Running into rhino's and the tiger that turned out to be a tree trunk!

After my New Year trip to Pokhara and Kathmandu it was not long to wait for my next adventure, a trip to Bardia National Park. This inevitably involved another long bus journey though – I generally quite enjoy the first six hours of the bus journeys – it is the last few hours which are a killer!!!

I visited Bardia with Janake and Abhi, from my home-stay family. We set off early on the short 2 hour trip to Butwal before changing onto the bus to take us to Bardia. It was a very different journey though from Butwal as we headed West along the Southern and mostly flat part of Nepal, known as the Terai region. It was getting dark by the time we reached Bardia and we then had a short ½ hour journey to Sonja’s home-stay, though long enough to get a puncture! We soon arrived at Sonja and her partner Bouddi’s new home-stay though (we were their first ever guests!) and were warmly welcomed by them and Bouddi’s two excitable but adorable children, Usha and Sandez. We had dinner that evening sat round a campfire and I had my first taste of Rice Beer which I love!!! 

The next morning started very foggy as we had expected but to our surprise and delight it turned into a beautiful blue sky day (the area at this time of year is often plagued by a lingering, cold fog). Abhi and I borrowed two old bicycles with the old fashioned handlebars and set off for a short exploration before we returned back and then took Usha and Sandez to school on the back of the bikes. The area is really beautiful and so different to other parts of Nepal. There were lots of other people on bicycles taking their children to school and it was a really lovely cycle through farmland and picturesque villages. The houses almost look like they are a film set or set up for a picture postcard  – there are old tools scattered around and corn drying in the sun and sometimes a few chickens, goats or a buffalo munching on some grass; but it is all real and it’s just how it is.

Abhi and I take Usha and Sandez to school.

 

Cycling is very popular in Bardia which, unlike Tansen, is very flat.

When we got back we visited another home-stay as Janake was interested to see some others, as a member of the home-stay committee. The design of the houses is really amazing, there is a wooden frame coated with a clay like mud which hardens to form the walls. They decorate the walls with lots of carvings of rhino’s, elephants and other animals and sometimes there are small pieces of mirror embedded into the clay to form decorative patterns. 

Our next trip and the bit I was excited about was a walk into the community forest where wild animals roam freely. We were given a stick each though told that this would be fairly useless against a tiger, rhino or wild elephant. The stick can be used to beat on the floor to scare animals off though I wouldn’t want to bet on it!!!

Frightened expressions as we enter the jungle!!

 It was amazing to be walking through the undergrowth knowing that there was a very real possibility that there were wild animals around which realistically were far more likely to see us than they were to see them, particularly in the case of the tigers. Not long after we saw what looked to be fairly fresh footprints of a tiger and also seemingly fresh droppings. That only heightened the excitement though we carried on for a while longer without seeing anything. It wasn’t too long though before we heard some shouting which apparently came from villagers on the other side of the forest. At first this seemed to be a real annoyance but luckily for us it was people who were there cutting the grass and were actually trying to shoo off some rhino which were munching away there. This pushed the rhino towards us and forced us to climb a tree. Rhino’s have notoriously bad eye sight and we didn’t want them charging blindly towards us. From our vantage point in the tree we had a close, if a little obscured, view of three rhino’s approaching. We watched for a good 20 - 30 minutes as a mother and her two offspring, one a small baby, another rather bigger, grazed in the long grass all around us. They can’t have been more than 15 metres away and at one point one of them looked up and stared intently as us before getting back to its eating. We were sure to be absolutely silent throughout and had to ignore the growing feeling of cramp that comes from being in an awkward position halfway up a tree, unable to move! It was a truly awesome experience to be so near to such big and powerful creatures knowing that if they went for us we would be in real trouble!

For such a large animal the rhino is amazingly well camouflaged (top left). Monkey in the trees (top right) and a close up look at the rhino (bottom).

 Thankfully we didn’t have any trouble and they skulked off into the undergrowth and we jumped down from the tree and made off in the other direction. A short time later we were back at the jeep and went off to the nearby village for some lunch. It really had been quite a surreal experience. 

A delicious lunch after our jungle adventure.

After some lunch Abhi and I went for another short cycle ride to explore the village before we got back in the jeep and drove through a track in the forest back to Sonja’s village. 

An elephant returning to the stables with it's dinner.

We stopped off at an elephant breeding sanctuary on the way back to get a close up look at some of the elephants. Having seen the rhino’s in the wild it was a little sad to see the elephants in captivity, though they are there because they have either been ill-treated or orphaned from poaching, which only a few years ago was rife and is still something the army guard against. The elephants are let out into the park each day to graize and from all accounts are well treated. 

With the sun setting it was a really beautiful walk back through the village towards Sonja and Bouddi’s house. Having been down by the river earlier I thought it would be a good place to watch the sunset so Abhi and I grabbed the bikes and Usha and Sandez jumped on the back wanting to go too. We cycled as fast as we could down to the riverbank trying to beat the setting sun. We got there a moment too late but the sky was still a beautiful colour and it was very peaceful so it was still worth the trip. We were looking out across the river which marks the boundry of the national park hoping that some animals might emerge from the other side to take an evening drink. 

Beautiful Bardia.

Suddenly we thought we had had some unbelievable luck when Usha shouted out tiger and pointed to the the tree line on the other bank. There, keeping quite still, there was a big cat which seemed to be staring right at us! I grabbed my camera and tried to take some photo’s but even on full zoom it was difficult to make out if it was indeed a tiger. For a couple of minutes we wathced but after a while it became cleared that having still not moved an inch, it was, in fact, a very tiger shaped, tree trunk!!!

It was a little dissapointing though also quite funny and I had about 8 different pictures of this tree trunk which we had all let our imagination believe was a tiger…maybe next time!!!

Top: Abhi and Usha, Middle:Buffalo being herded home and bottom: Sandez, Abhi and Usha.

First sight of the tiger...

...which on closer inspection was nothing more than a tree trunk!

That evening we again sat round a camp fire eating the delicious chicken that Bouddi cooked on the open fire. We started to make some plans for the next day – I was hoping to go into the national park, hopeful that I might see something more exciting than a tree trunk! Unfortunately though our plans for the next day were literally washed away by the torrential rain that persisted all morning and for a couple of hours past lunchtime. We moved to another lodge which Janaki wanted to visit but spent quite some time peering out at the rain and playing some cards. 

Top: Myself, Janaki and Abhi keeping warm around the fire. Bottom: Sonja (far left) and Bouddi (far right) prepare the feast.

 

Rain changed our plans on our last day - we were very lucky though to get one good day at this time of year.

Eventually it did clear up enough to venture out and we visited another lodge, an eco lodge. It was interesting to see and great to see that there are some people here who have an understanding of the environment and the need to protect it. 

Abhi, Janaki and I went out also to visit the crocodile breeding centre which although doing some positive work was a rather grim set of enclosures but there was also lots of monkies roaming freely in the trees which I always enjoy seeing. The final evening was again a nice evening, keeping warm around the campfire, eating good food and getting better aquainted with the rice beer!

The next morning it was a very early start before a long, 10 hour, bus journey back to Tansen. Bardia was definitely worth visiting though. We counted orselves very lucky having had one glorious day of sunshine when the area, at this time of the year, is often enveloped in a cold fog that lingers about for much of the day. I hope, though I’m not sure f time will permit it, to come back here and continue looking out for those elusive tigers. The people, the villages and of course the rhino’s, though made it a really memorable trip. 

Will write again soon!

Andy. x