Our first outing was to a large wetland area
Barju Taal a wetland with a natural lake in a rural area and a part of Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve. Travelling in a jeep convoy, we stopped to walk for a while.
The water was festooned with lily’s, water hyacith and a purple aquatic flower convolvulus like. Butterflies, Dragonflies and a smorgasbord of unknown and known birds wading, flying, flitting, feeding and sunning themslves.
Then there were the guides excitedly shouting and pointing out the birds with all the bird watchers telescopes out, binoculars up, birding away! There were almost too many birds.
My dad is looking for ones he’s not seen before. He has been to India and many of these were already known to him. Straight away he got a ‘lifers’ a Cinerous tit (no sniggering please) its a sort of grey Great tit!
For the rest of us it was spectacular with vivid Kingfishers and various birds of prey to feast our eyes upon.
We had a packed lunch, covered ourselves in deet and the strolled around the lake, ticking off the birds as we went.
Its hot and humid in the Terai, people working in the fields seemed over dressed for their strenuous work.
For many Subsistance farmers, foraging is essential and they were fishing in the lake too! They were kind enough to show me their catch!
Koshi is the name of a huge river in Asia and Tapu means Island. The river splits and converges over a wide area. Flowing from the Northern slopes of the Himalayas (China) through Nepal and into the Ganges in India.
Driving on through more dusty towns, not a European face in sight, not many tourists here! Dirty and dusty the towns may be but, they are bustling, busy, noisy with cars and mopeds tooting, tuk tuks whizzing about on the unmade roads and it’s all very fascinating! There are national elections taking place soon so there are also vehicles with loud speakers blaring music that sound so bizarre (Doppler Effect) as they pass by.
The overhead electric wiring in Nepal is a wonder to behold, spaghetti junction box… without the box.
Each of our jeeps had a driver who seemed quite good at spotting the birds and animals too.
I tried out my Nepali on ours, it was really difficult I struggled to understand him. Then we ended up in a strange conversation about whether I was married and where was my husband? Not entirely sure where that was going but I explained I was traveling with my father and that put an end to that! Hahahaha!
Our last stop was at the Koshi Barrage, a hugh series of 56 sluice gates. Its close to the Indian border and we saw lots of lorries queueing to cross the border.
From the downside of the barrage we caught tantalising glipses of Gangetic Dolphins, fresh water dolphins, grey with long snouts as they came up for air.
We ended our day at Koshi Camp where we were allocated our tent, had a slap up meal, shared a Gurkha Beer (cure-all for everything according to Dad), checked off our bird list with the group, had a cold shower (not with the group) and fell into to bed. I was exhausted, had a headache and was comatose within seconds. Apparently I missed the frogs and crickets chirping, the owls hooting and the pack of Jackals running through the camp making a racket. Dad clearly didnt sleep quite as well as I did.
The Travelling Bee 