Nepal

After peaceful, untouristy Bhutan, arriving in Kathmandu was total American overload. In the neighborhood of Thamel, there are more Americans (and other tourists) than Nepalese. Hundreds of internet cafes filled with tourists, happy hour, 2 for 1 beers, pizza, Diet Coke - all the other American product brands. We stayed for a few nights at the Kathmandu Garden House and headed down to Royal Chitwan National Park in search of tigers and rhinos and sloth bears (although we must admit we don't have a clue what a sloth bear is).

In the town of Sauraha - across the river from Chitwan - we checked into the Annapurna View Guest House. We sat down with the guide and began to discuss our plans to see the park. We had hoped to do a walk in the jungle, an elephant ride in the jungle, and something called "elephant bath" (the details of which we were unclear on). Having gained experience walking amongst the animals in the African bush we felt no fear anticipating a walk among the carnivorous tiger and sloth bear or the charging rhino. Our guide quickly changed that by giving us the pre-walk safety lecture. He advised that if a rhino began charging us, we should climb at least 7 feet high up a tree, and if there was no tree, we should hide and remain very still in hopes that the rhino would not see us. No problem. He then moved on to survival skills useful for tiger and sloth bear encounters. If we should be chased or attacked by either of these creatures "namaste, there is nothing that can be done." Dana inquired as to the possible use of a flare gun (like in Africa) to scare the animal. Our guide said he would be armed with a stick, but it was useless in the event of an attack. Dana became quite alarmed and asked for the statistics on human fatalities. Our guide responded "do you have the Rough Guides Nepal guidebook? their stats are bollocks!! 150 people aren't really killed in Chitwan each year, it's more like 60!" Sixty!!! As if that's a drop in the bucket.

In the end, we decided that it was statistically unlikely that we would be eaten by a tiger, so the next day we headed out for our jungle walk. We were accompanied by 2 trained and trustworthy 75 lb guides armed with sticks. At this time of year, the grasses in Chitwan are 20 feet high, making it very difficult to spot the animals. So we pushed our way through the grasses, pulling leeches off our clothes, hoping that we'd spot the animals before they spotted us. We hiked for several hours and saw monkeys, deer, crocodiles (huge ones!), and birds, but alas none of the dangerous three. Our guides decided to break for lunch, and thought it would be best if we sat in the middle of the trail so we could watch for animals crossing it. (Dana questioned the sensibility of situating ourselves in an area the animals have easy access to, taking out tasty smelling food to lure the animals close, and then sitting down so we can't run or hide should they spot us. Sitting ducks!) Our guides said "no problem, we are trained professionals, we will hear the animals long before they get too close." So, surrounded on 2 sides by 20 foot grass, we sit down - prey for the tigers. As we are eating, Dana says she hears something in the grass which the guides dismiss as wind and continue eating. Dana watches in the direction of the noise, and out of the grass comes a rhino (somehow our trained and trustworthy guides missed this 2-ton creature crashing onto the trail). Dana leapt behind the guide and we watched as the rhino peacefully lumbered across the trail. It was incredible to see this enormous beast from on foot. Our guides were delighted with our luck and said if was sat quietly in that spot for a few hours maybe we would be lucky enough to see a tiger or sloth bear. Dana suggested we try to see the carnivores from elephant-back the next day and we continued our walk. Luck was on our side, because not long after we came across another rhino. This time it took off at top speed through the jungle and one guide and Dale began chasing it while Dana waited with the other guide. (Seriously, if a 2 ton animal armed with a giant horn is running to get away from you, is it smart to chase it?) The rhino escaped and we finished up our walk watching a large troupe of monkeys at play.

On Thanksgiving day we arose at dawn to ride an elephant, Laximi, into the jungle in search of more animals. The morning was quite foggy giving it a mysterious air. It was very peaceful to enter the jungle atop one of its animals. The animals who would normally be scared off by people are relaxed around the elephant. Immediately upon entering the jungle we saw a mother and baby rhino. It was breathtaking seeing them from so close. We enjoyed our ride and later in the morning we went with our elephant (bareback this time) to the river for her bath. We had no idea what to expect, but as we approached the river we began to suspect that we would be bathing with Laximi. She plunged into the river, and as soon as she reached a deep part she dumped us off into the water. Our guide told us to climb back on and as soon as we did she would dump us off the other way. Our guide then had Dana practicing various acrobatic stunts with the elephant - Dana had some difficulty remaining balanced on the elephants trunk so has ruled out making a career of it. Dried off and headed to a roof-top cafe for our Thanksgiving Day dinner of veggie burgers and french fries.

From Chitwan, we headed up to the town of Pokhara to meet up with our trekking guide, Hiran Magar. We had begun making plans with Hiran about a year ago on the recommendation of another couple who had trekked with him. (He was organized and diligent - and even had his friend pick us up at the airport with flowers when we first arrived in Nepal). Hiran took us to Hotel Barahi in Pokhara for our last night of semi-luxury before beginning our trek. The next morning we headed to the airport with Hiran and our porter, Alok (he was to carry our backpack). We must note at this time, that our porter and guide each appeared to be about half the size of Dale. As it was important to Dale to confirm this, while at the airport Dale, Hiran and Alok all weighed themselves. With Hiran at 80 lbs and Alok at 90 lbs we were stunned to realize that 2 Nepalese=1 Dale. Dale began to feel foolish about having the petite Alok carry his bag, but Dana insisted that he was probably strong for his size. We waited in the airport for our flight and after all the other flights were cancelled due to wind, our flight took off. The plane was so small and the flight so bumpy that we were amazed to arrive safely at our destination, Jomsom, 15 minutes after take-off. Our plan was to do the 10-day Jomsom Trek in the Annapurna region - beginning in Jomsom and ending in Naya Pul.

Day 1: Easy 3-4 hour trek along level river bed to village of Kagbeni where we stayed in our first tea house. The warm sunny day was deceiving - as soon as the sun set it was freezing up in the mountains!

Day 2: More difficult 4 hour uphill trek to village of Muktinath. Visited a temple at the top of the mountain and cleansed ourselves with the holy water from the 107 fountains there. (Hopefully we're sin-free now and can continue with a clean slate!) We stayed at the Shree Muktinath Tea House which had a large spread of meat drying on a platform outside our room. ( We had just been told about how historically, in some parts of Nepal, people chop up their dead relatives and hope that a bird will eat them. If the birds eat the relative this means something good, if not something bad.) We are still not sure whether or not this was the meat of a relative or a goat, but no birds ate it so bad news for the family!

Day 3: Trekked 28 km in about 6 hours to the town of Marpha. The trek was mostly downhill, but the wind was so strong it was difficult to walk. Marpha is famous for it's apple products (pie, struedel, crumble, pancakes, etc). We stayed at the Paradise Tea House and enjoyed the most delicious chocolate-apple-crumble.

Day 4: Trekked 21 km in about 5 hours to the village of Ghasa. Stopped about halfway for a traditional dal bhat lunch (lentils and rice) in Kalapani at a rooftop restaurant. On this day, our feet really started to hurt and we started looking at passing donkeys for a possible ride to our next destination. We had to cross several unsteady steel suspension bridges swinging hundreds of feet above raging rapids - very scary! The trail gets green for the first time as we enter the pine forest region. We stayed at the Florida Guest House and rested our aching feet.

Day 5: Trekked 15 km in about 6 hours to Tatopani (the name means "hot water"). The trail becomes increasingly lush, and we pass loads of donkeys and porters. Today we are in pain and when we arrive in Tatopani we decide to remain for 2 nights to allow our muscles some time to recover. Tatopani is the perfect place for a long rest stop as it has the biggest selection of and best tasting food available on the Jomsom Trek (aka The Apple Pie Trek). The bakery selection is particularly good. We stayed at the Dhaulagiri Guest House and were quite gluttonous for 48 hours.

Day 6: Not much to say about our day of rest other than we recovered our strength by consuming the delicious combination of apple pie washed down with beer.

Day 7: The really hard part of the trek begins today - straight uphill for 12 km (800 m up). It took us about 3 hours to get to Sikha where we crashed at the Dhaulagiri View Guest House. (Note: all the villages along the trek had hotels with the same name - Dhaulagiri was a particularly popular name.)

Day 8: Straight uphill again for 7 km (about 700 m up) to Ghorepani in about 3 hours. Very strenuous! We stayed at the Super View Hotel which actually did have an amazing view of the Himalayas. We were so high up at this point that we were above the clouds! The Super View was packed with about 100 trekkers - and being that all the walls are made of plywood we got real close and personal with them.

Day 9: Today we were supposed to get up at 4 am for a pre-sunset hike up to the top of Poon Hill, but we figured who the hell wants to be on Poon Hill for sunset when we have a perfectly good view of it from our room. So we did a 7 am hike up to Poon Hill and passed all those silly people who did the 4 am hike on their way down. We were on top of the world - with an excellent view of the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna mountain ranges.

Day 10: Today we walk 8 km downhill (about 3,000 stone steps and 1000 m down) for about 3 hours to Ulleri. It is very lush here and we see some langur monkeys in the trees. We stayed at the Namaste Lodge - our most basic accomodation yet. It was so cold that Dana was in her sleeping bag in bed by 2 pm just to stay warm. At this point we were ready for a return to the comfort of a budget hotel in the city.

Day 11: A few hours walk through villages to get to the town of Naya Pul where there is a real road and we can take a taxi back to Pokhara. After 10 days of dal bhat and apple pie, we were psyched to head straight to the delicious Italian restaurant, Cafe Concerta.

We headed by bus back to Kathmandu where we spent 4 days inhaling the smog waiting for our flight to Calcutta.

Nepal Pics! (click picture for full-sized version)

Royal Chitwan National Park: Closest we got to seeing a tiger / close encounters with a crocodile