My travel diaries
Monday 21 May, 2007 - Bardia National Park, Nepal
We meet our transport outside the three giant statues of the Buddha on the ring road at Swayambhu at 5am. It may be ridiculously early, but there are plenty of people up and going about their business. Our driver is Bikram, a young Nepali, and with him is Uttam, the entertaining aristocrat I met last Friday, who will be with us for the week as he has lots of contacts in Bardia.
The drive to Bardia takes 13 hours in all. I decide Bikram is a much more careful driver than the average Nepali. He waits to see if there is anyone coming the other way before overtaking, instead of driving past beeping his horn willy nilly as seems to be standard practice here. This is particularly appreciated along the winding road which twists its way precipitously high above the Trisuli river between Kathmandu and Mugling. We stop at 7am for breakfast at one of the many roadside restaurants along the route, where we sit outside in a nice garden and have fried eggs. Any road in the central strip of Nepal is picturesque due to the nature of the landscape: steep hills dotted with villages and terraced fields clinging to their sides. Nowhere is remote here, and it's not possible to drive a full mile along this route without coming across houses, and people going about their work. It would be a pleasant drive were it not for the drivers, who are not the world's safest. Nevertheless, this is the third time I've been along the section between Kathmandu and Mugling, and I'm yet to be killed.
At Mugling we turn south, and the road descends to the southern Terai flatlands of Nepal, bordering India. Throughout the journey, the talkative Uttam keeps us entertained with his stories. Driving past the big factories outside Butwal, he tells us about the river dolphins.
"My friend was governor here, and he gave a flat 'no' to building a factory here. A few years later, a different governor and someone else applies. Money changes hands and the factory is built. A few years later most of the dolphins are gone."
A little while later I can feel the left-hand side of my face becoming burned, so I get my buff out and pull it over my face to keep it hidden from the sun. I now look like a terrorist and Uttam decides to launch into some story about the US government giving the Pakistan Army a homosexual bull, which unfortunately cannot be repeated. Shortly afterwards we reach the entrance to Bardia National Park and stop at a checkpoint. Siling gets out for a pee and leaves his door open. A few seconds later, a Nepali woman on a bicycle pedals straight into it and ends up in a ditch. Siling is very apologetic, but I don't see how he can be blamed. Bikram and I are not quite so sympathetic and sit in the front of the car sniggering.
We reach Bardia Jungle Cottages at about 8pm. It's not exactly a luxury tourist lodge, and the facilities are very basic, but Uttam is friends with the owner and he thinks the place has potential. It needs some work doing, however. The mosquito net in my cabin smells a bit musty, and the shower head is so rusty, if it's possible to get iron oxide poisoning then I'm going to get it. The location is fabulous, though. The climate is warm, we're in the heart of the jungle, and a Dutch couple staying here are excited because they've just seen a tiger. My exhaustion seems to have gone after snatching plenty of sleep during the drive, and Siling and I share a Tuborg beer that evening in high spirits.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next
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