elliephant

Additional pics: Chitwan traffic jam and Chitwan house. trying to put up more video arggg....



So, after Matt and I left Pokhara, we headed to Chitwan National Park, which was a 5 hour bus ride. When we got there, we found out some friends we had made in Pokhara were staying at the same hotel as us. When we first arrived, we had lunch and a freezing shower before heading to the Elephant Breeding Center where they raise the elephants who work in the park. During training, the guides sit on the elephants' necks, holding a set of reigns, with their bare feet behind the elephants' ears. When they want an elephant to go one direction or another, they kick it behind one or the other ear and when they want it to go faster, they hit the top of its head with a stick. Unfortunately, it's not the most humane animal treatment I've ever seen.


As we walked into the compound, the trainers were giving agility lessons to the juvenile elephants. This consisted of a football (soccer) match between elephants. It was awesome to watch and the little Nepali kids were thrilled as well to run after the ball when it was kicked too far (or into the river). To see the massive beasts playing with a tiny, little soccer ball was pretty adorable. Shortly after that, we saw a rhino which was interesting but sad because it was sick and shouldn't have been in such a relatively populous area. Then we entered the Breeding Center.


There were baby elephants EVERYWHERE and I love them. They are the biggest smallest animal ever and they're wonderful. I never realized how useful a trunk would be! It functions as a straw-hand-cup-thumb-nose. How multi-purpose! And they will do anything for food. We watched one baby steal a bag of grain right out of a trainer's hands and run. It was adorable and the trainer was completely helpless because the baby was about 10 times his size.

The Breeding Center sells biscuits (imagine a giant dog cookie) and we bought about 3 dozen and had a fantastic time feeding them to the babies, which you can watch here (I'm still trying to upload this) . That was about all we did that day but I was happy as a clam because I had been looking forward to playing with the baby elephants for so long.


The following day, we were up early to go for a dug-out canoe ride and jungle walk. Our guide, Krishna, and his sidekick, as well as me, Matt, Robert and Vincent walked a few minutes upriver to the canoe launching area. We ended up waiting for about an hour and a half (because although there were plenty of canoes and "boat men," OUR boat man was not there) which was terribly boring except for two amusing interludes. The first break from the tedium consisted of us finding bamboo sticks and fashioning spears out of them (by cutting one end in half and tying in a pottery shard point) , and the second was when Matt tried to steal one of the canoes. This escapade ended when one staff member leapt into the boat that Matt was captaining and another passed him the end of a bamboo pole from the shore to reel in the renegade American.

Eventually, we had our canoe ride and saw two types of crocodiles as well as some neat birds. The canoe dropped us off in the National Park and we wandered around for a couple of hours looking for tigers and bears that never showed up. We did, however, see a pretty type of monkey that has white fur and a black face before we headed home for lunch. After lunch we went on an elephant ride which was fun but a bit sad as well. I don't think these elephants like their jobs. Halfway through the ride, I saw another white girl steering her elephant, and I asked my guide if I could do the same. He hopped right off and let me ride the whole rest of the way on the elephant's head. It was loads of fun, and by the end the elephant and I were great friends (from my point of view).


After the elephant ride, we had dinner and a few drinks before heading to a Tharu Culture Show. It was in a theater and the stage was lit up but not the audience, so it didn't feel like a million tourists staring at locals. It was actually interesting and quite entertaining. First, there were a few dances with drums and sticks. The men ran around in a well-choreographed pattern, hitting their fighting sticks together to the rhythm of the drums. I must say that the highlights of the show were: the grown man in a peacock suit who hopped around the stage bobbing his head in a mating season dance, and the boy-woman dance when young men dressed as women were being chased by a man. It was rather hilarious. And it turned out that the audience was primarily composed of locals who also thought it was great fun to watch.

We spent the rest of the evening getting into a bit of trouble with our new friends Guy, William, Vincent, and Robert.

I have finally been able to upload one of the paragliding videos, which you can see here. There might be a second video up, so please check for that too if you're interested.

I'm frustrated that I'm having such a difficult time uploading videos and I've been here for almost 2 hours trying. I want to get them online before I reach China and can no longer properly update my blog. Alas...