My travel diaries
Thursday 24 May, 2007 - Bardia National Park, Nepal
Today we're determined to see a tiger, so we've decided to spend all day on foot safari. Once again we have for our guide one of the sons of Premi, the proprietor of Bardia Jungle Cottages. He seems to have a number of sons, and each time we go out on safari, a different one is offered to us.
We set off at around 7am, and spend the early part of the walk tracking tiger footprints through sal forest. They appear to be quite fresh, and lead us alongside the river bank. We see an imprint in the grass where it's had a quick pee to scent mark its territory, clawed the ground and turned around again. Our guide believes it passed this way no more than half an hour ago, and he suggests we climb a tree and wait in the hope it comes back.
I follow the others up. Tina finds a convenient fork in a branch quite high up, which she tells me feels like an armchair. I climb above her in the hope of finding somewhere similar, and Siling climbs even higher still. Meanwhile the guide is across the path miles up a tree which appears to have no branches at all, yet still he appears more comfortable than I am. I find a limb where I can place two feet firmly, grasp a branch with each hand and cling on with gritted teeth. Every so often I make the mistake of looking down. We must be a good ten metres off the ground, and I'm not very happy. The tiger could be passing right underneath our tree and I'd be none the wiser. Siling, happy as a monkey, is climbing all over the branches above me trying to guide me into a more comfortable spot, but I'm not going anywhere.
Eventually, after about an hour, which seems more like a whole morning, and with no sign of a tiger, they suggest we climb down again.
"This is not my preferred wildlife viewing option," I reply, breathing a sigh of relief as I reach terra firma.
We spend the remainder of the day alternating between a tiger watering hole beside a river bank, and the top of a machan, a tall wooden viewing tower with a platform high off the ground. At the latter we meet two Spanish travellers being led by a young Indian who becomes known as "The Hooligan Guide". He's smoking a spliff and making plenty of noise not exactly conducive to wildlife viewing. He tells our guide and Siling one of his clients is called, "Garchod", and they start giggling. He asks me if I know what it means and, slightly irritated, I shake my head in what I hope is a disinterested fashion.
"It means a--e f----r in Hindi," he says. I don't know whether to laugh or to frown. Eventually he falls asleep up the machan and we get some peace and quiet.
Our haul of wildlife encounters is disappointing. We see barking deer, a very distant elephant crossing a river, a rhino which is so distant it may as well be a rock, some wild boars running across the river beneath us, and no tigers. Tina tells Siling she doesn't think there's enough wildlife in Bardia for The Responsible Travellers to run a dedicated safari holiday. Until recently the park has been a warzone in the conflict between the Nepalese Army and the Maoists, and it's easy to imagine the effect this has had on wildlife in the area. The government is currently carrying out a census on the rhino population in Bardia, and it will be interesting to see the results. It is likely to be many years before wildlife populations recover.
We, the Brits, have plenty to answer for. It is thought there are fewer than 300 tigers spread out across Nepal's national parks, but this wasn't always the case. In 1876 the Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII, bagged 23 tigers, 1 leopard and several wild boar during a shooting spree between February 16 th and March 5 th , including 7 tigers in a single day. Then in 1911, King George VI came to Nepal and nobbled 39 tigers, 18 rhinos and 4 sloth bears on a shooting binge between December 16 th and December 28 th . In 1921 the next Prince of Wales, later to be King Edward VIII, shot 17 tigers, 10 rhinos, 2 leopards and 2 bears. Now, no fewer than 35 of Nepal's mammal species are classed as endangered, with as many as 15 "big game" species facing possible extinction in the next ten years. Even our present monarch is not untainted by this orgy of killing. When Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip came to Nepal in 1961, a hunt involving 400 elephants was laid on for their entertainment. Although they didn't actively partake in any shooting themselves, two members of their party, Lord Hume and Rear Admiral Bonham Carter, bagged a rhino and tiger respectively.
Of course, it's necessary to judge people by the standards of their time, and the concept of wildlife conservation would have been as alien to the Victorians as exotic rat breeding is to us today, and was still very much in its infancy when Queen Elizabeth II visited in 1961. Even so it's hard to imagine the famous Ring Method used for hunting tigers in Nepal could be regarded as sportsmanlike in any era. The night before the hunt was due to take place, a buffalo calf was staked out as bait. The following morning trackers were sent out to see which buffaloes had been killed and dragged through the jungle by a tiger. Once located, the tracker marked out a circle of up to half a mile in diameter using chipped stems and grass knots. A hunt could involve as many as 600 elephants which would take their places around the diameter of the circle and move inwards. Eventually the unsuspecting tiger would find itself encircled by a solid wall of elephants, with no means of escape. A ring of white cloth would then be drawn around the tiger and the elephants would move off to surround the next tiger with its kill. Experience had shown the encircled tiger would be terrified of the fluttering white material and cower within it, making no attempt to escape. Then a breach would be made in the cloth and beater elephants were sent in to herd the tiger towards this single means of escape, at which point the hunter would appear with his rifle and blow the poor tiger's brains out.
Our best wildlife sighting of the day is reserved until just before dusk, when we're walking back to the lodge - several otters frolicking in the river about 50 metres away from us. We emerge from the forest into a large grassy clearing and see more langurs and spotted deer, including a large stag. The spotted deer or chital, is very distinctive, with a bright rufous fawn coat covered in white spots, and a white underside.
Despite the hours spent watching and waiting, it's been a long and tiring day. We've done our best to remain shaded from the sun, but the two litres of water I took with me were nowhere near enough. Back at the lodge Siling and I murder three bottles of cold water in quick succession.
In the evening we're treated to a dance display by local villagers in the dining hall at Bardia Jungle Cottages. Lots of young women file in dressed in colourful clothing. Then come the men, who stand on the left leading the singing, while the women stand on the right echoing each line of the song. There is much clapping of hands as a man with a drum and a man dressed as a woman dance around in the centre of the room. Later a woman in a green dress joins the two men in the middle and performs a dance which involves bending over backwards with the top of her head pressed to the ground.
Inevitably the boisterousness leads to audience participation. Uttam and the colonel get dragged onto the dance floor, and Tina and Siling have gone to bed, so much attention is focused on me as the lone white face in the audience. Several of the colourfully dressed women come over and invite me onto the dance floor, but I'm having none of it. Then the man dressed as a woman tries to drag me up there, but he's much smaller than me and I stay where I am. Then the show ends, and within two minutes the villagers have left and the room is empty again, at which point, very cleverly in my view, Siling returns.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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