Elephants, Lumbini and crossing into India!

Elephant Trekking – Chitwan National Park, Nepal

We rose nice and early on a foggy and quite cool morning to set out early for our elephant trekking safari.  Whilst I don’t believe in the exploitation of animals, as a rule, these were captive bred elephants who take tourists like ourselves out to explore the jungle.  I would certainly rather this option than the other, which was 4WD jeep’s traipsing through the forests, decimating the plants and animals in their paths. 

Andrew, Belinda, Tek and I shared an elephant and we were the first of 7 groups heading out.  The motion was really gentle, and I did feel sorry for the elephant when we went downhill (not very often) as it seemed laboured but Tek assured me that they carry a lot heavier things than us four! After seeing a few peacocks and a lot of spotted deer, our awesome mahout discovered two baby rhino sleeping in the forest! Tek had told us that it wasn’t always guaranteed to see Rhino, so when we were in Kathmandu at the Boudhanath stupa he spun a prayer wheel and hoped for us to see rhino – that’s how good a guide we had, hehe.  Being the first elephant on the spot was great, because the rhino weren’t too worried about us, although I did ask that if there were two babies, surely the mum rhino wasn’t too far away either! Once we moved away, the other groups all crowded around the rhinos and apparently they got a little upset! I’m glad we got to see them nice and happy, or so they seemed.  Going by jeep would have scared them away, amongst other things.

The trek continued on through the forest for another 90 minutes and we saw plenty more peacocks, peahens, monkeys galore and tonnes of both the two varieties of deer in the national park. We were a bit worried about getting off the elephants, being so high up whilst regaining some dignity but it wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought it woule be.

We went back to the cabins for a freshen up, before heading down to the river to watch the elephants have their morning baths.  Tek advised us not to take the opportunity to swim with them, even though it was possible, so we took his advice to later find out that last year an elephant had rolled on top of a tourist and killed them while swimming with them at the same spot.  Thanks for the heads-up, Tek!  

One of the best parts of being at Chitwan was that another Gecko’s group was there at the same time, they were doing our trip but in reverse, so they had started from Delhi and were making their way to Kathmandu.  We met Zoe, from Victoria, who is on a 6 month round the world solo holiday, Bianca from Sydney who works for Cathay Pacific, and a lovely gentleman named Monty and his wife Linda who were from Johannesburg in South Africa.  These guys were awesome and we got to spend a bit of time together, including Monty joining Andrew, Belinda and myself for a beautiful seafood lunch (catfish, in fact!) at KC’s Restaurant down by the river.  Monty was fantastic to chat to, he is a lecturer in urban development at a University in South Africa and thankfully was also a cricket tragic! He enjoyed telling us about how he had sat quietly in a bar in India, a few days earlier watching South Africa beat India, surrounded by disgruntled Indian fans. Go Monty!

After our lunch we had planned to get in some wooden canoes and travel down the river, checking out the wildlife and scenery.  This was mildly scary, but fantastic in the end. We were VERY close, on about 5 occassions to Marsh Muggers, which are related to the Australian Saltwater Crocodile, and about the same size too.  We saw some giant ones, and Andrew was absolutely chuffed.  We also spotted lots of monkeys and many different varieties of birds, including an eagle which was the icing on the wildlife cake for Andrew!

The resort had planned for us a banquet dinner and dance show, which was brilliant.  We enjoyed traditional Nepalese food, including dhal bhat which I love (lentil convert!) and beautiful pakoras and pappadums too.  The dancing was brilliant, including some traditional Nepalese stick dancing, originating from the local area the Terai plans of Nepal.  Sadly we said our goodbyes to the reverse Gecko’s group and exchanged contact details.

The next morning it was time to grab breakfast and jump in the bus (this also included merging with another group who had been in a different part of Nepal) to continue on towards India, with our first stop Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha.

LUMBINI

Travelling across dusty bumpy highways for four hours, and we finally arrived at our accommodation just outside Lumbini, Nepal.  

Our group was now a total of 8.  Andrew, myself, Belinda (who has been with us since Kathmandu, after she did Everest Base Camp), Ray and Bruce are in their 60’s and from Canada, Patrick who is in his mid to late twenties and a lawyer from Brazil and the Nufftards. The nufftards are Morven and Christine from Milton-Keynes in England and are in their 50’s, although she looks more like she might be in her 60’s.  It would be completely against all the things I try to be as a good buddhist, but believe me when I say these two people push my boundaries like no-other, I truly mean it. I’ve never seen two people try to spend less money, ever. They specifically ordered something that wasn’t available on a menu, and then tried to haggle the Nepali staff over the price.  They also like to complain endlessly about everything, from the style of accommodation, the activities and the heat.  There will be more on the Nufftards, later.

Lumbini is a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists around the world.  Having adopted many buddhist beliefs myself, it was too a place of significance for me.  I had been wanting for nearly a decade to come here.  We arrived at the resort, grabbed some cool drinks, checked in and jumped on some bikes to ride the 6km to the monasteries and places of significance.  The roads were really bumpy and after sitting in the bus for so long it was quite nice to stretch out the legs and move a bit.  The first stop was the monasteries built by a number of different countries around the world.  The monastery built by Germany was by far the most impressive and completely beautiful.  Inside, the artwork was breathtaking and depicted many scenes from buddhism, including the stages of life (this is one of my favourites) and on the ceiling a mandula, a handpainted one I bought earlier in Nepal too.

We jumped back on the bikes and went to the final spot, where Buddha was born in 623 BC.  Maya Devi was his mother, who whilst heavily pregnant was in the forest here, and took a refreshing dip in a pond and took a number of steps before going into labour and using a branch of a tree to support herself during childbirth.  There were buddhists everywhere, from every country imaginable.  I was instantly happy when I spotted a large group of Thai monks, and heard them speaking their familiar language.

We entered the temple which was constructed around the spot where the tree was (it is not longer there) under which Buddha was born.  This is where I first realised the woman Nufftard was going to get my back right up.  We all entered the temple and joined a queue to where you can see or pray at the stone that marks the spot of Buddha’s birth.  Mrs Nufftard declared a little too loudly that “this is a stupid thing to line up for and a waste of her time.”  Both Andrew and Belinda looked at me, knowing how important a place it was not only to me, but basically every other believe in buddhism who had probably spent their life savings and most of their days hoping to come here.  Strike 1.

My turn came and I touched the gold brickwork and also said a little prayer, with my hands in a wai (pressed together at my chest) and hoped to find some enlightenment in my brief moment at the sacred spot of Buddha’s birth.

After jumping back on the bikes, we headed back to our resort, before having an evening group dinner (thankfully the Nufftards left as soon as their meals were done, not excusing themselves, or even using the word thanks when their meals were bought to them) and enjoyed a few beers and having a chat about our different countries and how things are done.  We got to have a good chat to our guide Tek, who is just fantastic, so kind and had made our trip so far extremely easy.  This was our last night with him so Andrew convinced him to have some beer and go ‘off duty’.

We all trudged back to our cabins and after a few minutes reading and listening to the jackals calling off in the distance we fell asleep, ready to leave for the Indian border the next morning.

LUMBINI TO SONAULI, INDIAN BORDER

At dinner, Tek explained to the group that in the morning we would have breakfast at 7, and be on the road by 7.30 for the 1 hour journey to the Indian border, so to please bring all our bags down to the restaurant area, so it was easier to leave on time, because we had a very long day ahead of us.

After having our breakfast, Mr & Mrs Nufftard proclaimed that they needed to go back to their room to get their bags. This is after Tek asking us to all be organised and have everything with us so we could leave straight after breakfast.  By choosing to ignore his request, this cost us a little over an hour because after leaving to come to breakfast, they had broken the door locking mechanism, effectively locking their belongings in the room and noone being able to get in.  The rest of our group sat around waiting whilst the poor people at the resort did everything they could to get the lock sorted, in the end having to break the door down an hour later. We amused ourselves by watching Two and a Half Men episodes on Patrick’s macbook on the bus before they eventually got on the bus. If this had happened to me, my first reaction would have been to apologise profusely and thank everyone for being so patient, etc etc.  Not the Nufftards, they got on the bus and complained about the resort and how it wasn’t their fault, blah blah blah. Poor ole Tek got on the bus and apologised for them, not something I believe he had to do – after all, they had ignored his instructions, and cost us a great deal of time when we had a 10 hour bus journey ahead of us.

Anyway – we got on the road and travelled for about an hour before we arrived at the Nepal-India border.  Tek grabbed our passports and we filled in the departure information for Nepal and I exchanged the last of my Nepalese rupees for Indian before we got our passports back.  This meant it was time to say goodbye to Tek and Andrew, Belinda and I were truly sad.  He presented the three of us with beautiful white silk scarves as a memory of our trip together, we got some photos and he walked the whole group across the border to the Indian immigration officials.  

Whilst I was completing my immigration paperwork, I wrote in the nationality box ‘Australian’ and straight away the guy went “Cricket!?”.  I confirmed to him, that yes, I did in fact like cricket and I got a huge smile. Cricket is once again a language we share with India in common.  He grabbed a wallet sized 2011 World Cup schedule and we talked about some of the upcoming games.   A quick final goodbye, hug and handshake with Tek and he handed the group over to Aapji who is our guide from India. Wow. He was not what I was expecting.  The man is tall and solid, with a very regal looking goatee/moustache combination and he looks like he is not to be messed with. He was also very friendly and happy to see us, after our earlier delay.  First notes of India were that I loved it.  I had been warned that it was dirty, busy and crazy.  That is true, but if you look beyond the first visual impressions, the place buzzes with life, energy and beautiful people who are intrigued by the sight of us.  I guess we are pretty ‘white’.  In Asia, the more white your skin, the more beautiful you are deemed.  I was glad to have lost a bit of the tan I had going on in Sri Lanka at this stage.

Aapji took us down the road to our bus/van transport to take us the 10 hour journey to Varanasi.  He explained that the bus was included in our tour, but to run the aircon we would need to chip in to cover the extra fuel it would need.  I thought this was quite fair, we know back home that if you drive the car with aircon, it uses more fuel.  Mr and Mrs Nufftard nearly exploded when he said the price would be 300 rupees each (less than $10AUD) to have it on for the 10 hour trip. Mr Nufftard actually tried to barter him on the price! The look on Andrew’s face was sheer disgust that this guy was apart of our group and giving a first impression that was not fair for the rest of us.  Aaptji explained that we could choose not to use the aircon, but the dust (which is everywhere) would make it hard to have the windows open long without it becoming overbearing.   After getting on the bus it was plain to see that the aircon was definitely needed, as Andrew and I had already said outside, so finally the tight-arses caved and said “Oh just put it on”.  We got going and five minutes later Mrs Nufftard complained that it was too cold.  Thankfully she realised she was an idiot, or maybe not, but got her jumper out and put it on.  Strike 2.

We passed through many many towns, and I decided to make a game of the fact people on the streets were staring in amazement at us, and played “Punch-Wave” with Andrew.  I basically just tried to see how many ‘waves’ I could get back from people I smiled and waved too.  Some wouldn’t budge and give me anything except the eyes, but lots of people would smile, wave and even touch the window whilst we were going past slow enough.  The trip was only between 250-280 kilometres, but due to the crazy amount of cars and road conditions it took until about 7.45pm when we finally reached Varanasi.

The Hotel Surya was our accommodation for the next two nights, and it was above and beyond my expecations.  It is a square complex with beautiful gardens in the middle.  There is an exceptional restaurant, where we enjoyed a group dinner (I had the paneer curry, which is a cottage cheese curry in cashew nut curry sauce, followed by biscotti covered in nuts and a condensed milk sauce!).  Andrew and I both really enjoyed sharing a beer with Patrick (it was St Patricks Day, after all) and Aaptji and we tried Kingfisher Gold which is an astonishingly strong 8% beer! It was fantastic though.  We all went back to our rooms and I finally nodded off about 11pm, with a 5am wakeup call ahead.

Andrew at the border crossing from Nepal to India

Me at the border between Nepal and India

Andrew, myself, Tek and Belinda at the border crossing between Nepal and India