Melanie and Gavin's Travels

Scary close calls in the Nepali Jungle

Hi from Chitwan National Park,

We are in Southern Nepal, only 5 hours away from the Indian border. We have been having a very exciting time here. yes I think exciting would be the correct word to use.

The Park is a Jungle, about 930square km and you can only enter with 2 guides. We are staying just outside of the park in a nice lodge. It's hot here, it's a nice switch. So we had signed up to do numerous activities and went for a few walks. The first main thing we did was an elephant ride into the jungle, it's about 2 1/2 hours long. I LOVE the elephants, they are such gorgeous creatures. Most of them are from India, but they do have a breeding center where there are babies too. We saw that and they are beautiful.

On the elephant ride we went into the jungle and sat on top of him, with a guide or leader at the front directing the elephant. The trees were very lush and snarly. The elephant was pretty big so we were sitting quite high up. We managed to see a rhino, monkeys, and a lot of spotted deer. Out elephant was fearless and just kept cutting through bushes and trees and broke off some large branches for fun too. While this was cool because we got to see more it also meant I felt I was being attacked by the jungle, bushes and branches were flinging me in the arms and legs. Ouch my legs! A thorny branch wanted to take my North Face trekking pants with it and the pants lost and ripped holes below the knees, as well as leaving some cuts on my skin. All in all a fun adventure. Then we watched the elephants being bathed in the river, it was beautiful.

Our next adventure was slightly more in the 'terrifying, scared for my life' range of things. It started out innocently enough, on a canoe down the peaceful river. We were accompanied by the man rowing the boat, 2 other tourists and 2 guides from our hotel to lead us. After the canoe ride we had been given the option of a 3hour jungle walk or going to the elephant breeding center, we picked the breeding center. I had read that on the walk there is you and the guides and one big stick but if you came across some animals you had little protection. Well after the canoe ride we came up to a large grassy area and still had a short walk out of the jungle area. The guide (with said long bamboo stick and in green parks uniform) warned us we may see some animals but it was unlikely. There followed no safety talk etc. I started to get a bit nervous but figured I would have nothing to worry about.

i was wrong!!!!!

After about 5 minutes of walking along the open path (I will post photos when I hit a faster computer, we were on cut grass, about 5feet across, with the tall grass on either side of us) with the proper guide at the front, us tourists in the middle and our 2nd guide in a white top (he was the waiter at the restaurant but training to be a guide) behind us we heard a large noise in the grass to the left of us. It's not normal grass, its large jungle grass that is about 8 feet high, literally. We all stopped with our cameras ready, slightly oblivious to the danger that could possibly lie in the tall grass. Suddently the green shirted guide in front RAN, VERY QUICKLY. He just bolted off ahead. I was stunned for a second and wasn't sure if something was chasing him or he was leading something away from him so we all froze. Then the guide behind us walked up and realized that there was a RHINO in the grass, about 10 feet away judging from the grass noises. He turned and ran in the other direction the one we had come from, I am pretty sure he said rhino and run but now it's all a blur. At this point us 4 tourists turned and followed him, fear slowly catching up to me. We stopped after about 60 feet because we could tell nothing was behind us. So now 5 of us were in the open path, with the one guide far up ahead.

We waited. Within 1 minute a massive scary beautiful rhino walked onto the path where we had just been. He was pretty oblivious to us and started munching on the grass. We all just froze in disbelief. I should let you know at this point (not to alarm my family, although i was TERRIFIED, I REPEAT TERRIFIED) that rhinos can kill people and are very large animals. I knew little about them except they have a big horn and might not attack or hunt a human like a tiger but if they get close to you they will probably attack and seriously injure or kill you.

So... There we were with a rhino on the path where we needed to go. the guy who had dropped us off in the canoe was long gone. It was river or path with rhino, we had no choice. We waited and gavin took a photo without moving closer. We kept waiting, the rhino kept chewing on the grass and the 2 separated guides (the one with big stick was not with us, not like that would have saved us if the rhino charged) were mouthing instructions and swapping hand signals to each other. In a way it was like a comedy, a scene from Jurassic Park or a bad movie on how tourists get hurt in the jungle in a 3rd country with not nearly enough safety standards set up. but really I was petrified and everyone else was scared. We calmed when we knew it was not charging us, but it still COULD. Gavin looked at me and asked if i was okay, my white face and a no indicated I was not!

The Rhino started going into the grass, we eventually started going into the grass too. We were trying to avoid it and they can't see well so we hid a bit. It was pretty far away but it was so hard to tell which direction it was heading, except for the grass crunching noises as the large animal walked along. Then the guide started leading us in the direction we thought the rhino was!!! None of us knew what was going on, we thought the other guide maybe had signalled it had moved or something. Gavin put some space between us and the guides and let the other 2 tourists go first. We walked 20 meters and then stopped and ran back. We stopped in front of a tree and the guide went UP the tree. Before I realized he was checking to see the rhino i thought he was trying to get away from it and my fear was such that i knew why people wet their pants when terrified (I didn't!). He viewed the area and then we went back to the open path. Slowly we started heading towards guide #1 (the one who had bolted and told us NOTHING!!) as the rhino was out of sight.

It was nearly the scariest moment of my life. I was actually thinking at one point how I was not nearly ready to die and hoping I could outrun all the others except my lovely fiance. The rhino never charged us and so we were not actually in danger, but if he wanted to he could have. Another 10mins of walking brought us out of the area and i wanted a hard drink to calm my nerves. We watched the elephants at the breeding center instead. An hour later we had calmed down, watched the sunset and could kind of laugh about it. The 1st guide said he was attacked by a rhino once, he had let his guest up the tree but he didn't make it and was left in the hospital for a week and took 2 months to recover.

We were lucky. Today we are in the same place but taking it easy and will take a bus to start the first step of crossing into India tomorrow.

I'm hoping that's my worst travel story for this trip!

posted by melaniewilkes @ 8:02 PM