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Chitwan District, Nepal

A 7am start for the 7 hour ridiculously bumpy bus ride across the Himalayas. My bump-metre has gone up to include getting airborne multiple times. Although we are at the bottom of the Himalayas, it’s still between 1500-400m above sea level. We wind our way down from the mountains on a public bus around the edge of the cliff, so narrow at times its only one way. I finished my two books yesterday and for some reason the Apple book store doesn’t work here. It’s actually too bumpy to read a book even if I did have one. Did I mention there are mosquitoes, its sticky and there’s no air con in this bus? Dave’s listening to music and doing the odd action to keep me entertained. 5hours in and there’s a mountain edge head on collision between a truck and a bus. No cars are moving, neither is the wind. The pollution stuck to my face is slipping off. So glad I don’t watch the World’s Deadliest Roads show.

Chitwan National Park here we are. It was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1984. Middle of no where so it seems. We are the first guests at this lodge in 2 months. As it’s monsoon season there’s no one here in this tiny little village but us. We took a bike ride around the local villages, through the rice fields, on the muddy roads. No one around for miles. Buffalo, ducks and goat roam the path. Locals are bareback on elephant as they wander by.
In Nepal there are three types of people, the mountain people (who live upwards of 4,000m above sea level), the valley or hill people including the locals in Kathmandu (2,000-4,000m) and the low land people also known as Tharu (upto 2,000m). There are only 1 million of these indigenous people around the country. Each look slightly different. Out here the locals (Tharu) have nose piercings, wear cloth, have tattooed feet and when the kids laugh it sounds like something out of a World Vision ad – after you give them the dollar of course.

Overnight adventure in the jungle:
Accommodation in Chitwan or in the jungle village of Ghatgai includes cold showers, no air con just a measly fan which works sporadically when the power is actually on (generators). Humidity is upwards of 90% with temperatures in the high 30s, low 40s. Chitwan National Park is one of few places left in the world that you can walk through the jungle, seeing the big 3 animals, without being in a vehicle. 65% of Nepal’s birds are found in the Chitwan National Park.
The safety briefing prior to leaving went something like this: “to get to the jungle there is a two hour canoe ride into the jungle, do not rock or move the canoe or you will be in with the flesh eating crocodiles. Once you get to the jungle it’s a 12km / 6hr trek in dense jungle to reach another river where a canoe will take you across to the local home stay”. Further instructions included “how to escape from the following wildlife in the jungle – from the 503 wild rhino: zig zag running fast and hide behind a big tree. From the 600 sloth bears: make a loud scary sound. From the 60 wild elephants: run really fast. From the 200 leopards and the 125 tigers: stay still, look into their eyes. Whatever you do don’t push someone in front of you or jump on our guides. Both of these things have happened, and it never ends well.” One of our 5 guides said I couldn’t take my new pink poncho. We are only allowed to wear black, green or blue clothing. Any other colours ensure we’ll need to use our newly learnt safety skills. So with all of that in mind and knowing that the national park is 932sqkm, so seeing all animals wasn’t guaranteed, we set off.
Centimetres from the waterline our canoe, ventured down the Rapti river ever so slowly. Metres away crocodiles can be seen poking their noses out of the murky water. No sound can be heard apart from the hundreds of varieties of birds and monkeys jumping from tree to tree along the water’s edge. We arrive at the entrance to the jungle, thick in tall elephant grass you would never have known it was an entrance. Knowing blood sucking leeches are everywhere, we tuck our pants into our socks and move further in. Dave was blood sucked by two. As far as tigers go, we only see a foot print and poo (which is full of what was once a fluffy monkey), but we see many varieties of monkeys (alive). It’s a silent walk for the first half, we listen for the sounds which direct us to the water hole where rhinos bathe. The only elephants we saw are as we come closer to the river and out of the jungle. A family of four are with 2 locals.

I can’t describe how hot and humid it is. We are drenched in sweat. Dave’s new blue Nepalese shirt has leaked blue dye all over him. Finally we see the water’s edge where a canoe awaits to transfer us to the lodge. We are thick in mud, wet from river crossings, and sticky from thick insect repellent (for mosquitos/malaria). It wouldn’t be an adventure if everyone did it – saying that I’d kill to feel cool and clean rather than totally gross and smelly! Seeing a family of 5 elephants bathing in the river from your balcony makes it all worth it.

“Unforgettable moment number #2560: driving through the little farming villages of outer Chitwan, minutes out of the national park but still in the vicinity of the jungle. The locals are all waving frantically at the foreign and rarely seen before, white people driving by in an open air jeep. The driver stops and lets us walk through one of the villages, consisting of only a handful of mud houses with pet buffalo and ground water pumps. An elder showed me (no one else gave it a go) how to pull corn off the cob. There are thousands of dirty corn cobs, each piece of corn peeled off by hand and stored away.
Grubby faced kids with the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen run up to us. We take a photo of them and show them themselves. Their giggles are contagious. We let them take photos of us on our cameras but they all end up of the ground. A gorgeous little girl, all smiles, puts her arms up to me. I grab them and lift her high… Well that just starts something – they ALL want a turn. Then I couldn’t escape, I was short 20 arms for each of them to hold. Wherever we went kids ran out of their mud and straw houses to wave and run after us.
Those are the unplanned special moments we’ll remember, as I’m sure they will too. As we drive off 50 Macaque monkeys play on the road and many more are jumping from the trees above. What a hidden treasure of the world.”

We made it alive. Once again another scary bus ride. From Chitwan to Lumbini is 4 hours across the mountain edge into farmland. I’d have felt safer if he’d done it in 8. Before 11am we’d seen 3 truck-over-the-cliff accidents, nearly killed children and goats playing on the side of the narrow road, radically swerved out of the way of a bike rider who fell asleep and swerved into us and we ONLY had one accident where a motorbike drove straight into the side of us at 50km. Our driver says to be able to drive here, all you need is a horn, brakes and luck – and that’s what I hope we have, to get us through to the other side of India.. I was thankful for a rest stop, even if there were two goats in the cliffside long drop. I have forgotten what it feels like to be a lady. Oh how I miss getting dressed up in the morning, pretty dresses, matching heels and a handbag with 10 lipsticks. Now I wonder what is the point of brushing my hair or finding something that looks semi ok but complies with the strict dress code. I know these are first world problems but today I very much miss feeling feminine and having a handbag for girly things not a bog roll, or wearing 3 types of face cream rather than a face full of pollution, insect repellant, sweat and pimples. I also can’t wear my $20 substitute wedding ring as it’s so hot my fingers are swollen. For the most part, adventure travelling isn’t glamorous. BUT as a positive, I had ‘hot’ toast with melted butter this morning, first time in two months! I wouldn’t be human if some days weren’t harder than others.

The strangest thing we learnt on the bus ride to Lumbini is that in year 2001, the Nepalese royal family (all 9 of them) we
re mysteriously murdered inside the royal palace. With many conspiracy theories out there, no none knows for sure why, how or who.

Lumbini is known for two reasons. One it’s the last town before the Indian border and two, it’s the birth place of Gautama Buddha. And that’s where we visited this afternoon. Within many acres of grassland containing monasteries from countries all over the world, lays a white brick building. The walls of the white building are there to protect the remains of the ancient Maya Devi Temple. These structures are from the 3rd century BC to 7th century AD. The actual birth spot of Buddha lays within that – basically a rock, on top of rock- where Buddha was born in 563BC. What lays outside this building is a lake. Now surrounded by concrete, but it was where Buddha’s mother went for a swim prior to giving birth. Who knew water births were popular then too. Nowadays Buddhists and monks come from all over the world to see the 4 holy places. It’s said in the Parinibbana Sutta that Buddha himself identified 4 places of future pilgrimage: the sites of his birth (located here in Lumbini), enlightenment (in Bodhgaya), first discourse (in Sarnath), and death (in Kushinagar). It waa good to learn more about what’s behind the ‘words of wisdom’ – a beautiful religion .

It’s been a whirl wind of a trip to Nepal. There is so much more to this place than the Everest people know it for;. Thank you Edmond Hillary for bringing this place onto the tourist map. The Nepalese people are so kind and gentle. They say Namaste because they are genuinely welcoming you to their country, not because they want you to buy something. With two months holiday every year, I’d be that relaxed too.
Nepal has a diverse landscape; from being up in the snow capped mountains, to trees in the clouds, to vast farmland, to the rugged jungle. My favourite moment was spending time with the village children and Dave’s was trekking through the jungle. A jungle where one day we will be unable to aimlessly walk through without being in a vehicle. Both of our favourite experiences are because these places aren’t yet populated by tourists.

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