Chitwan: Symphony of the Jungle

Grazing away, the one-horned rhino

We, a tour group of one score from India, embark on our journey by road from Kathmandu to Chitwan (Chitwan meaning in the heart of the jungle) in the early hours of the morning. Our path, through rolling hills and snaking rivers that run dry in vast patches, exposing the rocks beneath them, is veiled by a dense December fog. Needless to say, our progress is slow, but the prospect of getting close to the wild, keeps our spirits alive. Krishna, the chauffer of our luxury coach, cautiously manoeuvres the twists and turns of the hilly terrain that is ridden with traffic, particularly of trucks that at best look like Fisher Price toys with dim headlights that struggle to beam through the white-grey drape of nature. Our vehicle cuts through swathes of rippling golden sunflower and mustard fields, interspersed in places with banana and paddy plants as we approach our destination, the little village of Sauraha which lies on the northern bank of Rapti River. It is close to noon and the sun has braved the fog and little wisps of clouds to emerge on the horizon, turning the landscape to melds of emerald and golden in the swaying fields of sunflower and mustard.

Resort Jungle Nepal where we are booked is set in lush surroundings and is only one of several lodges and resorts that line the main street of Sauraha village, roughly 2km from Chitwan National Park. While we warm to the ambient sounds provided by unseen birds and buzzing bees, we are a trifle apprehensive about the abounding beehives on trees that shade our resort rooms, and on the ceilings of the corridors as well. Our fears are soon put to rest by an amused staff who profess that stings from these ‘harmless’ creatures are far and few as long as we stay clear of teasing them! Well, I find this to be true during our three-day stay in Chitwan; there is ample harmony between man and the swarming ‘buzzes’ here.

The resort rooms are standard and basic, but comfortable. There is always an issue with current supply, in Chitwan, as much as in the rest of Nepal we learn, with supplies getting cut off for a couple of hours every few hours! No wonder then, the candles, matchbox and even a torch in our room! Of course we do have our initial battle with the room heater and geyser which are stubborn in their refusal to oblige us with the much-needed warmth. However, the resort’s very hospitable and genial staff make sure to set these gadgets right, so that, come night, we are able to snuggle cozily under our blankets after a hot bath and be lulled to blissful sleep by the warm waves from the heater.

Following a sumptuous vegetarian lunch that seems a vague mixture of Indian and Nepali preparations, we wend our way to the Chitwan Elephant Festival grounds to witness the 6th Elephant Race 2009, an annual event that is part of the three-day festival. We walk through a Tharu village, typically comprising the traditional frame homes, plastered with mud and dung. Ducks in threes and fours are happily dawdling around, holding their own personal conferences, clucking every now and then, as if to negate a point. No wonder then, duck eggs and duck meat seem popular in Sauraha and a few non-vegetarian members from our group are rather excited at the prospect of relishing preparations made from this aquatic avian.

Mouth wide open to grab his prey

I presume and rightly so, that most of these villagers must be subsistence farmers who supplement their incomes by doubling up as guides for visiting tourists. We notice that many of the village households draw upon biogas to meet their electricity needs. Our guide Bahadur tells us that with the establishment of the Park, villagers have been finding it difficult to gather wood for fuel, and have also lost out on fishing. He reveals, a like sheepishly that sometimes the villagers do sneak into the forbidden territory to indulge in these activities!

As we amble along the village alley towards the Festival grounds, we are greeted by bedecked elephants that trundle along, returning from their day’s races. We fall in step with some of the locals who converse in fluent Hindi with us. They tell us that it is routine to see the pachyderm on the streets of Chitwan because most of them are owned and maintained by the various resorts in Sauraha and also trained to compete in the races. The one kilometer stretch to the arena wears a festive look with Tharu dancers entertaining visitors with a mock waltz here, a little jig there, as they walk back from the venue, having given their performances there.

There is cheer and bonhomie everywhere and the Festival grounds pulsates with activity as the locals sell an assortment of wares from colorful stalls, kiosks, mobile carts and cycles. We soak up the color and gaiety of the carnival as we step in and out of the various stalls. We are especially drawn to the stall displaying paintings and artifacts made from elephant dung paper. Om Rizal who is one of a few hundreds of artisans involved in making the paper explains at length the process. Rizal narrates, “An elephant eats about 250 kg of food, mainly rice, digests only 50% of this and produces around 50 kg of dung a day, much of which is fibre, useful in making handcrafted paper. A third of the process of making paper is completed in the belly of the elephant and the resulting fibrous dung that is 100% bacteria-free, is then washed and boiled for 4-5 hours, following which it is bleached, spun and cut to fibers. The processed dung is thus cast into spherical balls of equal size and sifted evenly into frames, dried in the sun and then smoothened over with sand paper. The readied paper is then crafted to writing and drawing paper, and making several artifacts that include lanterns, notebooks, jewel boxes, visiting cards, card holders, photo frames et al.” Roughly eight kilos of paper is obtained from ten kilos of dung, adds Rizal.

Reflection

The project that is a little over two years old in Chitwan, is generating employment, and adding to the incomes of the marginal locals. At the same time it is helping a cleaner environment, making productive use of elephant waste. The ethnic and attractive products find great appeal especially with environment-conscious tourists who buy them as souvenirs, says Bahadur.

Having browsed around the stalls, we move on to the race arena. We observe that the 200 metre dash is organized not for elephants alone but other mammalian order too – horses and ox carts – events which we had hitherto not witnessed anywhere, even in their most rustic form. The atmosphere is electrifying as the energies of the natives are immensely charged and there is much shouting and cheering as the animals and carts take their positions at the starting line. We watch in awe as the heavy beasts vie with each other for the top position, mirthfully ridden upon by their jockeys.

A slothful, serpentine fog that is slight and gauzy envelops us as we return to the resort. It is well past dusk and with dinner partaken, we warm ourselves around a mildly crackling bonfire. We keep feeding the flare with puffed rice, if only to hear its rhythmic crackle. In the warm glow of the fire we take turns to pitch in yarn, some rib-tickling, yet others, tales of adventure from an ex-Indian Air Force personnel Mr.Shah who we have, by unspoken concurrence, chosen as leader of our group for the duration of the tour. At the stroke of midnight we repair for the day, ready to take on a full-day outing the next day, the most exciting feature of which is going to be the jungle safari followed by tracking down gharials and marsh muggers in the waters of the Rapti.

We wake up to the all-too familiar rhapsody of the morning rituals in the early hours of dawn as attendants get busy swishing brooms and splash water to groom the resort precincts for another new day. It is well past eight as we finish breakfast and even as I press my face hard against the window pane to catch a glimpse of the giant orange on the horizon, I see nothing but a heavy blanket of fog that seems all-pervading. Time and space melt away and I am no longer an adult squinting across a chasm of years of fading memories, but an anxious kid who is wondering if the fog would play foul to disallow the jungle safari that is scheduled for nine in the morning, barely an hour away!

A very positive Bahadur, however, takes the call and we bundle into the waiting jeeps to proceed to the Chitwan National Park area for the chief focus of our tour. The sheer thrill of experiencing the rhythm of the bush, the rituals of the wildlife and absorbing the variegated surroundings and landscape offered by Chitwan National Park, is profoundly alluring. The jeeps purr to a stop at the Park entrance and we wait hopefully for the fog to dissipate and the Sun to emerge, piercing his way through the now-moving curtain of white.

As we wait our turn for the pachyderm perch, we familiarize ourselves with the history of the park, narrated to us by Bahadur. Chitwan, at the foot of the Himalayas, is one of the few remaining vestiges of the Terai region, pristine and unspoilt by tourist onslaught, and it once extended over the foothills of India and Nepal. The Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal’s first national park was established in 1973 with the objective of preserving a unique ecosystem. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984. Bahadur, we realize, is a good story teller with an expressive voice that enables us to visualize the tales and facts he reels out.

The waters of the Rapti, Narayani and Reu, encircle the Park on its northern and western sides while the Churia and Someshwor Hills descend down to the park on its eastern and southern faces. The Chitwan Valley, Bahadur continues, had been a popular game, a hunting ground for the Rana Premiers and their guests until the 1950s. Around 1963, the area south of River Rapti was earmarked as a rhinoceros sanctuary and hence cordoned off from hunting. Within a dozen years, the Park was created with the approval of King Mahendra and since then it has been attracting tourists and visitors by the droves, although there are sporadic instances even now of villagers sneaking into the area, says Bahadur. The Park itself is home to seven world class resorts run by concessionaire. Unfortunately, since we made a spot decision to visit Nepal, we could not book ourselves into one of these accommodations that would have kept us in the ‘thick’ of nature.

Our patient wait is rewarded and we finally mount Janki, the ace elephant that had topped the previous day’s races. Obviously, its mahout is proud that we have become the privileged quartet to be utilizing her services. The anticipation of the sights and sounds of real animals and birds in the wild – in their natural habitat, has already begun working on our adrenaline levels as Janki takes her elephantine steps towards the dense green cover. However, our mahout prepares us for sights that we may not get to see on the two-hour Safari, though the Park is home to over fifty mammalian and four hundred and fifty avian species. As with most sanctuaries and nature parks, we’d be lucky if are able to spot half a dozen species on a daylight safari, he says. A pair of rhinos come easy to us, as a sure-footed Janki blazes her way through a narrow ledge across the backwaters of the river where the creatures have apparently come for a drink and a swim. We are amply encouraged by this quick sighting and ride in absolute silence with bated breath, our eyes roving greedily in the hope of spotting more creatures of the wild. Lo, before long, the jungle thickens, the sun is getting hidden from our view and the darkness of dusk cast its veil in broad daylight. As we proceed further into the woods, the dark green foliages occasionally part to allow a slight ray of sunshine to light up patches of wrinkled earth, as if to convince us it is still several hours to evening.

But the animals, much to our disappointment, play hide-and-seek, doing a quick vanishing act as soon as they sight us! We are able to spot less than half a dozen species of mammals, and photograph even less because they are so swift of foot. Well, a couple of jackals and wild cocks cross our path but a trifle too fast for us to capture on lens. There is a group of cheetal deer that make a quick retreat to the denser area of the woods, but not before we get a good enough glimpse of them. A solitary sambar dares to lock eyes with us and obliges us, shutterbugs with a pose.As for the birds, we hear their loud whooping calls, but do not spot them because their perch is too high on the dense forest foliages and our craned necks do little to break that barrier.

At the end of two hours, we are content, having seen more of the “jungle dwellers” than what many of the other groups were able to see. Following lunch, we depart from our scheduled agenda of visiting the Elephant Breeding Centre and Crocodile Farm, major crowd pullers in Chitwan. Since we had seen some of the best of both in Sri Lanka, Thailand and even at Kabini in Karnataka, we opt for the canoe cruise on the Rapti to sight gharials and marsh muggers, besides a few avian creatures.

The sky is a mellow yellow-orange as the sun sets over the Rapti and we wend our way back to Resort Jungle Nepal to spend our last evening and night in the place. Sated from our Chitwan tour, we enter the realms of slumber, punctuated by visions of the wild, with the music of the jungle ringing softly in our ears.