The boat was an unpainted wooden canoe, with a wide, flat bottom and five seats. The driver left us there, and we climbed aboard with one driver to the front and one to the rear. They poled upriver for a few hundred feet with long bamboo poles, then paddled out into the fast current and steered across and back downstream to the landing point. The river was wide and muddy, but nice and cool to the touch. The banks were low and grassy, with occasional trees.
We trooped along the shore to the resort, a group of wooden buildings and huts that looked like thatch-roofed summer camp. A friendly guide in khakis greeted us and fed us a late lunch, explaining our itinerary for the one-night stay. We would depart on the elephant safari at 4:30, rest and then dinner at 8. There was no electricity on the island, with a generator providing power only from 6:30 to 9:30pm. It was “Africa hot”, as Jim said, humid and a steamy 30+ degrees. We cooled off in the shower, no hot water not a problem, and met back in the bar hoping for a breeze. Nope. Sweaty, we met up with the few other off-season tourists and went to meet our elephants. There was another couple ("We’re from Madison, Wisconsin" spoken in a very thick Indian accent), a single guy from Belgium, and us. We heard that in the peak season, October to January, there could be up to 100 people there on a given night.
Three elephants met us, the largest sidling up to the platform for Jim and me. The mahout, or rider, sits just behind the head, his bare feet in metal stirrups and pushing into the backs of the ears to coax the beast forward. We climbed into a small wooden box strung with canvas and perched atop what looked to be a stack of burlap sandbags. Maybe to keep our feet away from the elephant? The wood and canvas box supposedly holds four, but it wouldn’t hold four bottoms like mine and Jim's. It was squishy with the two of us, each facing to opposite sides of the elephant, feet dangling out of the sides of the box. They wisely took my flip flops from me and kept them on the platform.
We trundled off into the lush jungle, the Madisons behind us and Belgium bringing up the rear. Right away, it started raining. A rich tropical rain that felt great to me and Jim, and helped us not to feel so sweaty and hot. I covered my camera with a white tank top I’d brought along as a head covering and the little red brocade purse I’d bought from another pity-inducing street vendor, and right away the rain made the red dye splotch my tank top with pinky-red spots. The rain lasted for about five minutes, cooling us off. Shortly after, we heard the rear elephant’s rider calling, and turned to learn he’d spotted a rhino. We trouped back, and chased the prehistoric beast for a bit. I got one decent photo and about twenty blurry and/or obscured shots. We finally lost him (or he finally lost us) and we continued on the trek. We had been warned that we might not see much due to the season and the very high grasses, and we did not see any of the nine tigers or one hundred monkeys who live on the island. We saw a little gang of spotted deer in the marshy grasses, and gazillions of birds and butterflies. Tromping around on the back of an elephant was the real thrill; lurching up and down small hills, swaying on the flat bits, swatting leaves and branches out of the way overhead. We crossed a river that left the elephants with dark waterlines halfway up their bodies. Our elephant, being in the lead, was made to clear a huge broken limb from the path with its mighty trunk. The landscape was breathtaking and the ride was a once in a lifetime experience. And at least we saw a rhino!
Dinner was nice, we chatted with Belgium, who turned out to be a travel guide for a high-end tour company catering to wealthy Belgians, on a scouting mission for a new tour. We got to quiz him on the area, and on Tibet. He recommended making the mountain crossing between Tibet and Nepal, and starting in Tibet to better deal with altitude sickness. He told us about interesting things to see in Tibet, and some other travel tidbits.
We had a long, steamy, sleepless night once the electric fan went off with the generator at 9:30 that night, and were already awake and having cold showers by the time the 5:45 wake up call came to prepare us for the morning nature hike. Jim opted out because of the ankle thing, and the Madisons were nowhere to be seen, so it was just me, Belgium, and the two guides. We were supposed to have long pants and hiking shoes, but I went in my Royal Robbins quick-dry capris and flip flops. So ill prepared. It was fine; my feet were dirty but the terrain wasn’t all that tricky. The problem would have been if any of the worst-case scenarios had occurred. Before setting out, our guide prepared us for the dangers we could encounter should one of the wild animals charge us. If we saw a rhino, we were to keep our distance and keep quiet. They have poor eyesight, but great hearing and sense of smell. If one were to charge, there were a few options. One, look for the largest tree and get behind hit, running around it and away from the rhino if it came over. Two, find a tree and climb it, at least 6 feet up. Three, if there were no trees around, avoid open areas and run into the bushes in a zig-zag to confuse the rhino. Don’t try to outrun it, as it is faster than it looks. Oh, yikes. That was just the rhino. For sloth-bears (note to self, look up on Wikipedia, what does a sloth-bear look like? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth_bear), don’t run, and don’t climb a tree, but stay in a group of people and lash out with sticks, making loud shouting and clapping noises. Oy. Least dangerous of our potential foes was the tiger. Not because it wasn’t lethal, but because it was less inclined to attack humans. In the tiger should charge us, we were to not turn our backs, but face the tiger and back away. And pray, presumably. I nearly turned back before the hike began, but what the heck. Off we went, me praying we would not see the rhino again.
I got my wish, all we saw were a few more spotted deer and a couple of peacocks hidden in the grass. It was a lovely hike, though, and mercifully I didn’t have to test my tree-climbing/zig-zag running skills in flip flops. I'm pretty sure the lead guide was making extra noises to warn the animals we were coming so he wouldn't have to protect us from charging wildlife. We walked for about 45 minutes in the cool, moist morning air, and returned to camp in the wooden canoe in time for breakfast.
Jim and I then got back in the canoe, and back up the long dirt road, in a rickety jeep this time, for the ride to the small airport an hour away. Luckily, no Maoist strikes stopped us on the way back, and we got to the clean, small airport in the dirty, busy city in plenty of time for the twenty minute flight back to Kathmandu. Yes, the 6 ½ drive could have been avoided with a twenty minute flight, but we would have missed all the gorgeous scenery along the way. Driving one way but flying back was totally the way to do it, thanks again to the recommendations of our trusty tour company.
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