Going back to the epic journey by bus of the day before, I forgot to mention being hit on the head by dad’s tripod that bounced loose from the over head luggage rack. That probably best illustates how bumpy the ride was. It brought tears to my eyes and made me feel quite sick. I’m lucky it didnt hit my nose, although it might be an improvement, hahahaha.
So we arrived at Chitwan (still in the Terai), The Jungle Villa Resort was top notch, manicured and definitely 5 star accomodation with a covered seating area overlooking a pond that had its very own Marsh Mugger Crocodiles, fancy a dip anyone? We really didn’t get much chance to see much of it as we were up with the lark, early breakfast, hat on, a quick squirt of deet down my pants (yes it stings!) and we were away!
Over the two the days we took 2 open jeeps, we crossed the East Rapti river and onto the reserve. The first day we visited the Gharial breeding center, these are narrow snouted fish eating crocodiles. They are critically endangered. In the wild the eggs and young are predated by other crockodiles and animals. They are an ancient type of crocodile, fossilized remains in Asia show little difference to this species.
Those that hatch at the breeding center here, stay in their cohort untill they are released. Those that are injured in the early days, because they fight (we saw a number with snapped snouts) are kept for breeding while the rest are released.
We birdwatched around the center and I saw my first ‘jungle fowl’ or ‘wild chicken tikka masala’ as Suchit described it. I made a friend of a particularly smiley local guide, he helped me learn the Nepali names for animals and plants. He seemed particularly knowledgeable about the plants and their uses. Most of the trees here are Sal trees that have a dense durable wood and used for construction and furniture making. It is extremely heavy.
Dad was struggling with all the standing and I think he was getting pretty tired by now from all the early starts, long days on his feet. He kept losing his hat which was forever being returned by Angela and Graham (he of profiling fame). Dad had already managed to lose his baseball cap at the airport on the first day so he didn’t want to lose this one.
On one of the days we drove the whole day through the Jungle and onto the grasslands. In a marshy area we stopped to look for a small dark bird called the Smokey Warbler and apparently it looks like a “kipper”. I’m slightly worried about Suchit’s description and/or maybe his eyesight!
The grassland has swathes of elephant grass, and other shell pink and chocolate coloured flowers of a type of pampas grass.
My smiley guide was now holding a large stick and looking rather menacing. We were told as we got out of the jeep to stay between the two guides with the sticks, this is tiger country! Not entirely sure that a stick would be much defense!
We saw tiger tracks and Rhino tracks. I told Graham that ”we keep passing elephant dung” to which he offered me Imodium!
Then just as we sat down to eat a packed lunch. I saw a Tiger……… that turned out to be a Rhesus Macaque walking across the track, much to everyone elses amusement.
Well it was orange, moving and at a distance!
I felt somewhat vindicated when Suchit was suddenly alert and looking at an orange colour in the distance, it looked like a tiger face but, turned out to be a tree trunk and with the sun shining on it.
A little later in the jeep there was another tense moment when macaques started up alarm calls, along with some birds. We waited in silence to see what had caused the commotion……. nothing happened. As the tension subsided, I turned to find Dad had nodded off!
What we did see however was, (and Dad was awake for this), Spotted Deer, The Greater One-Horned Rhino and a Bull Elephant that although wild it had had his tusks cut down. This was done because he had become increasingly aggressive. The local people who use domesticated elephants chain the females up and I guess they allow the males breed with them. There was one of these females nearby looking very very agitated. It was harrowing to see.
Later looking accross the river we saw wild Gharial, hog deer in the marsh and more Marsh Mugger Crocodiles. The latter can grow to be huge and they are not adverse to going overland in search of suitable ponds so you could in theory meet one on a dry jungle track!
An unpleasant thing I saw was a leech, I’d seen one in Koshi but this one was hungry and moving. Interestingly it went rigid and stick-like when my shadow passed over it, was it expecting contact with something tasty or hiding (stick like) from a predator? Thankfully it was not the monsoon season or we would have been plagued by them.
My favourite thing of the day was an Indian Scops Owl, sleeping in a hole in the trunk of a tree, at first you could just see a grey ear, then it looked out with glass like golden eyes!
That was Chitwan and now heading for Pokhara
The Travelling Bee 