Hozza's Horizons

My travel diaries

Wednesday 23 May, 2007 - Bardia National Park, Nepal

And if I thought yesterday was surreal, I'm forced to revise my opinion after today. We've been on foot safari; now it's time to go on a rafting safari, only this is to be a rafting safari with a difference, as Uttam has arranged for us to be escorted by the army. As we go looking for wildlife, they will be looking for poachers and chasing them down the Karnali River.

We leave the army compound at about 8am, me, Tina, Siling, Uttam, the colonel, ten of his soldiers and all of our equipment for the day squeezed into the back of his Toyota Landcruiser. Oh, and my cumbersome curly-handled umbrella, which Uttam noticed I'd carelessly left behind at the lodge. After a brief stop at the luxury Tiger Tops tented camp, now a ruin after being burned down by the Maoists, we enter the Karnali River in two rafts. We're in a big raft of ten people, while a smaller one steered by five soldiers follows along behind us.

The raft feels clumsy, and not ideal for wildlife viewing. The two soldiers behind me are always struggling to control it, and sometimes they have to get into the water and push. Often we pass through sections of "rapids", which at this time of year are no more than a couple of inches deep, and the raft becomes stranded. We can feel the pebbles through the bottom of the raft as some of the soldiers get out and push it along until we reach deeper water again. We have to stop several times to re-inflate the raft.

We see very little wildlife all day, and predominantly birdlife: lots of cormorants, some ibises, storks, egrets and kingfishers. The highlight is a fish owl, massive and tawny, high up in a tree beside the river bank. Sometimes we see langur monkeys running along the shores, and at one point we get out and stalk what we believe to be a wild elephant bathing beside a bank, only to get closer and notice a chain around its neck.

Most of the day is spent chasing poachers. At one point, in a classic Keystone Cops style comedy moment, the colonel decides to fire a gun to frighten them off, but the gun gets jammed and won't fire, so he has to give it to one of his privates to unjam for him. By then the poachers have already noticed us and are making their escape across the water. The soldiers do have some success, however. Shortly after lunch, a canoe and basket of live bait is confiscated from a group of poachers who run away when they see the army approaching. All the while, Uttam, who has spent the grand amount of 100 rupees (about 80 pence) on a fishing licence, is taunting the hapless poachers by fishing quite legally off the front of our raft.

I start falling asleep in the back of the raft at about 2 o'clock, and we're eventually put out of our misery at 3.30, when we pull into the side of the river and our ordeal comes to an end. Despite regular application of sun cream, I have burned my arms, knees and hands, and even have "sandals burn" on the top of my feet.

Later that afternoon, as Tina and Siling go out to inspect other safari lodges, I sit in the garden at Bardia Jungle Cottages reading my book. While sitting there, I get distracted by a caterpillar crawling up my leg. I rescue it and put it on the table, only to watch a lizard jump down from the canopy and swallow it whole.

Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next

Message board >>

• Bookmark site with del.icio.us
• Post site to Facebook