Nepal, Chitwan 3 (elephants, crocodiles and Chinese cuisine)
November 14, 2010
Freshly fortified, we visited the nearby elephant breeding station in the morning…
…and watched small…
…but seriously cheeky elephants in action.
Their older brothers were every bit as good at “pulling faces”: harmlessly mischievous,…
…cheeky and spoiling for a fight…
…or downright loud. The pachyderms seemed to be doing pretty well here.
On the surrounding grounds, peacocks scurried across the meadows…
…and some cows relaxed with their feathered “friends”.
This would probably give a conservationist a heart attack: sadly, the river in Chitwan National Park is also used as a car wash… There isn’t even the faintest notion of what the oil from those old engines does to the environment.
Back at the lodge, I actually got caught doing some very hard work: active relaxation. ;)
I squeezed in a little camera practice on the giant butterflies fluttering around before we headed off by dugout canoe along the edge of the jungle.
While the kingfishers watched us from a safe distance…
…and we glided along the river sitting very low above the water,…
…the local crocodiles weren’t all that far away! In a flash, the other passengers had whipped their hands out of the water, and their respect for the wild grew considerably.
Luckily, these old pals of the dinosaurs were too sluggish to pay us much attention.
Afterwards we set off on foot through light jungle…
…and marveled at some stately termite mounds.
On the way I chatted with the Chinese in our group. We swapped notes on the rather monotonous local cuisine and how much I missed Chinese cooking.
Later, as the sun sank lazily into the jungle haze and the cows were driven back to the villages,…
…the Chinese closed ranks and took over the lodge kitchen. One of them had gone to the nearest village earlier and bought chicken, vegetables and all sorts of spices. Even though they were four separate pairs from China, the kitchen ran with astonishing efficiency. The chickens were gutted, the vegetables chopped and the rice cooked. Every burner was going full blast, and everyone had their spot, knew what they were doing and pitched in at top speed… – while we Europeans just stood there wide-eyed… How did they coordinate it all? Did they have every recipe in their heads? It was seriously impressive!!! (…and my stomach was already looking forward to it…)
The dishes came out so fast that the local staff were soon swamped, so we could at least help out there.
What a feast! Finally some proper, really tasty food again. Just to be safe, I “stocked up for a few days” – there was plenty, and you never know. ;)
Grinning from ear to ear, we rode a rust-riddled bus that evening to a cultural Tharu evening program in Sauraha, the nearest larger town.
The hall was packed with photo- and video-crazy tourists documenting every single step of the performance. The show was quite nice…
…but when some crazy volunteers went up on stage – guess who was first… – the party really got going. ;) At least I’ve now made it into a few dozen family albums once again and have a new circle dance in my repertoire. :)
Further links:
- Asian elephant – Elephas maximus, on the red list of endangered species
- Asian peafowl – Pavo, remarkably colorful
- Dugout canoe – Half a tree trunk as a means of transport
- Kingfishers – Alcedinidae, colorful and clever
- Mugger crocodile – Crocodylus palustris, extremely old and very successful reptile
- Termite mounds – Homes of the Isoptera
- Tharu – Ethnic group in the Himalayan region of Nepal and India