanship of the local tour guides. You see, Nepal has a Royal Chitwan National Park but after 3 days of the package deal of safari activities we still hadn't really entered the park. We did however experience the "Buffer Zone" and a Community Forest from all different angles.



The tour guides did a great job of parroting their rehearsed scripts for the tour but when Kevin's questions and observations deviated from the typical tourist, they repeated answers to questions we weren't asking, had already covered, or just said yes when it was obvious they didn't understand.  I cringed on multiple occasions when the conversations got tense with Kevin asking if it was possible under any circumstances to enter the National Park and our guide repeating the three activity options in our package that were not actually inside the park.  One of the activities was visiting the elephant breeding grounds where we got some really cute photos of the tame elephants.



After asking at the park information center in town we found out that to most hotel packages don't actually enter the National Park and it would only marginally increase your chances of seeing more animals. As it was we rode tame elephants and saw human acclimated one-horned rhinoceros, a couple types of deer, two types of crocodiles, miscellaneous birds, and a huge bee hive outside our hotel window.


Our elephant safari ride was a herd of about 20 elephants each carrying five humans all walking through the community forest together at regularly scheduled intervals through out the day. This pack of trained elephants would essentially herd the semi-tame rhinoceros for our viewing pleasure.



Ignoring the phenomenon of profusely sweating even when standing still, the jungle walk was pleasant.  The canoe rides were relaxing and added two different types of crocodiles to our list of animal sitings.






One morning we rented bikes from the hotel kitchen staff and ventured around the nearby village of Sauraha. Cars are extremely expensive in Nepal because they are subjected to a 180% car tax so bikes and elephants were the main mode of transportation in the flat Chitwan area.





The evening cultural show is worth mentioning because we were struck by the similarities between Nepal's ancient dancing and other ancient culture's dancing. It seemed like how David would have danced in the Bible.


The entire trip was worth it because of a glorious hour of elephant bathing. Just riding on the elephant bareback was thrilling but when he lowered his massive body into the river it could have been the most exciting roller-coaster from our shouts and expressions. Then being sprayed by water from his trunk and being effortlessly tossed from his back into the rushing river inspired such childish delight I will never forget it. By the end of the hour I was exhausted from repeating the process of hurling myself up on the kneeling elephant, holding on for dear life while he climbed down the river bank, dodging spays of water from the elephant's trunk, being effortlessly tossed into the river, and finally swimming against a rushing current to dry land.



This was a rare opportunity I almost passed up because I was fully clothed, knew there were crocodiles in this particular river, the water was disgusting, and the river was unusually high from the heavy rains the previous night. In the end half of our group chose to jump in and the other half remained dry on the shore laughing and taking pictures. Kevin thoughtfully signaled to me from shore to keep my mouth closed while I was laughing as the elephant sprayed water over its shoulder and onto the faces of those riding. I don't think either group regretted their decision. The large clumps of floating elephant poo didn't bother me and the land lovers were happy to avoid such a close encounter.


Chitwan for all of its experiences is memorable and in the end has added to my life experiences even if I wouldn't exactly categorize it as a great destination for a safari.