The self-proclaimed “world’s longest zipline” is in Pokhara, Nepal, which runs for distance of 1.8 kilometers against the spectacular back drop of the Annapurna range in the Himalayas. Its not quite flying (but its close) and all over in the twinkling of an eye!
For more high flyers, see this week’s Word a Week Photo Challenge: Fly
As I mentioned yesterday, this is our fourth visit to Chitwan and I’ve been lucky enough to go on an elephant ride the past three times. We didn’t plan on going on one again, but the very kind staff at the Nepali Center for Nature Conservation invited us over for tea and an elephant ride. While we were taking a look at their facility, something came running up to us….
More like a big dog than a baby rhino, she was curious and friendly. Who were we? Why were we there?!
It was an eight month old baby rhino. She had been badly injured after a tiger attack and the staff were taking care of her. She had suffered injury to her back leg, losing the pad to her foot and was recovering from an operation to repair the damage. Its a great facility for her to safely wander around while she recovers.
It was so fun to pet a baby rhino! I never thought I’d get a chance. She was so tough and strong. The folds of skin are amazing.
…and she was playful too. Obviously feeling well enough to break into a run here and there
Charmed by our new friend, we set off to ride an elephant for an hour into the park. You never know what you’re going to see, although this is not Africa and there isn’t an abundance of wildlife roaming in packs. I go for the pleasure of the ride and the early morning peace of the park. If we see something, its a bonus.
After a little while we spotted a rhino sleeping under a tree. Elephants and rhinos get on fine, and a sleeping rhino often won’t move when an elephant walks by. This one stood up and gave us “the eye.”
Well? What do you want?!
Then we found out why. She wasn’t alone.
Another cute baby rhino! This one was even younger and sleeping..
All drowsy, she stood up and joined with mom in a curiosity stare ,,,
…and they very kindly did a mother an child photo opp for us ;o)
Adorable!
Amazingly our rhino experiences didn’t stop there. A couple of days later, I headed out birdwatching with a guide. He asked me if I would like to see a rhino and took me to a spot down by the river. In a muddy ditch sat an old curmudgeon-like rhino who gave us an impatient snarl. The guide said he was too old and weak to go into the jungle as younger rhinos would attack him. So even often hangs out in the ditch for a bit of peace and quiet, if you can call taking photos from tourists peaceful.
Remember th e1990s Jim Henson series “Dinosaurs”? He reminded me of the dad!
Yep. Definitely not impressed! Poor Guy!
Our ride’s arrived!
I’m slowly getting used to the idea of flying in a tiny twin propeller plane. I usually do a couple of domestic flights a month, and I know what to expect. I’m not one to get panicky about flying. Nepal in general has a bad safety record with flights, however aircraft accidents dwindle in comparison to road accidents. Every week there’s another story about a bus with 24 passengers hurdling off a windy mountain road plunging 250 meters down to the valley floor, usually taking another couple of vehicles with it. If the choice is 20 minutes in the air or driving 8 hours on windy, treacherous roads, I take a statistic approach to the danger.
One of the upsides of flying on tiny aircraft from tiny airports is that the procedure for embarking and disembarking is less of an ordeal. You simply walk across the tarmac and board.
Yes, we’re really getting on that…
My flight back from Janakpur earlier this year was on the smallest twin propeller yet. It seated only twenty people: eight single seats on each side, and four at the back. It was cosy to say the least. You could lean forward and watch the pilot in the cockpit, yet the flight attendant still came around with candies and water. I looked out of the tiny window as we flew north across the sparsely populated, but dramatic hill country towards Kathmandu. Twenty minutes later we were back in the city, having avoided the particularly windy road from Hetauda to Kathmandu and lived to fly another day!
The cosy interior
For more stories on the travel themes of “interiors” visit: http://wheresmybackpack.com/2014/10/10/travel-theme-interior/
I just made my fourth trip down to Chitwan for a few days, staying at our favourite spot, Sapana Village Lodge. There’s lots of things I like about Sapana, but one of its greatest attractions is how it makes me comfortable with hot water showers, comfy chairs and places to relax, but doesn’t cut me off from local life. From a comfortable reading spot, I can watch everyday life going past me on the river. Locals are washing clothes, fishing, or just using the river to get around. Abundant bird life hovers overhead. Majestic cranes, ibis, storks, hornbills, sunbirds, night jars, and the beautiful asian paradise flycatcher are all here, swooping down to the water to drink. (We come to Chitwan to see the amazing elephants and rhinos, but for sheer variety and volume, you really can’t beat the birds.) I find it so relaxing. I love the wild life and the river. They keep me coming back for more.
This was our first visit during the rainy season, and the river was very swollen. Recent flooding had washed away the small bamboo bridge that was here before.
The swollen water raced by. It wasn’t very deep, but it was fast, rushing reeds and branches away in its current.
One of many white ibises that stopped by for a visit.
He caught something. I didn’t see what it was.
Back from his early morning chore of collecting feed for the other elephants. What tusks!
Mom and baby are still fine since our last visit and still loving their daily baths!
My contribution for this week’s photograph challenge “Relic” is about Janakpur train station, in Southern Nepal, which is very close to the Indian border. Its the main stop of what was the only train line in Nepal and is now, unfortunately, closed. Relics of the carriages still remain, some only mere frames and other still full of broken seats and traces of animal life. Its very spooky…and sad too. Hopefully, they will reopen it some day and connect the line with India, creating a much needed rail transportation system. For now it just sits there.
For more pictures of busier times at the station and other railway relics that remain today see: Janakpur No Blast From the Past.
A little photo essay this evening on the rice planting season that is upon us in the Kathmandu Valley. We stayed at a place in Shivapuri, very close to a hardworking Newari family who were busy getting the crop to field. The rainy season is late and they complained that planting was late as a result…but they were still willing to take a break and let me take photos.
First step is to gather seedlings from the nursery field. The ladies grabbed bunches of seedlings, washed off the dirt from the roots and tied them in bundles ready to be transported to larger fields.
This little guy was very curious about why I was there.
The ladies made the hard work of planting look easy and fun. It’s not, it’s back breaking. But they still laughed and smiled for the camera, and broke into song occasionally too.
This is the grandmother and the aunt
Time to take a lunch break in the fields…..
Here is a completed field with the baby plants in place. In a couple of months the plants will be tall and green and ready to harvest.
The terraces were a maze of tricky mud paths. I hope to be back for the harvesting in September.
Thanks to the family for the photos!
We finally got out of the city this weekend. Latham and I managed a short hike in the Shivapuri hills, just North of Kathmandu city. I am frequently told the area is covered with a labyrinth of footpaths and trails, but getting out to explore has been frustrating. And now it is the rainy season, the weather can turn bad unexpectedly, so to be on the safe side, we committed to a short walk in the forest to a small waterfall.
It was so wonderful to be able to just walk unhindered along a trail. No noise, no traffic, no horns. And the first outdoor exercise I’ve had in a long, long time. Here are a few photos from the trail – full of greenery, lushly blanketed forest floors, flowers and not too many bugs:
We could hear the waterfall long before we saw it. More of a waterslide really… a gentle babbling flow, not gushing roar
The cascade ended in a waist high “bathtub”. It would have been a great place to bath. We just stuck our toes in the water
Beautiful lantana growing everywhere, as only lantana can…
Loved the gnarly, multi-coloured tree trunks
Unusually, we saw quite a lot of stone work…something I haven’t seen much of so far in Nepal. This was an abandoned hut.
leaf close up
wall closeup
Look what we found growing wild…!
Before we set out, we were warned about avoiding leeches in the rainy season. I remember the same warning in the Philippines but we never did make it into the jungle during the rains, and I never got to experience them first hand. So, naively, we kept a look out for leeches. I’m not sure what I thought would happen. I guess, I thought if we could avoid brushing up against long grass or bushes, we’d avoid the leeches. But these aren’t ticks…. Little did I know that the little bastards live in the soil. They can lie there dormant for very long periods of time, and when it rains they rise out of the dirt..standing upright with their heads hungrily thrashing around for a blood meal, which they spot by heat and vibration from the victim. The hapless hiker stands a moment to admire the view and the well camouflaged leech makes his move…..
Latham stopped a moment and pointed at his shoe. ” Is that one?!”” We both recoiled in horror when we realized it was. It was tiny and thin, more like a threadworm that the slug-like creature I had imagined. (It turns out they only look like slugs once they are full of blood.) He kicked and squished it. It broke the spell and we couldn’t get off the trail fast enough! The initiation could have been worse…we could have been bitten….
…ironically it was Robert who was….as he never actually went hiking. The dreaded things inject the bite site with an anti-coagulant so it takes forever to stop bleeding. Gross!
And for the truly brave….here are a couple of leech pictures (from the internet I might add)…no way were we going to stop and take a picture!
Leeches before a meal….
….and after! They drop off when they’re full!!!!!
Shivapuri National Park, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
During the rainy season which is now upon us, you can just sit and watch the clouds roll in and off the mountains. Such a romantic feeling of mystery and isolation. Behind them, hidden in the rain and mist, are the mighty Himalayas.
This post participated in the Word a Week Photo Challenge: Remote.
A another little photo journal tale of a walk away from traffic and congestion in the rural countryside:
In Chitwan, bikes move everything…from people to produce to cement bags..
They are THE mode of transport, and I loved that we could just stroll and be part of daily life without feeling out of place or being run over.
After the rain from the night before, the sky was clear enough to see the nearby hills. I’ve seen photos of a sky so clear that you can see beyond the hills all the way to the Himalayas in the North. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see it with my own eyes…but this was very pretty anyway.
This rice field had a head start before the monsoon, so the crop is well underway due to community irrigation ditches. The next day we came back to find the ditch dry, so they have a system of diverting the water too.
This looked like hard wark! The farmer was working at preparing the soil. His patch somehow was still unplanted in a sea of growing rice. He was still ploughing when we returned an hour later.
Here’s another field on catch up mode. I’m not sure what she was doing. Planting baby rice, perhaps?
This is the community hall of a home stay project. The “Welcome” sign was everywhere. An organization had funded a community effort to offer home stay lodging to foreigners and visiting Nepalis. It seemed very clean and organized. I hope it does well for them…I’ve no idea how much they charge but its probably a very affordable way to stay and a good source of income for locals.
In England when cows sit down its supposed to mean its going to rain. Here I think they’re just chillin’
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