Chitwan, the long version

My last Nepal adventure, spontaneous and a welcome change of pace, was to visit Chitwan, one of Nepal's national parks in the terrai jungle. The park is home to Bengal tigers, wild elephants, sloth bears, barking deer, spotted deer, really really big deer, monkeys, and rhinos. My guidebook indicated that poaching during the Maoist insurgency really hurt animal headcount, but all the more reason to visit and do a tourist vote to save the animals!

I signed up for a package tour (gasp!), as low season in pokhara made me fear large empty guesthouses. Lucky me, I ended up with 3 Australians men and Tessa, from Holland. Our visit began with a cultural show, where my buddy Maddi helped me get a dancing pic with my favorite stick-guy! The next day, a morning canoe ride allowed us to see so many beautiful birds, including kingfishers, Siberian ducks, and peacocks! We followed this with a jungle trek, where we used our naturalist skills to examine scat.  I really liked the trek, but my overactive imagination had me scanning the trees for bengals checking us out a la buffet-perusal style.

In the afternoon I opted for a jeep safari to maximize rhino-sighting probabilities.  Out the gate we saw amazing, beautiful, larger-than-caribou-sized deer, troops of monkeys, and sunning crocodiles.  Then, for the next 3 hours my eyes were peeled, scanning dense green for, I don't know, something not so green?! As our time dwindled and still no coveted rhino, my British microeconomist jeep-safari crush said, "well today's not our lucky day". BAM! Almost immediately a sloth bear, right next to the road! I got a great look, but unfortunately the pic looks like a bush. Then, minutes later, I pointed as we passed, what?, ears! We threw the jeep in reverse and found ourselves face to face (and ears!) with our rhino!

Yay!  Pause to savor the moment.

Whew, ok so the last day I woke up to coffee by the river, so peaceful, then ran into my kiwi pals Kylie and Anne. We headed to the river to see a hilarious spectacle of elephants, tourists, and well, me! That's right, I "bathed" an elephant!

Last but not least, the "elephant safari".  Riding an elephant is slightly painful, kinda fun, and mostly about riding an elephant vs spotting wildlife.  Interestingly, the ride began outside the park boundary, where locals were chopping fire wood from the trees as we lumbered by.  When I asked my guide about the wood collection, I was told they can't cut a living tree down, but can take wood from it and cut a dead tree down. Considering trees don't live very long without leafy branches, it seems apparent this policy might need some refinement.  It was a sobering reminder that the tourism that provides an incentive to protect the wilderness also provides a means for a larger and richer local population, meaning more meals, more wood. Gross oversimplification for blog purposes.

All in all, a grand adventure! Good luck rhinos! May you live long, and prosper.

You can check out any time you like...

The last night in Nepal, out with the gals I met in Chitwan, and of course Thamel's most overplayed song is brilliantly introduced by the acoustic solo, as Thamel musicians are always so good. As we sing along I know I'm going to miss Nepal. The lyrics felt appropriate on my last night. Nepal, like any place, is not only a geography, but a people, a culture, a...state of mind? So, being thus, you may fly away,

But you can never leave.

Chitwan, Nepal's jungle park

Down by the ri-iver

(bum bum bum)

I bathed my elepha-ant!

Pokhara and paragliding

I've been recovering from my hiking in Pokhara with trail pals Steven and Tracy via shopping, eating, and doing morning yoga on the roof (taught by budding yoga master Steven).  I'm hoping to get to the beach before I gain all the pounds I lost while trekking!

Today the mountains finally emerged from the smog-fog that has rested on the valley, so it was the time for a local specialty: paragliding!

My pilot was Peter from the Czech republic. He has been a professional for 12 years and yes this harness is safe and not too old and rated for my weight, and yes the wind is perfect for flying today!  I think the other pilots breathed sighs of relief that their charges had never seen a harness!

After a beautiful flight of chasing vultures to thermals and seeing terraced fields, wetland, fish farms, and mountains from the air, we did a few acrobatics (!) and landed effortlessly. I then walked over to a drink hut and sat on the vendor's Styrofoam cooler, which promptly imploded. My amused pilot walked over and complimented my soft landing. :/

Trail tips

After 45 days on the trail in Nepal, I have come up with a list of clearly highly important learnings.

1. Someone who has lived in the Himalaya his whole life has a different definition of "flat trail" than you do.

2. When the porters and cooks are all dancing to "gangnam style" in the kitchen at 6 am,  now is the time to bust a move.

And finally, the universal truth: toilet paper quality is directly related to its price. Buy the expensive stuff.

ABC

Not easy as 123, but coming off the circuit makes you strong, so adding 2000m of climbing and descending over 3 days and countless steps to reach annapurna base camp seems like the natural thing to do. My knees hurt.

Kagbebi, Tatopani, and the bus ride between

Kagbebi: a medieval town at the gateway to Mustang, Kagbebi has narrow streets and pre-Buddhist, animist art, including goat's heads and dream catchers that reminded me so much of native American art that I am going to re-research the history of people crossing the Bering straight.

Tatopani: At 1200m, back to steamy jungle, warm nights, and citrus trees!  I went for happy hour at a small local place advertising beer, popcorn, and "Bob Marley music" (there's lots a weed in them hills).  I was the only westerner, so the owner and I talked for an hour.  I also learned how to play a local game that is a cross between pool and shuffleboard.  From now on, happy hours at small local places will be the norm!

The bus ride between:  If I'm going to take the bus ride from Romancing the Stone, where the hell is my young Michael Douglas?  See photo of bus tetris!

Pheromones

As you hike and see the same people everyday, you form friendships. On the Annapurna, I loved the Ukrainian couple and our French friend Thomas.

In the Khumbu, I really liked a north Irish couple, Tim and Beverly. Their average age is roughly 40 and they seemed madly in love. Tim would often say about Beverly, "she's going to be the mother of my children!". When I asked how long they had been together, they said 6 months(!). According to both of them, who had both been dating people their entire adult lives, when you know, you know. I was re-encouraged that this love thing can happen past 29.

Tim did, however, suggest I use science to speed up the process via testing men's pheromones to find the right genetic match.  How? Simply smell their pits! Especially in a bar in Namche, full of men who just trekked for 15 days, it'd be easy to at least try the idea, if only to hone my technique on a few "test guys".

Tim then proudly declared, "it worked for us!". Beverly responded, "you were the test guy."

Thanksgiving

I celebrated Thanksgiving by eating pizza with an Italian, a Swiss man, and 2 Germans in a guesthouse on the Annapurna trek.  When asked about the holiday in the US, I said it involves eating a lot of turkey and pie with family and friends, and that no one should be alone for it, so you invite solo people to dinner.

When asked the history of the tradition, I said something about the Native Americans helping the pilgrims to farm in the new world, so they came together for a feast.

I was then asked if Native Americans celebrate it, but we both knew the sad history and irony in that inquiry...

Operation scary trail

My trail comrade Luca and I decided to explore the side trip of Tilicho Tal, the lake Herzog's men crossed while searching for a route up Annapurna.  Reaching it involves crossing high-angle scree slopes on narrow trails with intense exposure, with blue sheep potentially knocking down rocks.  Words I'd use to describe this trail, as a rock climber, are "heady" and "sketchy", and I imagine in the US this trail would be, at most, a "cross-country route".  My trail buddy Luca seemed nervous on the outbound journey, but only in the evening at base camp used the word "vertigo". Ack!

The rewards of this mischief were some beautiful views of sandstone formations, close-up walking near ice falls, and seeing the great barrier, a wall of mountain and glacier. Pics!

After the lake day hike from base camp, Luca had become a ball off stress leading up to our outbound journey.  I found myself going all Yoda on him: "you must control your fear, focus your mind". We took every step to maximize our chances of success: we hiked on fresh legs in the morning, spotted each other in the rockfall section, and stayed close together for moral support.  And, yay, operation scary trail was a success and Luca performed brilliantly!

But he is not a Jedi yet.

Annapurna

Day 5 of the annapurna circuit, and so far I am in love with this trek. The verdant scenery, small towns on terraced hillsides, wild river carving deep slot canyons in the mountain, transition in flora from steamy jungle to Pacific-northwest-esque fir to high desert: the trek is beautiful and varied, with a much more organic feel than the Everest region. I feel here like I am on a trek that for so long was one of the world's greats, fast becoming one of the world's great motorbike rides (larger vehicles beware, "shoulder" doesn't translate in Himalayan road!).

I fell under the spell of annapurna even before arriving at the trail, on the 8 hour bus ride that was beautiful, cramped, and hilarious. I'm instantly a fan of overland travel after the experience, but to enjoy the ride you must value the journey, not just the destination (because the destination is gonna be a while...). I believe that, if you can dream it, it can happen on a bus. People board with huge bags of flour and live chickens, 4 year old children hop off alone in the middle of nowhere, and vendors board to sell anything, from popcorn to fabric, all to the tune of the "door guy", who tirelessly yells the bus destination out the door to gain riders. I'm convinced if you had a broken-down motorcycle, they'd toss it on the roof and give you a lift to the nearest mechanic.

Back on the trail, I'm walking with 2 frenchmen and an Italian man at the moment, Ludo, Thomas, and Luca.  We see the same crew daily, so trail camaraderie is growing. Luca and I met on trekkingpartners.com and are a good match for trekking speed. It's nice to have a pal, and today we had an adventure stumbling upon a service at the local monastery, complete with monks chanting and blowing the monk horns, whose sound echoed so perfectly off the avalanching Annapurna II...did I mention I'm in love with this trek? ;)