Angry Goats in the Jungle

The boys were somewhat despondent when anticipating Christmas in a country where there is no Christmas. "It’ll be so gay," was the prediction. I assured them that we would find and make enough Christmas of our own to make it fun. But getting up on Christmas morning to a 30cm high felt tree with just a few small presents around it and the world outside going on with business as usual was going to be a bit sad.

Most of Christmas Eve was spent on the bus from Chitwan back to Kathmandu; the usual bone shaking bus journey of six hours. Little did we know that we were in danger of not getting in to Kathmandu at all, as there was a large strike that day and the roads were blocked. But the strike ended about an hour before we arrived.

Chitwan was an adventure in itself. Happily I didn’t die of pneumonia like I thought I was going to that first night. The antibiotics kicked in by morning and while it would have been more sensible to stay in bed, I was hardly going to come to the Nepalese jungle and spend the whole time lying in bed, particularly in that spartan room. The usual program of activities was going to involve some walking, which I definitely wasn’t up for, so after some discussion with the manager, we arranged something a bit less strenuous.

So in the morning we set off in the back of an open jeep—the same way we were picked from the bus—to board elephants for a ride through the jungle. Each elephant can carry four people so Christopher volunteered to go with some other people. And so we set off lurching through a shallow river and into the trees where we saw a mother rhino and her closely huddling baby and ate strange berries that the elephant drivers picked for us.

Our ride went for about an hour then we were taken back to the lodge where I could rest for a couple of hours before the next excursion. Christopher and Tom sat and read their books while Neville and Dan hired bikes and went riding through the nearby village. They had the rather unique experience of overtaking two horses and carts and having to get back on their side of the road to avoid the oncoming elephant.

We were then instructed to walk five minutes down the road to the river, where we were taken by dug-out canoe with our guide to the waiting jeep and driver. We then set off deep into the jungle. We sat in the back and our guide stood at the back hanging on and keeping his eagle eye out for animals. When he spotted something he would whistle just loud enough for the driver to hear so that he would stop, and then whisper and point to what he could see. The first time it was something resembling a small goanna clinging to the side of a tree. It took us a few minutes to work out what he was showing us so we couldn’t believe how he could have spotted it in a moving vehicle.

After about an hour and a half we stopped for our picnic lunch, which we had to eat in a wooden tower because of the very real risk of being charged by rhinos or wild elephants or an extremely rare tiger. Our guide told us he has had to run and clamber up the nearest tree many times to escape a rhino.

Throughout the park are small bases manned by soldiers who police it for poachers. We stopped at one checkpoint and two soldiers climbed aboard with huge machine guns strapped to them. They were going to the next base and didn’t want to have to walk, so our guide asked us if we minded them catching a lift. Well we were hardly in a position to deny a lift to two guys with very big guns. Their boom gate was a typical example of Nepalese improvisation: a long narrow log resting on two Y-shaped sticks with a round block of wood tied to one end to weight it down and a rope to tie it down and release it at the other end. But they do a serious job. We were told that if you’re in the park after 6pm and they see you they won’t stop to ask questions, they’ll just shoot you.

We saw about four rhinos, some deer, peacocks, marsh mugger crocodiles and monkeys. We also went to the gharial breeding centre, gharials being strange looking crocodiles with long thin snouts which they are prone to snapping off during fights. We were out for nearly five hours, which was more than long enough and it was getting cold by the time we arrived back at the river to catch the canoe. We then sat by the river and had a drink as we watched the sun set over the jungle.

Before we caught the bus the next morning we were taken to the elephant breeding centre where we were first attacked by a large goat. This thing was as tall as Tom and was in a very bad mood. There was a room with some information about the program and we were ushered in here to have a look before we saw the elephants. But as we entered this bloody goat, who had kept rearing up at Tom outside, came charging in behind us and we were cornered. Our guide thought it was hilarious but thankfully wrestled the goat out of the room saying, "La! La!" to it and laughing at us before anyone was killed.

Some elephants, several mothers and babies, were tethered and happily chewing away on branches. Some were being led about doing various jobs. We saw two-year-old twins, one of only two sets known to be born in Nepal. A few young ones were being led back from somewhere and started behaving like naughty children, running around and having to be herded back in the right direction, trumpeting loudly in protest.

On the way to the centre we were advised to walk together because only the day before wild elephants had come through charging people. In fact I’d read in the paper only a few days before that elephants had come rampaging through a village in Chitwan killing some people and destroying their crops. They have an electric fence dividing the breeding area and the jungle now but the old fence is broken in many places from wild elephants.