My travel diaries
Friday 25 May, 2007 - Bardia National Park, Nepal
We have one more full day in Bardia, but after two foot safaris and one rafting trip, we're running out of tiger spotting options. The best way to view wildlife in these parts is by elephant back, but all the government elephants have been requisitioned for the rhino count. The nature of the landscape in Bardia, dominated by the sal forests, isn't the best terrain for a jeep safari, but there is a good network of machans, mostly overlooking river networks or in jungle clearings, and it's possible to have a good day out driving from machan to machan to survey the land from these high platforms. However, the tourist infrastructure in Bardia is still underdeveloped, and the only jeep available seems to be the colonel's Landcruiser, which he likes to drive himself at top speed.
In the morning Bikram drives us to the nearby elephant breeding centre, where we're greeted by three very frisky two-year old baby elephants. They're extremely playful; one tries eating my camera bag while another busily licks my trousers. As they follow us when we walk over to the main elephant garage, two more babies come charging over to us. It's very unnerving. They're like playful dogs but about ten times the size, and although they barely come up to the height of my hips, they're far stronger than I am and could bowl me over very easily. I certainly don't fancy getting trampled by one, and we end up walking briskly and nervously about the compound with the little blighters chasing after us. All the staff at the centre think it's hilarious. The faster we walk away from them, the faster they charge towards us. I'm tempted to break into a run, but that would be sheer folly. I do get some very funny video footage of Siling trying to wrestle one of them, however, a contest the baby elephant wins with ease.
Afterwards, Tina and Siling check out some of the other lodges in Bardia, while Uttam and I return to Bardia Jungle Cottages for breakfast. As a keen angler, he tells me all about the mahseer, the giant carp found in the Karnali and Ganges river system. Each year it swims upstream into the mountains. Here the female lays its eggs in the shallows, where the cannibalistic male can't eat them. He tells me how to catch one of them.
"When the fish bites, the angler must loosen his hold. He mustn't fight the fish, or it will beat him. The trick is to let the mahseer carry you downstream, and let it lead you until it tires itself out."
But mahseer are gradually disappearing from the Karnali. Uttam tells me a story, which I have been unable to verify, about how a dam on the River Ganges in India is used to catch mahseer in great numbers. The water flow below the dam is cut temporarily to drain the river so that it becomes shallow enough to snare the fish on the river bed. The locals living nearby then have a two hour killing spree of stranded fish before the dam is opened and the river level allowed to rise again.
In the afternoon Bikram drives Siling and me to see the Karnali suspension bridge on the Mahendra Highway at Chisapani. The bridge was built with the help of the Japanese in the early 1990s, but in the first year of its construction Indian engineers built the pillars, and they were washed away in the following year's monsoon.
"I bet the Indians must have needed those pillars somewhere downstream," says Siling. I'm beginning to spot a pattern emerging every time we start talking about India. To contradict any opinions I may be forming, a plaque beside the bridge describes its construction as a fine example of "Indo-Nepali cooperation", but there is no mention of Japanese assistance. We walk down to the river's edge beneath the bridge, where there are lots of young people and pigs bathing.
As we drive along the road back to the national park gates at Thakudwara, we pass a group of excited children who start waving at us and pointing into the forest. "Hatti, hatti!" they are shouting ( elephant in Hindi). There is a wild elephant somewhere in the trees, but once again we don't see it. Back at the lodge we have some good news, however. While we were away, Tina managed to secure us an elephant for the following morning, arranged by one of the owners of a rival lodge, keen to impress her. Uttam seems a bit put out by this, but later in the evening he arranges another dusk jeep ride with the colonel to compensate for it. It's getting dark by now, but undettered, the amiable colonel once again drives us through the forest at top speed, missing lots of deer en route.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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