Chitwan - boy

Beware Nepalese guides bearing sticks antagonising rhino. We should have had our first clue when our main guide tried to provoke the first rhino into standing by rustling the leaves with his stick. Alarm bells should have sounded when, on doing the same thing to the second rhino, he jumped up saying "don't run!" What the..?! Should I run? The area of jungle we were walking through at the time was thick woodland (rather than canopied rainforest) and the previous rhino was almost well hidden. This time, peering knee height through the foliage I could possibly see something unmoving and grey but I wasn't sure how far it was. When the front-guide rustled his stick I thought it had merely stood up, not that it was already standing and had actually snorted at the noise he made. Our front-guide then seemed to want to flank the rhino, but I wanted to be sure of which way it was facing before moving so held back. Sounds of trampling the undergrowth and branches snapping shortly followed and there was a palpable sense of urgency in the air from both guides. The direction of the sounds were clear enough but I had no idea how close or how fast and was acutely aware that this was not ideal and felt extremely uneasy. Crouching down to try and get a better look wasn't an option now; as was moving to our front-guide who was now too far away; it was too late to go in the opposite direction so I stayed put near a tree with C and our rear-guide. The latter was fortunately watching our backs since a split second later I saw what he had obviously been watching the whole time, the charging rhino. As it brushed past our tree he shuffled both of us around keeping the tree between us and the rhino. The rhino kept on running. "Yeah you run bitch" I didn't yell just in case it decided to wheel around for another go. It didn't. Phew.

 

As the guides showed us the quickest way out the park we passed some tiger tracks made the evening before and we were quite happy to not follow them. At the start of our walk we had both thought how not seeing any game wouldn't be so bad since we felt a little exposed in the areas of long grass even with our guides, their fifteen days training and their long sticks. They seemed to enjoy rhino baiting however and I would probably hazard a guess that they've pissed off more than two rhinos in this park. Note to self: need to fine-tune my gung-ho guide indicator.

 

After returning a little shaken up and slightly euphoric at having survived in one piece with something interesting to write about we decided to cool off with some elephant bathing. C was obsessed by this and indeed it was a fun experience once I got over the irrational fear that this five ton (surprisingly hairy) beast wasn't going to go mental and throw me off on land but in the river and that when it did it wouldn't roll on top of me. It must have been fun because we went back for more the following day, though the second time I chose a happier elephant.

 

The safari on elephant back was an incredible experience, though four people per elephant (plus the elephant handler) was a little uncomfortable. However, the rhinos and other animals were totally unphased by our presence - due to the elephants - so we were literally standing next them while they ate. The jeep safari on the other hand (where they managed to squeeze ten people in a jeep made for six) did phase one of the rhinos we spotted but at least it didn't charge, even though the driver did his best to goad it by revving the engines. I think I see a pattern here with Nepalese safaris.