Global Nomad Travel

Chitwan to Pokhara, Nepal

03/18/10

“I’m glad I wore pants,” Boxie-boo said as our elephant bashed through the forest. Branches and leaves continuously brushed against our faces, shoulders and legs. We were sitting on an elephant’s back in a small box with two tourists from Holland, each person facing off a different corner, held in position with a piece of wood between our legs; our backs banging each other as the elephant thudded and swayed through the jungle. Boxie-boo and I were at the front, aligned with each shoulder of the trainer, his legs spread wide against the elephant’s neck, while we sat with our legs dangling against the massive shoulders.

When the bushes thickened our elephant did not mind. She simply smashed his way over them, through them, hiding us from the sunlight, away from the traffic and villages, from all civilization, from the sound of trucks backfiring against the morning howls of roosters and barking dogs. I could feel the roped on box gripping the elephant’s back, hear the vegetation snapping, feel the whirling chaos of spider webs incessantly brushing across our faces, the forbidden sensation of owning the jungle, of fearing nothing. All animals, for us, were small and scrawny in comparison to the beast we rode. Even tall trees, leaned against the elephant’s shoulders, were unworthy to stop us, simply pushed aside, whacking their branches against our legs and shoulders, while we paused, stopped silently in massive bushes, we moved aside the twigs and leaves to scan the world below.

“Welcome to the jungle,” I said in my best Axel Rose (lead singer of Guns N’ Roses) voice. Nobody understood why voice was suddenly high-pitched and heavy metal screaming. I choose to instantly stop talking.

Without warning, our trainer leaved the thin paths, slamming our elephant directly in an area of packed bushes. “Rhino,” he said, almost too nonchalantly, looking back at us. I responded by giving him the quizzical expression of a concerned dog. When he looked forward, I decided that what was about to happen needed preparation. I quickly put my hand in my pants to re-arrange the horrid wedgie I had developed from my crotch relentlessly slamming into the wooden post. Thankfully, my moan of relief was barely audible under the sound of the thrashing and trampling of plants. The trainer pointed towards a thick bush, about the size of city bus. I looked at Boxie-boo. She looked back at me. I instantly shared her prevailing and insightful appreciation for wearing pants. Although, it may not have been a smart move to take off my sweater. Hopefully the women on tour presumed they were the result of me being a great lover, not an obsession with giving cats piggyback rides.

Instead of moving around this colossal barricade of leaves and branches, he had our elephant ram through the bushes like a bulldozer. Through the incoming slash and whipping of wood, I spotted two rhinos hidden amongst the shrubs. My hat was closed lined by branches off my head, which I luckily caught quickly, as we crashed through the wall of heavy hedging. I tried to take a photo, but the driver told me to wait. He had a plan. Albeit, a plan I would have never thought of myself even though it was so simple. Instead of moving our elephant in a good position to photograph the rhinos, he used our elephant to crash into the rhinos from behind, then forcibly push them into an opening between the trees. Once head-butted by our elephant into the clearing, he called to the other drivers with a whistle. Within a minute, the two rhinos were surrounded by giant elephants and camera-happy tourists.

In this moment, the air was so still, I felt as if I could not exist within it. I felt my eyes swallow up every sight. I could still feel the tremor of whipped branches, leaves dragging against my skin. Beyond the rhinos were the remains of the great push, the rubble, the leftover debris from a collapsed wall of vegetation. Without control, my eyebrows were raised and my tongue pressed against my teeth. There were no more sounds of movement; the light of the sun now twitching through the canopy. There we were, within a couple feet of two rhinos, of one the most dangerous animals in the world, looking down at them from an elephant’s back. In my neck I felt my pulse now, throbbing, my voice slurring in and out of breath, and behind us, where we had been, a new opening allowed a low breeze to swing, shooting up leaves below us on the trail. With the chaos turned almost instantly into an overpowering silence, the new setting hit hard like an incoming fever, the nerves of my skin quivering. I could have been the montage of someone else’s dream.

In 2005 in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, I rode an elephant in the peak forests, possibly entering Burma. This experience was completely different. I had never seen an elephant used to bash down plants and move large and extremely dangerous animals out of a bush. On our safari a day earlier, we were able to get within 20 metres at best of some rhinos, but the dense forest made them barely visible and impossible to photograph well. On the elephants, we were within reach of touching rhinos, looking down at them casually, protected by our elephant’s giant frames and enormous feet.

The advantage of riding an elephant continued throughout the day. Animals seemed less likely to run away, in comparison to the sound of heading out on safari with the sound of truck tires spitting up rocks and engines roaring between gears. We were able to get close to many wild boars, various types of deer, fox and other small animals like rabbits. Unlike a truck, not only was the elephant quiet, it was able to cross rivers and enter areas without roads. It was, however, not without its challenges.

Riding an elephant was exhausting. It felt like sitting on an exaggerated horse, swaying a foot or two within our box seat with each giant step. The giant feet caused branches and even small bushes to break into small pieces, allowing the ride, although swaying, to feel relatively stable. Its massive movements were surprisingly quiet, almost gentle. Our elephant occasionally stopped to eat the vegetation, frustrating our driver, who used a bamboo stick to bash her in the head, making us feel sorry for the animal. Thankfully, he never used his metal, fire-poker-like stick, but other drivers did. One elephant’s ear was bleeding, which caused Boxie-boo to get a little sad. It was tough to see an animal’s head banged with a metal pole.

On the positive side, our driver was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, content to point at various animals. At times, he pointed his elephant towards bushes to feed and gave the animal opportunity to rest. In total, we spent two hours on the elephant’s back, before dismounting on a wooden staircase.

Back at the Rainbow Safari Resort - again, ‘resort’ used very lightly as it rarely had electricity, dripping cold showerheads and gave me bedbugs - we packed our bags quickly after having scrambled eggs for breakfast. We left for another horrifying ride from Chitwan to Pokhara, a small, lakeside town in the Himalayas. It was a long drive along a similar highway from Kathmandu to Chitwan, often unpaved without railings alongside a steep cliffs and deadly descents.

We arrived in Pokhara and got a room at Phil’s Inn, a quaint lakefront guesthouse with a beautiful room by budget standards. This town reminded me of places in Thailand - a complete tourist trap - with multiple clothing, camera and backpacking equipment stores. There were internet cafes on almost every street and restaurants with local and western cuisine.

After a long day of riding elephants and swerving along one of Nepal’s dangerous highways for five hours, we ended our night on the roof of our guest house enjoying some local rum and cola. Looking off towards the lake, the distant mountains in the backdrop, we watched the sun slowly melt into the water; the light almost replacing itself almost too perfectly by the moon and enough stars to see all the constellations. It was a calm night, with few sounds and we listened closely to the hum of generators along the water’s edge, attempting to charge the city with power. We recharged with the city and relaxed, talking about the day and about how surprised we were to see so many kids wearing fake wrestling t-shirts. At 10 p.m., our room had power briefly, allowing us to shower with minimal light, while the leaky toilet damped the floor.

It was a relaxing night, one to be remembered, even though nothing happened beyond stars and conversations with us and Liam. I decided that this is what traveling should be all about: Cold drinks. Riding elephants. Sitting on roof tops talking about fake wrestling. But this was also because I was a little bit drunk.

That’s all for now.

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Chitwan Safari, Nepal

03/17/10

I was almost positive that angrily staring at my arm covered in bed bug bites wouldn’t fix them, but I decided it was worth giving a try. As I furiously examined my body at breakfast, a German tourist gave me advice in broken English about my bites. I had no idea what he was saying. I tried to look impressed by his information, but I could tell it was not working. He may have been telling me how disgusting my armed looked, so giving him an impressed look may not have helped. I instead replied what I always do when I fail to understand someone for a third time: “Totally man!” I said, thinking the conversation was over.

“I used to have some great cream for that,” added a woman with a Dutch accent. I was going to say the same thing, but with more passion, to really rub it in how a magic cream used to be available. Then I remembered, I had packed my go-to hydrocortisone cream and polished my bites down before we headed out on the water.

Our long safari day started out in a small canoe, dug out of one whole tree, which was pushed down the two-foot deep river by a large bamboo stick. The water was calm and quiet. Small birds walked along the shoreline while locals washed their clothes in the murky water, showing no fear for the fact that crocodiles hunted in this river. Our group of five sat on small wooden chairs, sitting on the flattened bottom of the boat. It felt like floating in a giant bathtub with strangers without the awkwardness that can be caused by bubbles.

“We have two guides, one in the back and one in the front,” Kumar said, as we floated slowly, deeper into Chitwan Park. “One guide is for fighting the animals, while the other take you away,” he joked. He then told us that tigers are afraid of his hand-carved stick. He had no gun. Not even a knife. Our best bet would be to reason with the tiger. Come on now, tiger, let’s talk first, I joked in my mind, then laughed by myself. Kumar thought I was laughing at his joke. This made me laugh even more. The result was him looking at me for the rest of the day each time he attempted a funny. I knew I had to laugh at everything he thought was funny, even making the mistake at laughing at the wrong time, which seconds later, I realized he was not trying to make a joke.

The water became shallower, scraping our canoe along the river bottom and we occasionally got stuck. The morning sun reflected against the water as green vegetation and white bubbles floated by. As I reached for the plants, I examined my left hand covered in bumps. These continued up my arm. I suddenly realized only this section of my body was infected. I had slept with my left arm out of my sleeper bag, rested under my pillow. I was excited by newfound revelation.

“Pillow!” I exclaimed to Boxie-boo, pointing at my arm, thinking this would disclose what I was thinking about. She looked at me, peculiarly, while I slapped away some insects on my shoulders that I’m quite sure she could not see. Sometimes, she did not understand me the way you do, dear reader. Thankfully, Kumar began yelling about an important sight, distracting her from my apparent stupidity. I took the cue and laughed. He did too.

Pointing to holes that appeared drilled along the mudslide bank of the river, Kumar explained that sparrows dug these holes, which were up to one-and-a-half meters long, to protect themselves against the rat snake. Kumar looked at me, then smiled, seemingly to cue me to laugh. So I did. This was the first time my realization happened. His smiled was replaced by a confused look. Near their nest holes, hundreds of sparrows circled the air, their wings reflected in the sunlight, hundreds of them, moving like leaves brushed upwards by a burst of wind. When the monsoon begins and the river expands, the little, creek-wide river we floated on will flood the surrounding plains and the sparrows’ homes will be destroyed.

Further down the river, Kumar spotted two crocodiles. “We must always keep a few meters back and presume they will attack,” he said. One sat flattened, completely motionless in the rocks. The other floated amongst the green foliage, waiting for prey. There are few personalities in the animal kingdom and none with crocodiles. They are purely cold hearted killers.

“Anyone want to go for a private moment?” Kumar asked, as we began our safari walk a few meters away from the crocodiles. I laughed, genuinely, at the thought of what he asking. I was confident that nobody would relieve themselves here and even if they wanted to, I’m sure they would have felt more pissing their pants than near the river, especially for a squatting female, here in the jungle, surrounded by tall grasses that wild tigers can easily hide in. That would be a tough letter to write home: I’m sorry to tell you this, but your daughter was pissing in a bush looking at some crocodiles, when a tiger…

Walking through tall grasses, Kumar warned Liam about his bright red shirt. “Rhinos are attracted to bright colours and they are dangerous,” he said. Liam put on his grey jacked, covering the t-shirt. This might have be something Kumar should have told us before getting into a canoe headed towards the middle of the jungle without any weapons to protect ourselves. It was a good thing I didn’t dye my hair purple the night earlier. Kumar told us to stay close and be quiet, as we walked along the footprints of rhinos.

“Maybe you should take off your sweater,” I said to Boxie-boo, who was wearing an orange and green hoodie. She obliged.

“The socks too.”

“Why?”

“The smell will attract them as well.”

“Very funny,” she replied, sarcastically.

“Thank you,” I added proudly, then smiled at Kumar, hoping to cue his laughter. If only he would have returned the favor.

She placed her bright sweater in her backpack, as Kumar pointed at tiger droppings. We knew to take everything he said seriously. Had he told me to poop my pants for protection, I might have done it. The reason: We were walking along a path surrounded by giant elephant grass, a place where predators could easily hide unseen. The sound through the grass was of rain, the constant hum of dry leaves brushing. In my imagination, each sound could have easily been that of a crawling tiger, hiding in the brush in preparation for an attack. I did the only thing that made sense. I pulled a snack bar from the backpack we had bought in Kathmandu. I would have never known if the bar would have given me super powers to protect us unless I ate it.

Once passed the open field, we turned towards the jungle, walking under the dark-green canopy of trees. Sections of the ground were black. Locals burned the grass so new grass will grow, Kumar explained, which is better for the animals. Our feet continuously crunched on fallen leaves, shaded brown and orange, covering the jungle floor and all I could do was concentrate on whether I was also hearing the footsteps of predators. Had my life flashed before my eyes, I may have only relived a dream for a burrito-flavored type of booze. Hearing a louder sound, one of movement, I felt my butthole tighten and my sperm screaming. I armed myself with a rock from the ground and prepared for battle. It was time to test out my snack bar.

A rustle in the bush like a fox.

All our eyes scanned the shrubberies. I did not mean to be a party pooper, but I felt I might need to leave our safari party to relieve myself. Then we spotted the horrifying, 20-pound beast. It was exciting, even though small, and made me realize how much of an adventure our safari in Africa would soon be.

A jackal crunched down about 10 meters away, before shooting through the foliage, looking like a burst of grey light. Other animals began to appear, more birds, a small lizard, a group of humans, the craziest of all, who reacted by aimlessly firing off their cameras and singing high-pitched notes, as if this would attract the small predator to come closer to us for a photograph. Further down, an owl sat in a hollow, watching us as we neared a jungle village where locals breed elephants. I swear he whispered, “Your book will be awesome.” It was great to meet a fan.

Inside the breeding facility’s information center, a photo showed an elephant surrounded by fire. The caption read, “Trainee calf accustomed with fire.” This facility trained calves so they are able to work. With fire. Something was not right here. Usually at tourist centers, companies will stretch the truth on how animals are trained to ensure foreigners at not offended. But not in Chitwan.

The life each one of these elephants live is tough. Between two and four years of age, they are taken from their mothers and kept in isolation for a few days with “restricted food and water”. The calf is then tied up with cotton ropes on a “Khamari,” or wooden post. Both front legs and the neck are tied to the post with chains to protect the trainer, the information board explained.
During the day, the cotton rope is put on the neck and two long ropes are extended laterally, pulled by already trained adult elephants. The calf is then moved around an open meadow, learning to turn, go forward, sit down and get up by vocal commands.

In the evening, flames are shown close to the calf, which is followed by a massage with the fire to de-sensitize the skin. I repeat, a “massage with fire.” The calf may be slightly injured during the training as the animal “vigorously reacts to the training process,” the sign stated.

After this so-called “mild training” is completed, the calf is taken to villages and highways to make them familiar with the noises of automobiles and of other domesticated animals, like dogs. The training lasts 20-30 days. Once trained, the trainers perform a ritual of worshipping the god and goddesses (Puja), with sacrifices of goat, chicken and pigeon, another signed explained.

Outside of the information room, calves were chained to post near their parents, which our second guide, Posha, claimed to know them both quite well. A few months earlier, two twins here were celebrating their first birthday party with fire and dancing.

“They are chained because they are naughty,” Posha said. Confusion instantly took Boxie-boo’s face hostage.

“What makes …” I paused, almost questioning whether this question even made sense. I continued, “an elephant naughty?” I felt very strange asking this, especially when he paused long enough for me to think about what I had said. I felt it was important to try out my inquiry, leaving me to feel clever and ashamed, the way a teenager would feel using a fake prescription note from his doctor to buy a dirty magazine.

“They will chase you and grab your camera and break it,” he answered in a matter-of-fact voice. That is naughty.

It was time to move on.

We followed our guides along a low-level bridge across a river; the bridge leaned with each step. We walked along bags of sand rested on two bamboo logs. Buffalo crossed the water in front of us, led by farmers, while I held my camera above my head in case I fell in. Behind the animals, village women bathed in public groups. I looked away, to show respect (they were clothed), took no photo and carefully placed my feet on the sand bags.

Watching our heads, we boarded the back of a truck under the roll bar and went slowly through small villages. Elephants, horse-drawn carriages and naked village children moved along the truck. Our driver at times slowed down, to wave hello to his friends. I thought back about the poor elephants training, but then saw how fun it looked to ride an elephant, which we were set to do the next day, already paid for. I weighed everything in my head – the fire, the rope pulled training, etc. – and shamefully, I decided I did not really mind.

We stopped farther up the river where large elephants were bathing with local men doing tricks on their backs, like front flips into the water, before pulling themselves up by the elephant’s ears and climbing back along the strong trunks. The elephants gathered water with their trunks and sprayed it across their backs, following the trainer’s instructions. Having this bath with an elephant was selling for 100 Rupees (less than $1.50 Canadian/US). Sections of the water were shallow and some tourists fell off. I decided not to risk it. They say (not sure who ‘they’ are, give me a break) elephants remember everything and after reading of their training, I felt they could turn violent, rather rightfully, at any time.

Near Boxie-boo, a local woman with rope wrapped around her forehead walked forward, which was used to hold a basket against her back while she fed the animals bananas. The massive elephants came up to us, lowering their giant heads offering for us to board, but we respectfully declined. Kumar warned that some tourists have been hurt and even trainers have been killed here.

Lunch was the vegetarian burger again, this time without the bun. Still horrible. Following lunch, we crossed the river by canoe to enter the jungle, our off-road truck waiting.

Along the darkened off-road track, my legs quickly collected dust from the dry, unpaved roads, turning them completely grey. With each moved of leaves, we hoped for a rhino or a tiger. I started our journey sitting on the truckbed’s bench, but after my bootae went numb, I decided to hang off the back bumper with Liam. The seat was as soft as a wet t-shirt is on rock and the roads were extremely bumpy.

A couple hours in, my stomach swayed with the truck, which moved more like it was out to sea than on a road, fighting currents, bouncing up and down through massive potholes, over fallen trees and bashing its way through bushes. When the dizziness kicked in, I moved to the front passenger seat and joined the driver. I had packed Pepto-Bismol chewable tablets in my pocket, but was hesitant to take them. I wanted to save them for Boxie-boo as she was having stomach problems in Nepal. When my face began to turn colours at the crocodile farm we visited in the middle of the jungle, she told me to take them. Twenty minutes later, I was fine.

In total, we saw many spotted deer, monkeys, rhinos, crocodiles, wild boars, peacocks and one Komodo dragon. It was a day of standing on a roof to see animals for five hours in the jungle, between long periods of trying not to knock our heads against the vehicle. Most of us failed at this at one point, as the driver often slammed his brakes, sliding each person in the bench into the unfortunate soul nearest the cab, who was slammed into the back window. By night fall, we left the jungle, to conclude our long day in town watching a local dance show. It was a mix of martial arts, walking in a circle while choreographed fighting with large sticks.

Before bed, Boxie-boo put me under quarantine for petting a local dog I felt sorry for. His hair was falling off from some sort of skin disease. However, the pup and I had bonded. I wished this dog could have made human facial expressions because he obviously sniffed my junk and I kind of wanted to know his opinion. To negotiate the situation, to fight on behalf of the dog to crash in our room while he assisted by whining against the door, I made a skeptical face for one second, then immediately gave up. Although we had bonded, quite frankly, she did not understand. Instead, she continued her quarantine of me.

Boxie-boo made me wash my hands twice before bed and told me I wasn’t funny when I said he should join us in our room to eat the bed bugs. Boxie-boo never got bed bugs as she did not have the problem I had with flailing my arms out of the sleeper bags once passed out. Thankfully we packed and used our sleeper sheets or we both would have been covered in bites.

That’s all for now.

Thank you for visiting Page59.com.

Kathmandu to Chitwan

03/16/10

As the bus bounced from the top of each hill the Himalayan wind tore through the ceiling, and at times, removed my hat, spraying occupants with slashing filth and the inhale of powdered rocks. The dust rose so strongly on the unpaved sections of the Nepal highway that neighboring trees were turned grey, appearing like a black and white photo. Out front was the crest of narrow cliff edges, a far-reaching tumultuous region, covered in loose rock and wind-driven bursts. It some ways it was marvellous, this play of low level clouds, the shifting of dust, wild with light; the sun illuminated greys and whites and sparkling the jagged edges of sharpened stones. The bus swayed with the balance of an untamed drunk, learning along each cliff edge spitting rocks down 2,000-plus meter cliffs, launched pebbles into an abyss turned grey and blackened by the dust that entered our windows.

The shocks wallowing, the brakes yelping for the mercy from steep and tight downhill corners, the transmission painfully trembling, each window pulsating, the scraping of rubber, bending, breaking away, shattering against the unforgiving road, each sound, united and battling, overpowered all my other senses. All colours were consumed by these distractions, the sounds. Below me, small stones bounced by feet, jumping up above my ankles. Each wrinkling of plastic, the bending and pop of metal, shot against my skin with electrifying volts. The rapid-fire falsetto of the rocks shackling on the undercarriage, the lost colour of the sky, waves of grey, the stone images of trees, and below, the foaming white of violent rivers, altogether, were jagged with piercing reverberations, colliding against the raging wind, leaving many passengers fearfully laughing: An expression of humour, tragedy and contempt, all released in hushed, fearful whispers.

Our ride from Kathmandu to Chitwan started at 7 a.m. at a bus stop crowded with backpackers and salesmen. The dyed hair, the never-shaved faces, the combat-damaged, the runaways, the drug runners, men possessed by no jobs, all of us homeless, the condemned, immigrants, explorers and photographers, and the not so far removed, the often drug and boozed haunted, giant meatless skeletons, and tiny ones, too, all shapes from all over the global, united by being foreign. In Nepal and India, it was common for us to come across many drifters and nomads who tried to look more backpackerish by having a couple dreads or randomly shaving one section of their head, almost always wearing baggy, pajama-like pants. I figured they did this to stand out, but they often looked the same, except one guy sporting a 1980’s rat tail and two Jamaican flag tubes jetting out of his chin pubes. He glared at me for having western clothes. I smiled and said, “Nice horns” before he boarded a private tour bus packed with tourists while we jumped on public transit. Locals in India later told me they found it offensive when foreigners dressed in worn, tattered and unflattering clothes, as they felt the western’s attempt to blend in mocked their poverty.

So many things had become routine for us. Boxie-boo reserved us a seat that looked down towards where baggage was stored so we could lookout for potential theft at “unplanned” rest stops, while I waited outside to watch the luggage compartment close before boarding the bus – these tactics, to ensure we arrived with our bags. A day before we had already prepared our snacks and food for the bus, charged up all batteries and had our bags packed, ready to be unlocked from their place against the bed frame before being placed on our shoulders. We knew the direction we had to head to get to the bus station before leaving our guest house, our tickets were laid out and our money belts hidden below our waists, always double checked for the essentials – passports, immunization records, etc.

Once we were out of the city, we climbed up and down the twisting highway, leaving the Kathmandu Valley behind us. The highway was tight, causing our driver to stop when the road was shared with other large vehicles. They slowly passed each other, sometimes turning their mirrors flat against their vehicle’s frames to make enough room. I helped by doing nothing. My specialty. My Dad taught me how to do this every night as a child while my Mom cooked.

Railings were limited or non-existent, standing a maximum of two-feet high, preventing only only small boulders from shooting off the cliff, where they collected the spray of dust. Construction trucks, hand-painted with dangling balls on the steering wheels, continuously passed. Their horns sounded like high-pitched adolescent elephants reaching puberty. I looked closely to see if their second exhaust pipe had dropped, while they cracked multiple, bizarre and out-of-tune notes. It was either a recording of moose in heat or the sound Dumbo would make before crash landing. While people around me started to relax, I found myself fixated on the deadly, unprotected cliff faces below us, the doom and gloom oblivion of guaranteed death, waiting to tumble down the mountainside, across sharp rocks to my demise. This way, I knew I would be ready for it to happen and this way it would not. It was quite the burden for me to be able to control situations with my manic alertness, but it felt good to save so many lives.

During our long haul, the bus driver pulled the usual income-earning tactic by stopping as various places for “breaks,” which were always markets. At one stop, we watched a Nepalese woman buy 20-plus oranges for 80 Rupees (about $1 Canadian/US). This same gentleman tried to sell us six for 100 Rupees. I knew that foreigners pay more, it is inevitable, but this increase was ridiculous so I refused. Six-and-a-half hours later, including a few seconds, we arrived in a gravel parking, an open field surrounded by tall grasses, located a short distance away from a sign that warned about wild tiger. I growled outside the window, but was relaxed, when some round Germans got off that I knew I was faster than. Plus, I looked less appetizing. Canadians are too mixed to taste good, same as cheap hotdogs.

Getting off the bus, my clothes stuck to my back, revealing my figure to a group of men yelling while holding up cards. I pretended, in my boredom, they were betting on me for a date at an auction…100, 200, etc. In actuality, they were holding up various signs for guest houses. In my delirious state, possibly mildly heat stroked, I followed Boxie-boo’s lead as she spotted a guy with the Rainbow Safari Resort catalogue. The term ‘resort’ is used lightly, as I later learned our stay with limited electricity and running water also included free bed bugs. We jumped in the back of a truck with no roof and bounced our way down the rapids of side streets.

At the “Resort”, we were greeted with mango juice. Lunch was tomato soup (good) and a vegetarian burger with one bun (horrible). Liam was still recovering from a night praying to the porcelain goddess, Boxie-boo’s stomach was still adjusting and I was walking around armed with Pepto Bismol just in case. Needless to say, we weren’t feeling the fake meat, but forced some of it down.

Our rainbow cottage was located inside Chitwan National Park. It was a quiet place. The only sounds by our cottage-like room were birds chirping and Boxie-boo humming the notes to “Final Countdown.” At 4 p.m., we met in the cook house before our first outing. Although our cottage came with a lock, I also added mine to the door, another routine that I did without thinking.

Our guide Kumar led the way through to the village, stopping at a large patch of wild marijuana plants, growing naturally a few feet from our cottage. I have a few buddies back home (Bumpy, Frodo, Ghetto Cowboy, Sir Darkness) to name a few, who probably would have been so excited by this sight, they would have stocked up with Dorritos, replaced the English language with the word “dude” and set up a tent next to the field. It was a pot head’s heaven on Earth.

Stopping at a hut built on straw, bamboo and mud, Kumar explained these houses are often destroyed during the monsoon season. “Only the richer people have homes with brick,” he said. He referred to these people as the “Chitwan Malaria People” due to their ability to develop their own defenses against the disease, like smoking out the bugs every night by cooking indoors. While Kumar continued, the family ignored us, continuing to eat and pump water from a well. It made me feel a bit strange; to have a guide point at people and talk about them in a language they could not understand. I worried about invading their privacy.

Originally from India, Kumar explained, the Chitwan people originally lived in the mountain jungles, before moving inland. They lived mostly off the land through farming. They also believe, Kumar noted, that if they eat spicy food, their blood will be too hot for the malaria-infecting mosquitoes.

Walking down the street, we passed an orphanage and a small hut called “Meat Shop.” Across from the butcher, local men worked together driving a large pole into the ground to build a well. Beside them, a woman walked by whacking a goat with a stick. Everybody seemed to know each other, many waved, offering each other help, while walking door to door to make small trades. A feeling of community rose in the air and you could feel that each person worked together and genuinely cared for their neighbors…but not the goats so much.

“Namaste,” many locals said to one and another. To show respect, I said it back, with my hands bowed together in a prayer position, bowing slightly. It is an important greeting here, one that honestly makes you feel genuinely welcome in a village where time has almost stood still for centuries.

But not everything was beautiful.

It was a common in Chitwan to come across villages with elephants attached to wooden posts, their ankles chained, their bodies pulling away, trying to break away for freedom, some hollering out depressed moans. One elephant’s head continuously swayed back and forth, seemingly gone mad and I stayed far away, extremely fearful of the massive mammal. We were told they are walked each day to feed in the jungle, had social events and were well taken care of, but still, a part of me felt bad for the animals, especially since I knew I was supporting this financially. We were only two days away from riding them ourselves.

That’s all for now.

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