Up at 6am for breakfast at 7. We were in Southern Nepal now so the temperature was a few degrees more, we were in the malarial zone and the humidity had increased. The hotel ran on its own generator for about 6 hours each day, usually during the evening. There had been no air-conditioning in our bedrooms so the night had been a little bit hot and sticky.
Buffalo sausages and toast for breakfast. We also listened to some of the other guests showing off the mosquito bites they got during the night. Jonathan and I had yet again escaped unharmed.
The first activity of the day was crocodile and bird spotting on the river. There was a mist on the early morning river which gave quite a calming feeling. The only noises were the natural sound of the river and odd splashes from boats and birds taking off. It was quite eerie. The river was very clear and reeds flowed by. You kind of wanted to put your hands in the water and feel its cold loveliness but I had to keep reminding myself that it was full of crocodiles and bugs designed to give me the trots!
The boats were made out of hollowed out trees and felt distinctly unstable. It didn't help that there was a man standing on a little ledge at the back steering with a gondola style stick and a man standing on another edge in front of us describing what we were seeing. It took quite a while for us passengers to get used to riding in the boat. It was a little bit like riding pillion on a motorbike. You had to let the boat rock naturally which was very unnerving. There were quite a few fast deep intakes of breath as people thought the boat was going to tip over, but after about half an hour I think we'd all got the hang of it. This was lucky because that's when we hit the rapids! I'm not talking New Zealand white water rapids but when you have 12 people sitting on a stick moving through crocodile infested waters then it was just as scary.
I caught a glimpse of a baby crocodile poking its head out of the water so the trip was a success. It was a lucky sighting as we had arrived at our stopping point at the edge of the jungle. We de-camped, added more sun-cream and deet and headed into the jungle in search of rhinos, tigers and other jungle beasties.
It was really hot, walking around the jungle for 2 hours especially as the only thing we saw were a few tiger tracks and a few bugs. At one point everyone had to go quiet as the ranger moved stealthily in for a closer look but it turned out to be another party who thought we were a tiger too! We walked all the way back to the place we had climbed into the boats.
The next activity was elephant bathing. We had to sign a disclaimer for this activity but Steve said it was fun. He'd done it and said it was great fun but couldn't do it with us because it's too dangerous. It took a while to work out what he meant: it's ok to do it as a one-off but doing it each time would increase the risk. Everyone was a little bit apprehensive but Rob and I had seem some people doing it as we walked back through the jungle and thought it looked all right. We bravely stepped forwards as first to have a go. Or more, they asked who wanted a go and I foolishly jumped in and made Rob follow me!
I climbed on to the bare back of the elephant. It was a lot warmer and hairier than I had imagined. The elephant man stood on its back behind Rob and me and walked us all out into the river where it was a bit deeper. The elephant slowly bent its head down slurped a considerable volume of river water up its trunk, then raised its trunk up over its head and expelled all of it at a considerable force straight into my face. From that point I could not stop laughing. It was pure fun. After a couple of blasts I predicted when the next one was coming and at the last moment I bent forward over the elephant's head, the jet of water completely missed me and hit Rob in the face. After the usual complaints about not being ready he was laughing uncontrollably too.
Babs popped her knee when she came down from the elephant and there were a couple of other minor injuries as people fell off the elephants but all-in-all it was well worth it. Left the elephant men with a little tip and went back to the hotel for a shower and lunch. Lunch was pretty nice, some kind of clear vegetable soup and a mixture of eastern and western food. Pabi was sitting on her own so I sat with her. I explained to her that leaving someone to eat on their own was considered rude, so we had a little food related-cultural exchange over lunch which was interesting.
No time to rest and we were back in the Jeep travelling to the Elephant Reserve. We spend the afternoon riding elephants through the jungle looking for tigers, rhino and deer. 4 people per elephant sitting in a metal poled box with our legs dangling over the edge. Once you got used to the walking motion of the elephant it was okay. Still didn't see any tigers but we did get quite close to a rhino. The park ranger told us that rhinos were more dangerous than tigers so that made us feel better!
One thing that we all commented on was how rude we thought the Indian people were. They turned up tried to jump the queue and left a trail of litter behind them. It was clear that the park rangers had a lot of work to do and we could tell that they were very disappointed with the Indians casually discarding their litter into the river or where ever they were standing. There were litter bins all over the reserve but they just couldn't be bothered to use them.
We had a free night and we had all thought that it was so nice sitting next to the river that we went back after dinner. I spend a bit more time chatting to Julian and played with the sunset settings on my camera.