Blog 6 – Lumbini, Chitwan, Pokhara, Kathmandu, Hetauda (Nepal)
With only two more nights remaining before we return to India, all of the group are making the very most of Nepal and Kathmandu where we are currently based. On a personal level, I have had some of the most enjoyable days of the Oz Bus trip so far and although we have been here over ten days, I feel that we have only scraped the surface as regards experiencing what Nepal has to offer. We had a twelve hour bus journey from Varanasi in India to Lumbini in Nepal and the border set-up was the most primitive I have ever seen. We arrived in darkness, parked on the side of the road in a very busy and dirty looking town and fought our way through mothers with babies and empty milk bottles, beggars and street hawkers. In my three minutes walk, I politely refused to purchase 72 Buddha’s, 45 Mount Everest’s, 24 plastic Taj Mahals, 18 Golden Temples and 3 babies.
There were two men working in what resembled a dilapidated hut which was called ‘Border Security, The Passport Office and Immigration Control’ – so with all those titles, they were undoubtedly very important men! In order to be processed, you had to walk over every type of animal shit on your route to their very important desk. They threw some forms at us which we filled in whilst using the outside walls for something to lean on and they then took our passports and brought them into what looked like a dark broom closet and closed the door. The thought entered my head that I would never see my little maroon EIRE passport again and that it was destined to a life in the cupboard buried in the mop bucket and the Domestos. (if that’s where it ended up, it DEFINITELY never would be seen again because from the look of the place, neither mop bucket or Domestos had EVER made it out of the closet either). Anyway, my fears were allayed when Important man No. 1 came out with the passports stamped and handed them to Important man No. 2 who flung them at us in a ‘take them to hell and get out off my sight’ gesture. We did exactly that, boarded the bus and drove to Lumbini which is a few kilometers inside the Nepalese border.
That night, for the first time since I boarded the bus in London, I was allocated my own bedroom. Because of the odd number of females on the bus, (as opposed to the odd females on the bus) each night there is one person who is granted the luxury of their own room. In fear of an Animal Farm type of revolt, when announcing who has their own room each night, Lana our Tour Leader has had to develop a watertight system that is 100% transparent and free from ambiguity. Therefore, this single room allocation is done alphabetically and most of the passengers had already experienced their ‘turn’, but being an R (Ruddy), it took 40 nights of sharing before it came to me. Unfortunately, the actual hotel we stayed in that night was a bit of a dive and the room was tiny and damp and dirty – but I absolutely loved it.
On entering the room, straight away I emptied my rucksack onto the bed and then folded each piece of clothing ever so neatly and placed each garment into the musty wardrobe whose door was hanging off. I used six of the six shelves – about one piece of clothing on each shelf! I then went into my little en suite bathroom and put every toiletry I possessed on top of the sink that I didn’t have to share with anyone. I walked to the door (one step actually) and stood and admired the magnificent sight that was my shampoo, my conditioner, my shower gel, my deodorant and my facecloth … STREWN over the bathroom. Out I came and threw myself onto the double bed (only after I had a look for insects and creepy crawlies). I contorted myself into every position possible and spent the next ten minutes deciding which way I’d lie when I first got into bed, which direction I’d then turn before I went to sleep and what way could I best utilize every inch of the double bed. When I tired of that game, I decided to have a shower before I went downstairs to dinner. I gathered my belongings close to me (my four bottles) and turned on the water and was experiencing my freezing cold but ’isn’t life wonderful’ shower when all of a sudden ….. complete darkness … a Lumbini power cut! I turned off the taps thinking ‘that might bring the lights back on’ (the mechanics of plumbing obviously isn’t my strong subject), but no, that didn’t work. I closed my eyes for thirty seconds … and reopened them … but surprisingly enough, that too didn’t work, it was still in darkness. All of a sudden, this single room lark didn’t seem quite as attractive a proposition after all. After five minutes of chanting ‘oh god, oh god, oh god’ I decided to try make my way out to my bedroom. I knew there were no windows in the bedroom when I entered the bathroom and chances were, there still wasn’t going to be windows when I came out. My assumptions were correct. Like a spindly legged newly-born giraffe taking his first steps (more emphasis on the giraffe than the spindly legs please), I performed little tentative baby steps from the shower and out into the bathroom. I found the sink and felt my way along the wall until I came to the towel rail and then found the door and then the door handle. Feeling quite confident and cocky at this stage, I opened the door and stepped out. Somehow, between the time I entered the bathroom and exited the bathroom, a HUGE step had appeared … a huge step that I had not anticipated in my stepping out. I felt myself falling and falling and falling and my life flashed in front of me … I had flashbacks of myself in a pink baby-gro, as an awkward teenager, on my graduation day, on the OZ Bus …….and BANG, I hit the deck! I lay in complete darkness on the floor of the bedroom in a crumpled heap, at least three and a half foot below the bathroom floor level. Had I survived or was I dead? Could I hear angels singing in the background? Where were the fluffy clouds and cherubs playing harps? Were the shadows I could see the silhouettes of the pearly white gates? I lay there in a state of confusion until I heard three Nepalese male voices roaring at each other outside in the corridor – presumably looking for the candles or matches or the generator switch. With the newly acquired knowledge that I had survived the fall and was definitely alive, whilst stretched on the ground, I performed a full body check on myself – starting from wiggling my teeth and ensuring that at least a few of them were still embedded in my gums. I rotated my ankles, gyrated my hips, counted my fingers and toes, swiveled my neck, felt my vertebrae, circled my shoulders and then I tried the concussion test. Whilst, on the broad of my back, I held up three fingers in front of face and couldn’t see them. Then I held up two fingers and couldn’t see them either. It became strikingly apparent that the fall had left me blind.
‘Mary and Michael Joe, it was one of those unfortunate things, she hit the step with her head in the only place that could have left her without vision! I let out a bloodcurdling screech akin to Mary Ingles in Little House on the Prairie when she herself went up the ladder in Pa’s house and discovered that she had gone blind. Then I remembered that the lights were off and no matter how many fingers I held up, I wasn’t going to be able to see them. Blushing at my silliness, I hoisted myself up onto all fours and crawled over until I found the bed and gingerly stood up. I knew that I had carpet burn on my knees as I could feel the remnants of Persia’s finest carpet patterns across my patellae. Other than that, my other injuries were not life threatening. In complete darkness, I proceeded to try to find clothes in my wardrobe … any clothes .. and put them on in a manner that would allow me to go downstairs for dinner. Isn’t it quick that food came back onto the agenda once I discovered that I had a pulse? I had just made my best attempt at dressing myself when the electricity came back on. With the luxury of a 200 watt bulb, I checked that I had all garments on in the right way; I had another examination of my wounded knees, applied some TCP and plasters and limped downstairs. Before I left the room, I located my torch in the base of my rucksack and brought it with me. Never again will I have to go through the ordeal of power outages and being left in the dark … literally!
Anyway where were we? As those blogs are going on, I’m getting more and more distracted. Yes, I was telling you about Nepal and some of my wonderful days here. Let me tell you about Chitwan. We arrived in this mountain village and our accommodation consisted of timber huts in the middle of trees and a forest-like landscape. There is no internet, wifi, or mobile phone coverage so it really felt cut off from the rest of Nepal. The first morning we got up at 7.00 a.m., had some breakfast and walked down to the riverside where the entire group boarded canoes. With about seven people to each canoe, we were transported down the river by a Nepalese man who used a pole to navigate his way through the river. Our boat was fortunate enough to be the first to go through the undisturbed territory and throughout the ninety minutes, we were privileged to see the most wonderful array of flora and fauna. I kept thinking it would have been a bird-watchers paradise – every type of imaginable bird from Kingfishers, to Lapwings, to Fish and Serpent Eagles to Pheasants to Peacocks. (I’m a complete novice when it comes to ornithology – I’ve now exhausted my terminology). The guide had very good English and was able to point the places we should be looking in order to see the best views of the animals – monkeys, rhinos, deer, elephants and many many more species. When we arrived at the point of the river to get meet up with our fellow Oz Bus boaters, we discovered that the screeching we had heard earlier was when a crocodile had leaped from the water directly beside one of the other boats. They were all still quite shell-shocked when we spoke to them but totally exhilarated and believe me when I tell you that Mr. Crocodile is regularly mentioned when discussing Nepalese highlights. By the way his dimensions get bigger every time we’re re-told the story. In fact there’s a direct correlation between the size of the crocodile and the number of cocktails consumed – hope you’re not thinking there’s any signs of the green eyed monster in this blogger????
That same afternoon, we went out on a two hour jungle trek which rates as one of the highlights of the trip for me so far. We were separated into four different groups and prior to starting off, the guides instructed us on how to react if we came across different animals. For example, if we were charged by a rhino, we were to run in a zig zag shape as fast as our legs could carry us and up the nearest tree. But, if we were charged by a tiger, on no account should we run away from it. He told us that we have to face the tiger head on and APPROACH it and this might make it run away from you. (the ‘might’ didn’t convince me too much!). Being mindful that my attention to detail isn’t too great, I had visions of myself getting my new instructions all mixed up and sprinting towards the rhino and being impaled on his rhino horn or alternatively, running from the tiger when she makes her appearance and being mauled to death three paces into my zig-zag sprint. So you can imagine, I was a nervous wreck starting off on my jungle trek. The rain was absolutely torrential – in fact, in my whole life, I have never ever experienced two hours of rain like it. Whilst listening to the Head Guide giving the ‘you’re doing this at your own risk’ and ‘on no account will we pay for your body to be repatriated’ spiel (okay, he didn’t say EXACTLY that, but you get my drift!), out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the other Guides tucking their trousers inside their socks. I thought ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me’ and although having no idea why I was doing it, I proceeded to do the same with my own Adidas socks and my jungle walking trousers! I was willing to sacrifice looking like a complete eejit if it was going to protect me from something bad happening to my ankles. So we set off, and I have never felt more like David Livingston or Sir Francis Drake …. as I entered into the unchartered and highly dangerous territory …. a Guide to the front of our group of six people and a Guide to the back of the group … and me as good as ON the latter’s back!
Twenty minutes into the expedition, I realized why the Guides had tucked in their trousers … feckin’ leeches. The monsoon rain had brought them out in their millions. Now, I had never seen a leech before and I definitely didn’t realize that they attached themselves like limpets to your skin and if not removed within seconds, they make you bleed as their slimy little bodies gets fatter and fatter from your platelets and red and white blood cells. If there was any chance of spotting rare and exotic and wild animals, it was effectively nulled by the sounds of squealing and screeching every thirty seconds when someone felt themselves being bitten. The rare and exotic and wild animals were given more than sufficient time to be in the next province such was the extent of the howls of pain and the efforts required to remove the leech before one needed an emergency blood transfusion. However, one hour into the jungle trek, with both of the Guides eyes scanning the horizon for dangerous wildlife and our eyes scanning our legs for leeches, the fella at the front, practically falls to the floor on all fours, puts up his hand and whispers ‘SSSHHHH STOP’. He says ‘Mother Rhino and her baby – very dangerous combination… NOBODY MOVE!’ At the risk of succumbing to death by undiscovered leeches, I averted my eyes from my legs and peered through the bushes to try and see ‘the dangerous combination’. Through the lashing rain and the jungle terrain, I could just about see some shapes in the distance which in truth could have been a rose bush, a double decker bus or a mother and a baby rhino. He ushered us all to keep low down as she could charge at us – I was down so low that I was on eye level with his tucked in socks. All of a sudden he shouts ‘SHE’S SEEN US – RUN’. Well the six of us took off in a 100 metre sprint – in all different directions. I almost trampled the other Guide who was standing his ground with his big stick – in fact I used him as a human springboard to make it up the nearest tree. My heart was jumping in my chest as I hid my frame around the six inch wide baby sapling and I wondered did rhinos trample their victims to death or would I simply be gored to death by her ivory horn. I tried to calculate how many of my vital organs would be attached to her horn when she decided to remove it from my torso – I figured definitely the liver, kidneys, pancreas, at least one lung and maybe one if not both of the intestines. Next thing the Guide shouts ‘I think she’s gone, you can approach slowly’. He and his fellow Guide stood in a warrior like position brandishing their very primitive like sticks in the air (I would have been FAR happier ‘approaching slowly’ if both carried Kalashnikov rifles). Endangered species statistics mean very little to me if it comes to a choice between slapping an approaching rhino with your stick saying ‘you bold bold rhino’ or giving him a bullet straight between the eyes. Whether the rhino and her baby actually ever existed I’m really not that sure but did it make us forget about the leeches, without a doubt!
I haven’t even gotten to the elephant trekking or the bathing the elephants part of the day yet and I’ve ran out of blog and you’ve ran out of patience I’m sure. I’ll tell you, it was one long and eventful day. I think there’s quite a lengthy book written called ’61 hours’ and the full book is written around those 61 hours and nothing else. I think my ’24 hours in Chitwan’ bears a strong similarity – I’m only up to 1.00 p.m. and I have a load more activities to tell you about – maybe I’ll include them in another blog if I haven’t bored you to tears. If you see my bathing with the elephants description appearing in the Koh Samui beach blog, don’t be surprised – but for now I’ll spare you the details. We head back to India in two days time for three days and then we fly from Calcutta to Bangkok – so that’s probably when you’ll hear from me again. Till then, wishing you the very best and will chat soon. Debbie x (the Fearless Jungle Explorer).
With only two more nights remaining before we return to India, all of the group are making the very most of Nepal and Kathmandu where we are currently based. On a personal level, I have had some of the most enjoyable days of the Oz Bus trip so far and although we have been here over ten days, I feel that we have only scraped the surface as regards experiencing what Nepal has to offer. We had a twelve hour bus journey from Varanasi in India to Lumbini in Nepal and the border set-up was the most primitive I have ever seen. We arrived in darkness, parked on the side of the road in a very busy and dirty looking town and fought our way through mothers with babies and empty milk bottles, beggars and street hawkers. In my three minutes walk, I politely refused to purchase 72 Buddha’s, 45 Mount Everest’s, 24 plastic Taj Mahals, 18 Golden Temples and 3 babies.
There were two men working in what resembled a dilapidated hut which was called ‘Border Security, The Passport Office and Immigration Control’ – so with all those titles, they were undoubtedly very important men! In order to be processed, you had to walk over every type of animal shit on your route to their very important desk. They threw some forms at us which we filled in whilst using the outside walls for something to lean on and they then took our passports and brought them into what looked like a dark broom closet and closed the door. The thought entered my head that I would never see my little maroon EIRE passport again and that it was destined to a life in the cupboard buried in the mop bucket and the Domestos. (if that’s where it ended up, it DEFINITELY never would be seen again because from the look of the place, neither mop bucket or Domestos had EVER made it out of the closet either). Anyway, my fears were allayed when Important man No. 1 came out with the passports stamped and handed them to Important man No. 2 who flung them at us in a ‘take them to hell and get out off my sight’ gesture. We did exactly that, boarded the bus and drove to Lumbini which is a few kilometers inside the Nepalese border.
That night, for the first time since I boarded the bus in London, I was allocated my own bedroom. Because of the odd number of females on the bus, (as opposed to the odd females on the bus) each night there is one person who is granted the luxury of their own room. In fear of an Animal Farm type of revolt, when announcing who has their own room each night, Lana our Tour Leader has had to develop a watertight system that is 100% transparent and free from ambiguity. Therefore, this single room allocation is done alphabetically and most of the passengers had already experienced their ‘turn’, but being an R (Ruddy), it took 40 nights of sharing before it came to me. Unfortunately, the actual hotel we stayed in that night was a bit of a dive and the room was tiny and damp and dirty – but I absolutely loved it.
On entering the room, straight away I emptied my rucksack onto the bed and then folded each piece of clothing ever so neatly and placed each garment into the musty wardrobe whose door was hanging off. I used six of the six shelves – about one piece of clothing on each shelf! I then went into my little en suite bathroom and put every toiletry I possessed on top of the sink that I didn’t have to share with anyone. I walked to the door (one step actually) and stood and admired the magnificent sight that was my shampoo, my conditioner, my shower gel, my deodorant and my facecloth … STREWN over the bathroom. Out I came and threw myself onto the double bed (only after I had a look for insects and creepy crawlies). I contorted myself into every position possible and spent the next ten minutes deciding which way I’d lie when I first got into bed, which direction I’d then turn before I went to sleep and what way could I best utilize every inch of the double bed. When I tired of that game, I decided to have a shower before I went downstairs to dinner. I gathered my belongings close to me (my four bottles) and turned on the water and was experiencing my freezing cold but ’isn’t life wonderful’ shower when all of a sudden ….. complete darkness … a Lumbini power cut! I turned off the taps thinking ‘that might bring the lights back on’ (the mechanics of plumbing obviously isn’t my strong subject), but no, that didn’t work. I closed my eyes for thirty seconds … and reopened them … but surprisingly enough, that too didn’t work, it was still in darkness. All of a sudden, this single room lark didn’t seem quite as attractive a proposition after all. After five minutes of chanting ‘oh god, oh god, oh god’ I decided to try make my way out to my bedroom. I knew there were no windows in the bedroom when I entered the bathroom and chances were, there still wasn’t going to be windows when I came out. My assumptions were correct. Like a spindly legged newly-born giraffe taking his first steps (more emphasis on the giraffe than the spindly legs please), I performed little tentative baby steps from the shower and out into the bathroom. I found the sink and felt my way along the wall until I came to the towel rail and then found the door and then the door handle. Feeling quite confident and cocky at this stage, I opened the door and stepped out. Somehow, between the time I entered the bathroom and exited the bathroom, a HUGE step had appeared … a huge step that I had not anticipated in my stepping out. I felt myself falling and falling and falling and my life flashed in front of me … I had flashbacks of myself in a pink baby-gro, as an awkward teenager, on my graduation day, on the OZ Bus …….and BANG, I hit the deck! I lay in complete darkness on the floor of the bedroom in a crumpled heap, at least three and a half foot below the bathroom floor level. Had I survived or was I dead? Could I hear angels singing in the background? Where were the fluffy clouds and cherubs playing harps? Were the shadows I could see the silhouettes of the pearly white gates? I lay there in a state of confusion until I heard three Nepalese male voices roaring at each other outside in the corridor – presumably looking for the candles or matches or the generator switch. With the newly acquired knowledge that I had survived the fall and was definitely alive, whilst stretched on the ground, I performed a full body check on myself – starting from wiggling my teeth and ensuring that at least a few of them were still embedded in my gums. I rotated my ankles, gyrated my hips, counted my fingers and toes, swiveled my neck, felt my vertebrae, circled my shoulders and then I tried the concussion test. Whilst, on the broad of my back, I held up three fingers in front of face and couldn’t see them. Then I held up two fingers and couldn’t see them either. It became strikingly apparent that the fall had left me blind.
‘Mary and Michael Joe, it was one of those unfortunate things, she hit the step with her head in the only place that could have left her without vision! I let out a bloodcurdling screech akin to Mary Ingles in Little House on the Prairie when she herself went up the ladder in Pa’s house and discovered that she had gone blind. Then I remembered that the lights were off and no matter how many fingers I held up, I wasn’t going to be able to see them. Blushing at my silliness, I hoisted myself up onto all fours and crawled over until I found the bed and gingerly stood up. I knew that I had carpet burn on my knees as I could feel the remnants of Persia’s finest carpet patterns across my patellae. Other than that, my other injuries were not life threatening. In complete darkness, I proceeded to try to find clothes in my wardrobe … any clothes .. and put them on in a manner that would allow me to go downstairs for dinner. Isn’t it quick that food came back onto the agenda once I discovered that I had a pulse? I had just made my best attempt at dressing myself when the electricity came back on. With the luxury of a 200 watt bulb, I checked that I had all garments on in the right way; I had another examination of my wounded knees, applied some TCP and plasters and limped downstairs. Before I left the room, I located my torch in the base of my rucksack and brought it with me. Never again will I have to go through the ordeal of power outages and being left in the dark … literally!
Anyway where were we? As those blogs are going on, I’m getting more and more distracted. Yes, I was telling you about Nepal and some of my wonderful days here. Let me tell you about Chitwan. We arrived in this mountain village and our accommodation consisted of timber huts in the middle of trees and a forest-like landscape. There is no internet, wifi, or mobile phone coverage so it really felt cut off from the rest of Nepal. The first morning we got up at 7.00 a.m., had some breakfast and walked down to the riverside where the entire group boarded canoes. With about seven people to each canoe, we were transported down the river by a Nepalese man who used a pole to navigate his way through the river. Our boat was fortunate enough to be the first to go through the undisturbed territory and throughout the ninety minutes, we were privileged to see the most wonderful array of flora and fauna. I kept thinking it would have been a bird-watchers paradise – every type of imaginable bird from Kingfishers, to Lapwings, to Fish and Serpent Eagles to Pheasants to Peacocks. (I’m a complete novice when it comes to ornithology – I’ve now exhausted my terminology). The guide had very good English and was able to point the places we should be looking in order to see the best views of the animals – monkeys, rhinos, deer, elephants and many many more species. When we arrived at the point of the river to get meet up with our fellow Oz Bus boaters, we discovered that the screeching we had heard earlier was when a crocodile had leaped from the water directly beside one of the other boats. They were all still quite shell-shocked when we spoke to them but totally exhilarated and believe me when I tell you that Mr. Crocodile is regularly mentioned when discussing Nepalese highlights. By the way his dimensions get bigger every time we’re re-told the story. In fact there’s a direct correlation between the size of the crocodile and the number of cocktails consumed – hope you’re not thinking there’s any signs of the green eyed monster in this blogger????
That same afternoon, we went out on a two hour jungle trek which rates as one of the highlights of the trip for me so far. We were separated into four different groups and prior to starting off, the guides instructed us on how to react if we came across different animals. For example, if we were charged by a rhino, we were to run in a zig zag shape as fast as our legs could carry us and up the nearest tree. But, if we were charged by a tiger, on no account should we run away from it. He told us that we have to face the tiger head on and APPROACH it and this might make it run away from you. (the ‘might’ didn’t convince me too much!). Being mindful that my attention to detail isn’t too great, I had visions of myself getting my new instructions all mixed up and sprinting towards the rhino and being impaled on his rhino horn or alternatively, running from the tiger when she makes her appearance and being mauled to death three paces into my zig-zag sprint. So you can imagine, I was a nervous wreck starting off on my jungle trek. The rain was absolutely torrential – in fact, in my whole life, I have never ever experienced two hours of rain like it. Whilst listening to the Head Guide giving the ‘you’re doing this at your own risk’ and ‘on no account will we pay for your body to be repatriated’ spiel (okay, he didn’t say EXACTLY that, but you get my drift!), out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the other Guides tucking their trousers inside their socks. I thought ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me’ and although having no idea why I was doing it, I proceeded to do the same with my own Adidas socks and my jungle walking trousers! I was willing to sacrifice looking like a complete eejit if it was going to protect me from something bad happening to my ankles. So we set off, and I have never felt more like David Livingston or Sir Francis Drake …. as I entered into the unchartered and highly dangerous territory …. a Guide to the front of our group of six people and a Guide to the back of the group … and me as good as ON the latter’s back!
Twenty minutes into the expedition, I realized why the Guides had tucked in their trousers … feckin’ leeches. The monsoon rain had brought them out in their millions. Now, I had never seen a leech before and I definitely didn’t realize that they attached themselves like limpets to your skin and if not removed within seconds, they make you bleed as their slimy little bodies gets fatter and fatter from your platelets and red and white blood cells. If there was any chance of spotting rare and exotic and wild animals, it was effectively nulled by the sounds of squealing and screeching every thirty seconds when someone felt themselves being bitten. The rare and exotic and wild animals were given more than sufficient time to be in the next province such was the extent of the howls of pain and the efforts required to remove the leech before one needed an emergency blood transfusion. However, one hour into the jungle trek, with both of the Guides eyes scanning the horizon for dangerous wildlife and our eyes scanning our legs for leeches, the fella at the front, practically falls to the floor on all fours, puts up his hand and whispers ‘SSSHHHH STOP’. He says ‘Mother Rhino and her baby – very dangerous combination… NOBODY MOVE!’ At the risk of succumbing to death by undiscovered leeches, I averted my eyes from my legs and peered through the bushes to try and see ‘the dangerous combination’. Through the lashing rain and the jungle terrain, I could just about see some shapes in the distance which in truth could have been a rose bush, a double decker bus or a mother and a baby rhino. He ushered us all to keep low down as she could charge at us – I was down so low that I was on eye level with his tucked in socks. All of a sudden he shouts ‘SHE’S SEEN US – RUN’. Well the six of us took off in a 100 metre sprint – in all different directions. I almost trampled the other Guide who was standing his ground with his big stick – in fact I used him as a human springboard to make it up the nearest tree. My heart was jumping in my chest as I hid my frame around the six inch wide baby sapling and I wondered did rhinos trample their victims to death or would I simply be gored to death by her ivory horn. I tried to calculate how many of my vital organs would be attached to her horn when she decided to remove it from my torso – I figured definitely the liver, kidneys, pancreas, at least one lung and maybe one if not both of the intestines. Next thing the Guide shouts ‘I think she’s gone, you can approach slowly’. He and his fellow Guide stood in a warrior like position brandishing their very primitive like sticks in the air (I would have been FAR happier ‘approaching slowly’ if both carried Kalashnikov rifles). Endangered species statistics mean very little to me if it comes to a choice between slapping an approaching rhino with your stick saying ‘you bold bold rhino’ or giving him a bullet straight between the eyes. Whether the rhino and her baby actually ever existed I’m really not that sure but did it make us forget about the leeches, without a doubt!
I haven’t even gotten to the elephant trekking or the bathing the elephants part of the day yet and I’ve ran out of blog and you’ve ran out of patience I’m sure. I’ll tell you, it was one long and eventful day. I think there’s quite a lengthy book written called ’61 hours’ and the full book is written around those 61 hours and nothing else. I think my ’24 hours in Chitwan’ bears a strong similarity – I’m only up to 1.00 p.m. and I have a load more activities to tell you about – maybe I’ll include them in another blog if I haven’t bored you to tears. If you see my bathing with the elephants description appearing in the Koh Samui beach blog, don’t be surprised – but for now I’ll spare you the details. We head back to India in two days time for three days and then we fly from Calcutta to Bangkok – so that’s probably when you’ll hear from me again. Till then, wishing you the very best and will chat soon. Debbie x (the Fearless Jungle Explorer).
Debbie! That was brilliant! I cried with the laugh. I can see a best selling book in your future based on your experiences in the wilds of the OZ bus!! Marian
ReplyDeleteYou are a funny,funny woman.
ReplyDeleteWell written as usual, well done Debbie xxx
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing, well written story. We can't wait for your next blog. You keep us both laughing.
ReplyDeleteLoving the blog Deb.. Such a tonic!! Can't wait for the next one.. Laura xx
ReplyDeleteHi Debs, just found out about ur antics, sounds fab, have great luck & fun - brendan m
ReplyDeleteOh Debbie, your blog is wonderful!! You've survived first rats, now leeches, can't wait to hear what next? Joanna xx
ReplyDelete