Stikkordarkiv: Wild life

Life in the jungle

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We have taken the trip from Kathmandu to the jungle of Chitwan, close to the Indian border. Here the Bengali tiger lives alongside with rhinos, leopards, monkeys, bears, snakes, wild elephants, pigs and you name it. It is in the middle of the day, and we are resting at the hotel after a long journey.

Suddenly we here a roar. We run over to the windows. We can almost not believe what is happening right in front of us. Another roar. It´s the elephants who are coming to take a bath in the river. Three tourists sit on the back, ready to get a shower from the trunk. – Dooooper – Doooper. Give me water, give med water, the elephant tamer says. But it is out of season, the water is too cold and the elephant does not want to get into it. Stirred it runs several meters in the water and before anyone knows it, they are all in the water, both the shocked tourists and the colossal elephant, which has now laid over to one side and is kicking its giant feet in the water.

The tourists splash and crank with their hands, terrified to end up under the heavy colossus that seems to be completely out of control. The elephant tamer jumps up on the side of its big back, while shouting and hitting with a small stick. Eventually, the elephant gets up, slowly, on his feet. Two of the tourists climb hesitantly on his back again. People from the area, both tourists and people working in hotels and restaurants, gather at the riverbed to see what is happening. Once again, the two deeply soaked tourists are thrown into the river. A liberating laughter spreads among the spectators and more people are coming to see.

In the evening we sit by the fire together with the hotel staff. It is cold in January. The stout and charismatic chef begins to tell stories in Nepali. Every time he finishes a story, the crowd bursts in laughter. Once he was so tired after having done the dishes all day, that he fell down from a ladder and ended up in hospital. Laughter. Later he tells stories about all the guests who have visited the hotel. An Englishman who was there recently, arrived in a helicopter and spent money like water. Eventually he was so broke and unrattled that he asked the hotel staff what in the world he was going to do. They suggested he needed to go back to his work in Kathmandu, that maybe he had some important things waiting for him there? The man thought about it, yes, they were certainly right, but how could he go there without any money left? Then the staff collected money for the cheapest microbus they could find. He came in a helicopter and left in a microbus. The crowd laughs in tears.

Chitwan, January 2005

Elephants never again

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  • I don´t like to go into the jungle, a young man wearing a cap called Mojo says. He is one of the touristguides we meet at one of the hotels near Chitwan national park. – I do it only because I have to, because some tourists have asked for it. The truth is I had decided never to do it anymore.
  • Why are you afraid to go into the jungle?
  • I used to take tourists on “jungle walks”. It used to be my job. Once I went with another guide and a foreign couple. It was in the afternoon, and we had been walking all day without anything to eat or drink. It was burning hot and I was so thirsty. It was my turn to walk in front, when we got a message that there was a wild elephant coming towards us, and we should turn right to avoid him. So we did, and tried to avoid him this way. The only problem was that the elephant also changed his direction and came directly towards us. We did not know, because the elephant came totally silent… He breathes through his trunk, he does not make a sound. His teeth were as big as this – Mojo shows me the upper part of his arms. – One knock, and you are no more, he says.

In the panic that followed, the two guides agreed to go with one tourist each, the tourists were afraid and did not know what to do. When Mojo went with the girl, the elephant came chasing them, challenging them. They were trying to get to the river were a canoe was coming, but the elephant followed them into the water, they ran as fast as they could and according to Mojo, hardly escaped the elephants deadly bite. – The german girl started to cry, and when she cried it was as if I cried too. That’s when I decided never to go into the jungle again.

Mojo breaths heavily. – I can do a lot of things, rhinos and bears I can handle, a bear at least you can fight. But a wild elephant, there is nothing to do against such an animal.

  • The wild elephant comes here because of the elephant breeding centre, Raj Gurung one of the authorized guides of the Chitwan national park explains. We have taken the canoe over the river to the national park, where we are sitting at the riverbed. He explains to me all the traces we find. – Look here, he says, the leopards have just been here to drink.

  • I have never seen wild animals attack without being provoked, if it is not to live a happy life according to their instincts. They don’t want to bother anyone besides from that, he says. – Why should the wild animals come here and look for people? They don’t do that, they only have to come if they don’t find enough to eat in the jungle. Then they come to eat from the farmers fields around here.

According to guides who have been working in the area around Sauraha for the last 15-20 years, the number of animals in the forest is dramatically decreasing. They suspect it is because of the floods, sweeping away the vegetation, leaving desert behind, and because of the many people who come to collect firewood from within the forest.

  • The government should provide them with some option, Raj Gurung says. – People live to close to the wild life. Why do they have to live so close to the national park? When a rhino attacks and kills a person, they blame the rhino. But the rhino is just following his natural instincts.

Since the insurgency began in 1996 poaching of endangered species in the park has increased rapidly because of reduced security posts within the park. No military longer dares to stand guard there.

Chitwan, January 2005