Sauraha and the National Park

Following the temple day, Jenna and I were to accompany Dr. Dangol, the resident botanist of ISER, to a Forest User Group meeting at a local community forest. Apparently, this FUG is well organized and very competitive. They are interested in collaborating with ISER to implement several development/environmental projects funded through the Small Grants Program of the Global Environment Facility. Dr. Dangol was going to present some of the features of this program in order to keep them interested. After the presentation, Dr. Dangol took some time to show us many different plants in the community forest and he described the various ways indigenous healers used each plant. He is a wealth of information. Unfortunately he may be the most unpunctual person I have ever known. Not only was he at least a half hour late to the presentation (although the FUG was not ready for him anyways) but he also talked so long about plants that Bamdev, our cook, called several times to ask where we were for dinner. Dr. Dangol continues to be a wealth of information and continues to never be on time.

Following the presentation in the day, everybody (Cynthia, Jenna, Krishna, Bamdev, Rishi, Vishnu, and I) got loaded up into the truck to go to the city of Sauraha which is the main tourist entrance point into Chitwan National Park. We arrived in Suaraha that evening and dropped our stuff in the room at the 'Rhino Lodge Hotel'. The Hotel had gorgeous landscaping with gardens and gazebos, etc. A man names 'Sam' ran the place and was good friends with Krishna. We walked a couple hundred yards to the Rapti river bank which looked across at the open jungle of Chitwan National Park. I kept hoping for a Tiger to come out of the jungle, jump into the water and swim across. Alas, no such thing occurred. It was just about sunset when we sat down at a table with reclining chairs that faced the river. Everybody (especially our Nepali friends) seemed to be good spirits because they wanted to order snacks and beer from the nearby restaurant even before our dinner plans a little later in the evening. So when we had a good time drinking beer and sharing Universal Truths about our two different cultures. We had an especially good laugh at the fact that people learning a new language seem to speak noticeable better when a little inebriated. This was the case for Bamdev who after having a few drinks starting spewing a good deal of continuous english. He then got a call from his wife who was apparently unaware that he was going to Sauraha that night and probably was not too keen to speaking to him while inebriated. After he hung up he starting saying something that was almost completely gibberish about how everything in his life is his wife...the water, the clouds, the birds, the beer. It did not make any sense but it was still funny nonetheless. Finally, at around 8PM we went to see the Tharu Cultural Dance show. The Tharu are considered the indigenous people of the Terai (lowlands). They have been around since the 1300 century and are considered robust, hardworking, old-fashioned farmers. They are also said to be immune to malaria hence the reason they were in the Terai when no one else was or wanted to be.

The show seemed to be a local attraction. It was crowded with about 90% Nepalese and 10% foreigners. Remember that it is not tourist season. The first part of the show showcased several different group dances by men. Actually all of the dances were by men. One of the dances had a flaming pole that was spun around. The most unique portion was of a man in a giant peacock costume that dances all around and had a long peacock head that moved around and picked money up off of the ground. All of the Nepali people loved that one. The whole show Sam, Hotel manager, kept saying that Jenna and I would be dancing soon. I did not understand what he meant but I had a lurking suspicion that they were going to drag us out on the stage and make us dance. Fortunately, it was nothing so embarrassing and in fact it was a lot of fun. The announcer said that the final portion of the show was a free for all and anybody was welcome to join in the circle of dancers on the stage. Bamdev (still a little drunk) did not even wait for the drum to hit before he was on the stage. He was followed by his cousin, Rishi, Krishna, and I. It was a hoot! We just dropped around and clapped our hands while more people kept coming up on the stage. Jenna got a front row seat and took several pictures. We had a good sleep that night.

The following morning Jenna, Cynthia, and I had breakfast on the gazebo in the front of the Hotel. Then we met everybody else and went to the elephant loading dock. It was awesome to see our elephant walk up the hill from behind the jungle trees. It had huge tusks (although they were trimmed) and lumbered to the 2 story loading dock. Cynthia got in first. She had to straddle one cornerpost of the saddle apparatus. Then Jenna got in beside her and straddled the other cornerpost. I was next and then Rishi. He and I were facing the back and got a great view of the elephant's butt the whole time. Then our elephant began to slowly move away from the loading dock. It was surreal for a while. Her we were in Nepal on the back of an elephant! We crossed a little river to go into the National Park proper. Almost immediately we saw a rhino taking a nice bath in the river a little ways down. We got up close to the rhino and took lots of pictures. Then we continues further into the forest. Along the way we saw several more rhinos including mother and baby. We also saw Sambar, the largest deer in Nepal and also a prime prey species for tiger. We say a wild hair and several monkeys. The elephant was great. It would pull branches and trees out of the way that had grown over some of the paths. We rode the elephant for about 2 hours and our rumps were definitely sore after the ride.

After the elephant ride we rushed to see the elephant breeding center just a few miles away. I had thought that it was going to be some magical place where we could touch and pet the baby elephants. It was actually a little depressing. It was just a row of fenced-in enclosures with elephants of different ages chained to the central posts. We could not walk up to them and I could not believe that these wide-ranging intelligent species were too happy about their conditions.

After that, we went back to the hotel. Before we left we did some shopping at some nearby vendors. We spent a good deal of time at a vendor that had locally made products from women's groups. We left Sauraha and made a final stop before returning to the ISER guesthouse at a dress shop managed by Vishnu's (data manager for ISER) wife. Jenna had been looking forward to Nepali dress shopping. What she was not looking forward to was a group of anxious men staring at her as she tries to dress shop. I asked them to run some errands and fortunately Krisha perfectly understood. Unfortunately, that left us without a translator. The following 2-3 hours was a little brutal. Vishnu's wife, Dipa, and her assistant, Buma, began to pull practically every dress off the shelves to show Jenna in the hopes that Jenna's eyes might light up. However, anyone who knows Jenna knows that she can be a bit indecisive and much more so when people are pressuring her. Eventually, she was able to pick something out and get it tailored within 30 minutes (they didn't have to do much). We then waited for everybody to return. We realized as we waited that there had been no mention of a price. We even asked Dipa and she seemed to not respond. Then Vishnu came back and I realized why she did not quote us a price. She did not know how much to charge us. With everybody standing there, Vishnu put a price on a calculator and handed it to me...not Jenna. This was clearly men's business. I took the calculator and immediately handed it to Jenna. He was asking for a lot but we had no way to know what the suitable price for such a thing was. I was also in no mood to start negotiating price with a colleague with everybody standing around. At any rate, after we returned back to the guesthouse Jenna seemed really happy with her purchase and that is what really matters.