Trekking and touristing in Chitwan

The last two days we spent trekking were awesome, and exhausting. The foothills of the Himalayas don't exactly have flat paths, so about 97% of the time you have to keep your eyes really focused on the ground so you don't fall (in a new record, I only got two bruises!).

Dat view tho

I took all of these pictures with my Samsung Galaxy S3 -- that still amazes me.

This is hard to do on a clear day because the views are so unbelievable, so maybe it was a blessing that we spent the first two inside clouds. The ground is usually made of a combination of stepping stones and dirt, but also donkey poop, yak poop, tree roots, and a never-ending incline or decline. Turns out, declines are really hard on your legs and feet. Here's a tip, especially if your shoes are a bit snug: make sure your toenails are clipped before going down a mountain for 2+ hours. Otherwise it feels like you're stubbing your toe, very softly, over and over again. Anyway, on day 4 of the Poon Hill trek we went to Jinadanda, where there were some marvelous hot springs. 

Very fabulous, and very much needed.

Oh my poor toes

Of course, after trekking for 5 hours we had to go down another half hour to get there, and then back up to the guesthouse afterward, but it was totally worth it and not so bad without a 15lb. backpack. Oh how our muscles needed those hot springs. We stayed until we couldn't get any more raisiny and the rain started rolling in anyway. The only other guests at the guesthouse were also at the hotsprings -- an Australian butcher and an Englishman studying to be a Civil Engineer, so we talked to them for a little while before leaving. On the way back up from the hot springs, we got our first leeches! When I first saw a leech on day one, I thought it was just a really quirky cross between an inchworm and a worm. I guess I'd never seen a leech before. Our guide got one on the first day and instructed us to dab salt on our boots and ankles just in case, which seemed to keep them away pretty well. We must be immune, we thought. But going coming back up from the hot springs in flip flops with no salt, they found me. I was lucky -- I only got three. One between two toes on my left foot, one between two toes on my right, and one on my ankle that didn't appear to break skin before I caught the little bugger. Interesting fact: they have gross little mouths on both ends, so if they get stuck between your toes, you can bet on the fact that they will biting both toes. Apparently they secrete an anticoagulant when they bite, so it's easy to bleed a lot when you take them off. The good news is, their heads don't appear to get stuck inside you like the common American ticks. The bad news is the whole two-mouth thing. So on my left foot, after I removed the leech from between my toes, I was bleeding more than I was comfortable with. I stepped in the shower when we got back from the hot springs and realized (1) the leech was STILL IN MY SHOE (luckily a flip flop), and (2) the reason I was bleeding so much was because he got me with both ends. Somehow it had stopped sucking -- maybe I injured it when I pulled it off or maybe it had just satisfied its appetite, but that was its last meal. I'm pretty sure it died a long, painful death, or at least I hope so. Anyway, the Australian butcher had it way worse -- either he wasn't paying attention or the leeches got aggressive, but either way at dinner, his feet looked like he'd gotten stuck in a landmine. While we were playing cards with him, a street dog tried to lick his wounds. He got spooked at the idea of infection on open leech bites and chased it out. It was a weird afternoon, but the relaxation was super welcome.

The last day of the trek, I was hurting. Seth was hurting too, but my backpack was really starting to piss off my back. Seth had had the same problem a few days before, and now it was my turn: a dull pinch inside my left shoulderblade kept screaming at me to stop moving. I tried stretching it out and bending over and Seth rubbed it for me, but I couldn't shake it. About 4.5 hours in, our guide said: "OK so now we can take the bus back if you want or we can--" I interrupted him with a resounding "YES. BUS." It was probably another 6 miles to go, and I was just miserable. Seth was a little disappointed but could see that if I had to walk for more than another 15 minutes I might just fall over, or go on a killing spree. He was nice enough to take my backpack for a little while, but then I was just in pain AND feeling guilty. We took a jeep back along the incredibly bumpy road, with the driver calling out to people on the side announcing our destination in case they wanted a ride, too, for a little cash. Everybody who joined in the jeep was afraid to sit next to the white people (us), so they crammed into the front and the trunk (which had installed benches) and we got the middle to ourselves. We didn't really shave much time off of what would have been our arrival time in Pokhara because the road was mostly potholes and big rocks, but it didn't matter to me -- I wasn't walking. We got to the hotel and collapsed. Then we went out and ate too much food. The next day was pretty much the same, except for a leisurely canoe ride around Fewa Lake and some shopping, but we definitely took it as a recovery day. We met some cool people at a restaurant that night and hope to meet up with them again in Kathmandu on Monday.

Fewa Lake!!

So Friday we hopped on a bus for five windy, bumpy hours along with all the Asians and backpackers to get to Chitwan National Park. This is an area with lots of animals (rhinos, crocs, elephants, birds), the point of which is to encourage the propagation of these endangered species, which has overall been pretty successful. Our guide at the hotel was 26, and he explained that up until he was 16 he lived in a house in a tree (maybe he meant on stilts) inside the park until the government forced the local population outside of the reserved area. He didn't seem too bothered by this, since apparently the park is doing pretty well. He took us out to see a "Tharu traditional village," i.e. a string of mud huts where the Tharu people were living, probably not dissimilar to the style he used to live in. A manager of the hotel explained to us that the Tharu are another Nepalese ethnic group and caste, who have their own language and religion and set of skills. All the castes in Nepal also speak the common tongue, i.e. Nepalese. But they can't understand the languages across castes. Turns out our guide on the trek, by the way, was not a Sherpa but rather a Brahman (guess I'll need to edit that other post), which is a higher, more educated caste. It's all Nepali to me! The cooler thing though, was the man on an elephant just walking down the street. It was a big elephant, too and it wasn't like an "elephant street," but rather a real (albeit not very crowded) paved road where cars and horse-drawn carriages and bicycles ride, just this one also had an elephant. Apparently this is a totally normal thing in Chitwan. Then we watched the sunset by a lake next to some loud Indian men with beer bellies who kept spitting. After dinner with the group of ten Koreans who were also staying at the hotel for the same package deal -- can't seem to get away -- we saw a Tharu traditional dance, which was pretty cool: a bunch of people dressed in white tribal costume were playing drums and singing and dancing with sticks, choreographed perfectly so that their sticks hit each other to go with the beat of the music. So I guess you could say it was like Stomp.

So, after a lovely evening of traditional dancing, and more Chinese tourists with super-flash cameras, we decided to hit the sack. We were supposed to go on an elephant ride at 6 the next morning. The next morning, of course, was raining cats and dogs, so, like fat, American, pig-dogs, we slept in. The staff looked: a) perplexed, b) distraught, and c) unbelieving that we didn't want to go in the rain. We assured them that everything was fine and we simply didn't want to go out in the rain. We'd had plenty on Poon Hill. We spent the better half of the day reading, and trying to find a signal to the outside world. In hindsight, smoke signals would've been easier. But, time passed and we were geared up to go bathe some elephants instead of ride them. 

Now that was cool. We both climbed onto the back of this mighty beast while a whily Nepali man danced on the elephant's butt to give it commands. At one point, I swear to God, he yelled out, "Pizza Hut!! Pizza Hut!!" If I'm ever a mahout (fancy Nepalese for "elephant trainer"), I'll try out that one. The elephant was accommodating, to say the least. It's not often we have to take a bath while smaller animals sit on ours backs, and they are deceptively hard to sit on. Multiple times we would fall off into the water because the elephant would tilt its shoulders. We were pretty sure that was how we were going to die. We could already see the headlines: "YOUNG AMERICAN COUPLE SQUISHED BY NEPALESE ELEPHANT." Afterward, we posted up in some lounge chairs and watched more tourists take a crack at the elephants while we dried off in the sun. We sipped some more masala tea and thought, while watching the other people, "damn, we forgot to scrub the elephants!" because the whole idea was an elephant bathing. But oh, well...

So, we headed back for lunch, which wasn't quite ready, so we went to the Mom n' Pop store about 20 feet outside the gate to see if they had a little something to hold us over. We found some cookies and chex mex-looking stuff, and got that. Later, we ate lunch and headed back to the room. After some resting, we took a jeep to the breeding center and it was. So. Cool. Our guide explained that the elephants usually do work in the morning (like elephant rides), then go out into the jungle with the staff to play and eat, and then hang out at their posts under roofs for the rest of the day and nighttime. They are chained to posts, but he also explained that the breeding center will soon start to integrate an electric fence system so they're not so bored. We learned a lot, like how an elephant's trunk has 40,000 muscles. Also in Chitwan, a lot of the elephants are wild and come impregnate the females they raise. So usually there's a baby at the center, and the one we got to see was just a week old. He was hanging out with his mom next to her post (he wasn't tied up) and just kept slipping and sliding in her poop. We could have watched the baby all day. Sometimes he would fall down and his feet would be splayed out like a ragdoll. Well, you know, an elephant ragdoll. Then he would get back up and nuzzle his mother before going down the poop slide again. Once the babies become more independent, the guide explained, they have to be tied up too, because they get "naughty" and go around bothering all the other elephants or get too close to the tourists. I was sad to see some of the younger ones getting annoyed and trying to pull themselves out of their ankle chains, but relieved to know they were doing other things in the day and also the breeding center seemed to be doing their best to keep the elephants happy and healthy. We went out on the town for a dinner at a place called K.C.'s and then got a great look at the Milky Way on one of the rare clear nights we had in Nepal.

The next day, Damo our guide took us on a nature walk (apparently still distraught about us having turned down the rainy day activities) and showed us another side of the breeding center, but also taught us a lot about the distinct flora and fauna of Chitwan. He showed us a "sighing plant," which is a little round pink flower which looks like a spiky ball, with leaves that look like ferns. You touch the ferns, and they immediately ... well, sigh. They fold up. It was amazing. I kept doing it. Seth had to tell me to stop because Damo was waiting for us and I was going to leave the whole patch of sighing plants without an open fern. I'm sure they open back up soon afterward.

We took another long, bumpy, windy busride back to Kathmandu on Sunday, went to a restaurant called "Rumdoodle"where we decorated a small cardboard Yeti foot (apparently a very popular activity), and then spent the last 24 hours we had in Kathmandu repacking our bags, sending stuff home, getting pedicures and henna, and eating all the authentic Nepali food we could before taking off for Vietnam. Next stop Hanoi! ... Hello, Hanoi! (Don't know any Vietnamese, shoot...)

cool Chitwan mosquito net!

Apparently we didn't take so many pictures in Chitwan. I think we were too exhausted.