All photo rights reserved.
Chitwan in southern Nepal
Elephants are very important in the Chitwan jungle areas. The photo shows how one washes the elephant with the help of the elephant.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/nepal/the-terai-and-mahabharat-range/royal-chitwan-national-park
Although there are jeeps in Chitwan that can take you through roads made into the jungle one is more likely to come across Rhino, Tiger, and Bear if one takes the path of an elephant, on top of the elephant. ...and so my ex-wife (I always have to differentiate between the two for good reason) so my "psychiatrist-MD" ex wife and I experienced the jungle of Chitwan....what an experience!!!
First we had to get to Chitwan from Kathmandu.
We took a taxi or rather a Toyota Corolla and a hired driver.
Then we would take a raft into Chitwan and then an elephant to the GATES of CHITWAN, so it seemed back in 1991. Imagine the original King Kong movie with the high wall and gate.
Back to the Toyota. The driver stopped at a roadside shack where we rested and he had a large beer.
Oh...forgot to preface with the road description. MOST of this road was down the foothills of the Himals.
The drop offs were spectacular. Most of the road was one lane at the time. The Chinese and the British were at that time, improving that road. On one side was the HIGH mountain face and on the other was a drop of hundreds of feet sometimes many times more than that...and the driver was having a large beer...
We had passed a section of road where a few vehicles were parked...passengers gawking over the ledge of the road....the road was not "paved" ...it was either full of large wide "holes" or had large and smaller boulders on it, that had dropped from the mountain above. Such was the condition of the one lane, mostly, road. On this one spot was a wider area where passengers could relieve themselves and drink the water dripping down the face of the mountain...not worrying that the water came from far above where other folks were relieving themselves. It was here that a day or so before we stopped at this spot....that a parked truck lost its brakes and gravity slammed it into a bus full of religious pilgrims from India. Many holy spots in Nepal birthplace of Buddha. Hundreds of feet down was the carcass of the bus and sheets covered the many bodies awaiting relatives for a mass cremation ceremony which would be attended by dignitaries from India. Post on the bus crash
http://lens-image.blogspot.com/2015/05/death-on-road-to-kathmandu-nepal.html
Kilometers down the "road" from that was where our driver stopped to have a large beer....
My wife and I looked at each other unbelieving..... I told the driver that we did not want him to drive. He said he had a time schedule. I said I would drive. It would be against Nepalese law at the time but...the driver was not going to drive if we had a say, nor was he wanting to let me drive. Finally he let me drive. I drove.
I drove and experienced the most interesting of any drive I ever had previously experienced.
The long plunge on the one side. The boulders all over the road intermixed with wide deep pot holes.
Time passed as slowly as the Toyota was making headway with me at the wheel...the car's hubcaps bashing against the sides of boulders, the tires banging into pot holes. At least time did pass. The driver was annoyed and demanded to take back control...which I gladly relinquished. We survived although we later almost did not survive the bears....that is for later. It's a long story.
Okay,we finally stopped where we could scramble on a river raft.
That took us to Chitwan park and the lodge in which we would spend several days.
It was hot and I so much wanted the PROMISED COLD BEER that awaited us.
There are countries where promises are made just to make the "tourist" happy.
The promise may have little to do with reality but to make the tourist happy is an important goal, one that seems not to take up much thought beyond uttering the words of the promise.
Yes, there was beer in the refrigerator.
The refrigerator however was apparently taking a vacation with the beer bottles at room temperature.
I opened the freezer compartment after a time in which I sat with my despair. ...oh...the freezer was doing the duty of the refrigerator...sort of "good". I looked at the resort lodge person and asked why th ebeer was not in the refrigerator? Blank stare...who would put beer in the freezer?
Well, I would and I did...and after an eternity it was cold.
Here I am in 1991 drinking some of that beer at the lodge outdoor "pool" of water.
All photo rights reserved by my ex wife Margot G. M.D.
Shortly thereafter I was assuaged of the initial difficulties that are far from uncommon in these types of travels. Never had better beer, of course :)
