Hunting the Wild Chicken

Welcome to Chitwan National Park where we can be sucked into the conspiracy for tourists to see the tiger and meet innocent primitive people.

After a day's tiring negotiation we arrange a reduced cost jungle safari. Our chances of seeing the tiger range between 70% and 99% - typical of Nepali calculations generally. How long is this bus to Kathamandu? “3,4,5 hours” “What time does the bus leave? “Maybe half an hour, maybe 2 hours” (actual wait: 4.5 hours) – just plucked out of thin air to appease the request, the best starting point is not to ask these silly western questions and simply assume that things are never going to happen so if and when they do then it is a nice surprise. Sitting on the roof of a bus with 150 people, your butt moulded into an iron bar, a sack of rice on top of you, a pregnant woman wedged behind and a random man stroking your leg – assume it is for eternity then when you arrive 5,6,7 hours later it's a nice surprise.

At the beginning of the jungle trek our safety talk encompasses a quick run down of approaches to death avoidance for respective different animals. Charging rhinos and elephants – climb at least 7 foot up a tree. Tigers and bears – huddle together. If things get hairy then we have two men in their sixties with big sticks to protect us, despite their many years of experience their look of terror is concerning as we observe two fighting rhinos in the bush – we hide behind a tree. The crocodiles we see are a safe distance, the bear we hear roar and the tiger we chase for a kilometre turns out to be a deer.

Traumatised Yann doesn't join us for day two – he takes a bus. The peak of excitement in day two involves spotting several wild chickens. Meanwhile Yann discovers a new Nepali family, they treat him like a king and his sister puts tikka on his forehead and adorns him in flowers. 

After twenty hours trekking I feel like Indiana Jones yet again in Nepal, the long grasses whipping me in the face. Worn, we arrive at the isolated community of Mardi where we are told the people give out of the goodness of their hearts. The week long Tihar Festival is in full swing. Bands of children come dancing round the houses with a tray for money. Rachael mistakes a thousand rupee note for a ten rupee note for her donation – the dancing goes wild. As word travels of the rich tourists in the village our lodging is bombarded until midnight with further groups – looking for massive donations to the “local book appeal” but in vain as we are retired to our concrete slab beds at 8.30pm. Resourcefully the villagers tag an additional day onto the festival and we awake to more dancing which turns into a full audience outside our rooms, observing our every moves, I feel like Madonna. The dancing turns into unashamed demands for money and cigarettes.

Our guides who we hired for 2 days are still hanging around on day 3, they interfere with any transaction we try to make and suddenly prices suspiciously increase. Although we are not paying them today they are getting free food for hanging around and taking a cut for translating. Irritated we send them away, quite able to buy our own bottles of coke. We escape our audience to walk to the old temple and happily accept the young village boys' offer to accompany us. Later as we leave the village we are harassed by ten year old boys demanding money for this “guided tour” and our 50 rupees offering is apparently insufficient.

   

Saddened by corrupted human nature we trudge across mud flats to wait 1,2,3 hours for a bus reflecting on the local myths of stupid foreign tourists.