Chitwan National Park, Nepal – Part Two - Not your Everyday Walk in the Park

Dave, Pamela and Alex in the very small and leaky canoe on the way to our jungle walk.

I (DW) have taken a lot of walks in a lot of parks in my life but the first half of our Chitwan Jungle Walk was one of the most exhilarating I can remember. Now this tale might be a bit long so I apologize in advance and thank those of you who get through it…

Chitwan National Park is home to over 40 species of mammals including the bengal tiger, rhinoceros, sloth bear and occasional wild elephant. The place is also home to two different types of crocodile and many other reptiles including the king cobra.

With all of this in mind we decided to take a canoe ride down the river followed by a half day jungle walk. Three of us, Pamela, Alex (our friend from the tour) and I boarded a rickety hollowed out tree canoe at about 12pm for an hour long float down the river. Accompanying us for the ride was a local guide we hired named Ramsey and his assistant guide. While in the canoe we saw two different types of crocodile; the marsh mugger crocodile which grows up to 12 feet in length and the larger gharrial crocodile which can reach a length of 18 feet. It was a little unnerving seeing the larger gharrial croc as it looked to be about as wide as our canoe and definitely sturdier.

Very large croc in the river

About 30 minutes into the canoe ride we started to hear a very loud distressed elephant. The noises this elephant made were making my skin crawl. It turned out to be a young elephant which had been separated from its mother and anyone within 500 meters could hear the poor thing.  We saw the young wailing elephant starting to cross the river about 200 meters in front of us. At about the same time we saw the panic stricken elephant we came across a rhinoceros having a dip in the river. Ramsey, our guide, instructed the canoe driver to pull over so we can have a closer look at the rhino. Now we were only about 25 meters from the rhino but behind us was the panic stricken elephant. Needless to say I was a bit scared. In front was one big rhino and behind was one crazed elephant. We got some pics of the rhino, let the elephant disappear and we were off again. My heart starting to beat a normal rhythm again.

The rhino exiting the river a little too close for comfort.

The plan was to take the canoe to the trailhead so we can begin our walk through the jungle. Unfortunately we soon discovered the banks of the river had been so eroded during the monsoons that the trailhead was inaccessible. Floating another 500 meters or so on the rickety canoe got us to a point on the river where we could disembark, too bad there wasn’t a trail in sight.

Just after disembarking from the boat Ramsey started to tell us about all the people who’ve been injured, mamed, killed out in the jungle, this included the guides. Mind you he and the assistant guide did have a wooded stick. A wooden stick!! At this point I was wishing for a large bore rifle.  After the doom and gloom speech he started to tell us what to do if we got into trouble. For a rhino we needed to keep very quiet and stick close together, when/if charged we should look for a tree to climb. If we came across an angry sloth bear (Chitwan has the largest population in the world) then we needed to stick together and make a lot of noise, useless to climb a tree. I should probably also point out that we knew this was dangerous and were required by our tour company to sign a release of liability form indicating our guide strongly advised us not to take the walk and doing so was at our own risk. Apparently there’s been quite a few incidents and a very nasty one witnessed by our own guide.

Langur monkey up a tree.

So we’ve been warned and we’re on the way, scared $@%^less I might add.  Ugh and “by on the way” I mean we’re literally hacking our way blindly through dense vegetation as there was no trail to even follow. So let me sum up our situation; we’re not on a trail, we can’t see anything as the vegetation is so dense, we’re in a jungle with tigers, rhinos, bears and king cobras, our guide Ramsey hadn’t been there in months (I asked ), and nobody else knew where we were dropped off except a canoe driver who was all of 12 years old.

Sure, this looks like a trail.

About 10 minutes into the walk we heard our first loud noise very close to us, my heart nearly jumped out of my body and ran for the hills. The loud noise turned out to be a bunch of langur monkeys jumping around. My heart jumped back into my body and I had a good laugh, still feeling very exhilarated. About 45 minutes into the walk we found a very fresh Bengal tiger footprint. We also saw a tree where a tiger had scratched-up to mark its territory. Seeing this fresh evidence was great although it really hit me that we were walking around where a tiger could be just steps away.

Bengal Tiger footprint

Tiger claw marks on a tree. Better the tree than me.

Soon after the tiger footprint Ramsey found the actual trail and we were off on the right direction. It was very-very hot and humid and by this time all of us were sweating bullets. I also forgot to mention the leeches. Pamela had a leech go right through the seam of her trekking pants and our guide had a leech on his head. With the heat, leeches and sweat we walked for a couple more hours on the main trails.

Saying it was hot and humid is an understatement

The rest of the three hour walk was pretty uneventful. We saw some deer, monkeys and a lot of bugs - big bugs. The park service is putting in a large road for a jeep safari so there was some large equipment in a couple of places which I have to imagine would have scared most of the animals away.

Pamela and Ramsey

At the end of the walk we were met by a jeep which drove us over to the Elephant Breeding Center where we all got to play with a baby elephant. This was a nice way to end a very exhilarating day.  If asked to do it all over again I think I would. It was a good day (we lived) and definitely a chance to feel like you’re part of a real nature show on the Discovery Channel.

Pamela playing with the baby elephant. She was just four months old.

Alex saying hi to the baby.

Checking out the elephants at the Elephant Breeding Center.

The rest of our photos from Chitwan can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/ChitwanNationalParkNepal?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now -

Pamela and Dave

Mae Sa Elephant Camp - Our day with the Elephants

Mae Sa Elephant Camp is one of the bigger elephant camps of Chiang Mai. Located in the Mae Rim area, about 40 minutes from the city center, the camp has grown significantly since the last time I visited them about four years ago. The camp now has close to 70 elephants! Still a great show, but due to the high demand an increasing tourists in the area, it is somewhat commercialized, and also caters for big tour groups, so don’t expect a quiet intimate time with the elephants by any means.

Each elephant and it's trainer are listed on the board.

In saying this, they put on a great show for a price of 110 baht per person (4 USD) –  starting with watching the elephants bathe in the river with their mahouts (elephant trainer – each elephant has their very own personal trainer), and then continue on to do an hour long show, showing the talents and intelligence of the elephants. I (PW) was even picked out from the big audience, to play darts with one of the elephants – undoubtedly, the elephant won! (his darts were 5x as big as mine though!!) They finish the show with 5 or so elephants each painting a quite impressive painting with their trunks, which then sold from 3000-6000 baht each (100 to 200 USD)!! Quite a good little money making venture for them!

Pamela playing a game of darts with an elephant during the main show.

This elephant was a fantastic painter.

Once the show is finished, it’s time to get up close and personal with the elephants, taking pictures with them while they wrap their trunks around your neck and pose with you. They then keep poking you with their trunks, or tapping their trunks on the ground asking for tips,(all under direction of the mahout of course!) this is quite cute at first – until you realize how carried away you get putting the money in their trunks having a great old time! 

The elephant put the hat on Pamela's head.

After that, we looked around the elephant camp while we were waiting for our elephant ride, as there were a few big tour groups in that day, they were booked out until 1pm to get a ride straight after the show. It worked out well though, as you can walk around the camp and check out the elephant gallery containing all the different elephant’s artworks for sale. They also have an elephant nursery – where they had a few elephant babies around 6 months old. SO cute! Not so well trained though at that age – he liked to grab your fingers and hands while you were feeding him bananas, and try and pull them out of there socket if you were not careful! Just being playful, but unaware of his own strength!

The baby elephant was a bit rough.

We chose to do the 1hr elephant ride at a cost of 600 baht per person (20 USD), as opposed to the half hour option at 400 baht per person, as the hour tour took you into the actual jungle surrounding the camp, instead of  just through the elephant camp/village. As it is the wet season here, the path through the jungle we took was quite swamp like and muddy, and quite amazing to watch the elephants being such big elephants, so eloquently step through the thick mud, using all the same foot holes as each other. Towards the end of the trek, the elephants wash off in the river, and cool down, the fastest our elephant walked on the whole trip was to get into the water! While the elephants were all drinking and cooling off, someone spotted quite a big snake on the river bank – next thing one of the mahouts was jumping off his elephants and down onto the snake, pegging him under the hook of his elephants stick, grabbing him by the tail, and then hacking his head off with the hook. Crazy, just no fear at all!

Going into the river on the elephants.

Riding the elephant through the jungle.

All in all, a great experience. Dave loved it too, it was his first time to ride an elephant, and get so up close and personal with these friendly giants. It’s just amazing to see how well trained they are, and how much they love human interaction.  There is such a trusting and great relationship between the mahout and the elephants, it’s hard to understand and really see that without experiencing it in person.

Here’s a link to all of our Mae Sa Elephant Camp photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/MaeSaElephantCamp?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave