Elephant safaris, rhinos and lots of sweat!!

Well I’ve not posted for a while, because I’ve just been so busy! Last week at KAT, I was finally allowed to assist in surgery, which made things a bit more interesting for me, but generally things have been pretty slow. Most of the dogs are much better now, so panic over on the distemper front, although we have recently lost one of our favourite puppies which was sad 
Laura, James and I decided a couple of weeks ago that we were going to go on a bit of a mini holiday to Chitwan national park before I leave Nepal – the first time they would have left Kathmandu valley in 9 months of living here! We got everything booked and planned to set off on the 6 hour bus journey there on Friday morning. The trip didn’t get off to the best start, as we woke up early to find a power cut, and in my windowless room, that meant packing everything up in the pitch dark. We just about managed though, and made it to our bus on time. The bus journey was fairly uneventful, but some beautiful scenery – jungle, waterfalls, terrifyingly steep ravines that the buses sped round the corners of extremely fast. We couldn’t help but notice numerous large gaps in the safety barrier where vehicles had obviously plummeted into the river below! We were also very aware of the increasing heat, as we got further and further from the coolness of Kathmandu.
We had prepared ourselves for the onslaught of local touts when we finally arrived in Chitwan, but in fact it really wasn’t too bad at all, despite the stories we’d heard! We found ourselves a room in a small family run guesthouse fairly easily, and had a cup of tea while we tried to get used to the baking hot sun, and insane humidity. We were absolutely sweating buckets – literally we weren’t dry for the entire 5 days – either rain, river water, sweat, or shower water that didn’t dry in the humidity! After we had settled in, we went down to the National Trust Centre for Nature Conservation, to meet Sarad, a vet working on TB in elephants. We had a nice chat with him about his work , and he organized us an elephant safari for the next morning, with his office’s elephants.
It is very much off season in Chitwan at the moment, and the place resembled a ghost town. It was amazing how few people were around, and the only traffic was horses and carts and elephants! It was hilarious to sit up in the rooftop restaurants and watch the elephants trundling up and down both sides of the narrow streets, like taxis! We went down to the river side to watch the sun set, and watch the elephants and try to spot crocodiles at dusk. After dinner at the riverside restaurant, we had an early night, in our very sweaty room (with no power, therefore no fan!), ready for our elephant safari.
The next morning we had to get up early to get down to the nature conservation centre for 7am to give us the best chance of spotting wildlife. Of course when we got there, our elephant was nowhere to be seen, and so we sat and watched the little elephant camp preparing for the day– mahouts all chatting and having breakfast whilst people wrapped up grass and seed into little packages for the baby elephant to eat. Eventually our transport arrived, and we watched them strap a bamboo platform onto her back. We climbed on, and off we went! It perhaps wasn’t the most comfortable way to travel, but it was fun, once we’d figured out how to stay on despite the steep banks that she navigated! We headed off first across some relatively short grass and across a river. We then found out just why it was low season in Chitwan. The grasses are over 15 ft high – and came up well over our elephant! She just ploughed on through anyway, munching all the way. We were generally sticking to paths that other elephants had made, but suddenly our mahout saw a wild boar, and we went off track into the dense, dark jungle to try and find it again. The phrase ‘dragged through a hedge backwards’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. We were being dragged through a jungle forwards – with trees, branches and spiders webs hitting us in the face every few minutes, and nearly getting pulled off the elephant by the odd branch that got caught! It was all part of the fun, though I’m not sure I can say I was all that desperate to see that wild boar. We never did find it again, but we did see some Samba deer, and the back legs of a rhino! We were quite excited, but not entirely convinced that it wasn’t a Nepali person just holding the back legs of a rhino! That was pretty much the extent of our wildlife spots for the day, but we enjoyed the ride nonetheless!
We returned to our guesthouse to find another powercut – the load shedding (basically when there’s no power) in Chitwan is 8 hours a day. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but when it’s so hot, we really needed the fan to be able to stay in the room. So we decided that there was nothing for it but to go for a few drinks instead. James bought a bottle of local Raksi – (rice wine/firewater), and we sat at a little local café called the Nepali kitchen for the rest of the afternoon and evening. We met various people that came in for food and drink, and also bumped into Marianne, the Dutch vet student we had met in Kathmandu.
The next day we organized a canoe trip and a visit to the Elephant breeding centre – recommended by the lonely planet. We weren’t going until 3, so I decided to have a much needed shower, but then got a call from Sarad, the vet, saying he was at the guesthouse to take me to the elephant treatment centre. I was still in my pyjamas, but figured it wasn’t too obvious that they were pyjamas, so went off in them! The centre was about a half hour bike ride from the centre of Sauraha, the town were we were staying. It was all very hidden away, as they are very sensitive to tourists finding out about the elephants that are being treated. The ride was nice – through lots of small Nepali villages, over the river and through some small forested areas, so I kept my eyes peeled for tigers and rhinos the whole way! The centre was basically a camp with about ten elephants that were all being treated for TB. It was really interesting to see how they treat them. It is the human form of TB that elephants get, and so they use a human drug protocol – but some elephants need 60 tablets in each dose! They crush up the tablets, add some salt (to taste!) and then wrap them in a flour dough – elephant momos one of the handlers told me delightedly – (momos are a really popular snack here – similar to dim sum). They also showed me how the elephants will only accept drugs, food, or anything else from their own handlers. One guy threw a doughball to an elephant that wasn’t his own, and the elephant just pushed it angrily as far away as she could with her trunk, and stamped, but then accepted it fine from her own mahout!
After helping with the treatments for an hour or so, and having some dahl bhat with the handlers we headed back to the town. We had lunch in a rooftop restaurant, looking out over the town – with all the elephants coming about up to our level! Afterwards, we set off to the community forest – a community owned part of the national park, for our canoe ride. We all climbed in to the canoes, which were worryingly wobbly and close to the water – bearing in mind we were on a croc spotting mission! It was a nice peaceful ride down the river, and we saw one pair of eyes appear and promptly disappear under the water, but again not a particularly successful wildlife spotting mission. We did see the back end of another rhino disappearing off into the trees though. We were hoping that we would start to see some whole animals at some point, rather than just bits of them! The canoe ride was a disappointingly short 20 minutes (we had been promised an hour), and the elephant breeding centre was quite unpleasant. We had been led to believe that it was a conservation project, but in fact they are breeding elephants to use for tourist rides and for jungle patrols, not to release back into the wild, to help the dwindling numbers of wild elephants in the park. The elephants are all chained up with their calves for the majority of the day, and the breeding side of it is basically allowing a wild bull free access to the elephant cows whenever he chooses; whilst they’re tied up, which is quite disturbing. After an extremely precarious canoe ride back across the river, with the top of the canoe actually level with the water, we headed back to the town. We all felt a bit duped by the whole canoe trip, and yet another power cut gave us no choice but to go back to our Nepali kitchen for a few drinks, some aloo paratha – (potato pancake) and some card games.
The next day was our final day in Chitwan, and we decided that we wanted to go on another elephant safari to try and see some whole animals, so arranged it, along with a night in a treehouse in the jungle, for our last night. On the way back from booking it, James and I went to sit by the river to try and spot some crocodiles, but after spending half an hour watching a suspicious looking bit of weed very intently, we gave up and decided to go and watch the elephant bathing that we could see going on just upriver. We wandered up, and there were no tourists this time – we had been on the first day, as it is one of the big attractions in Chitwan – helping bathe the elephants. Unfortunately, the week before we got there, a lad got drunk and fell off the elephant, cracked his head on a rock and got washed down river and drowned, so tourists aren’t allowed to take part any more – for a few weeks at least, until it’s all forgotten! This time however there were no other tourists, so we went down to the ’beach’ to see if we could go in the water with them. One old mahout, with a huge bull elephant said we could help scrub him, so we grabbed ourselves some flat stones and in we went! The elephant loved it, and lay in the river spraying water all over us with his trunk as we climbed on him, splashing him with water and scrubbing the mud off him. It was really good fun, though we did get soaked – but Laura was really sorry to have missed it!
When we got back, we had to pack up and get ready for our elephant safari and night in the jungle. There is (obviously!) no food in the jungle, so we had to get take out…more aloo paratha and momos, and lots of water and rum! We boarded our elephant (with all our luggage hanging from the sides!) and set off to the jungle – picking up a fourth passenger, Lewis, on the way. We went straight into the community forest, in a herd of other elephants. We thought at first that we would barely see anything, in such a big group, but the elephants all took different routes once we got into the forest. Within about 5 minutes trundling along jungle paths, we came across a rhino, right in our path. I couldn’t believe how close we got to it – we could have just about leaned off the elephant and touched it – though I don’t think that would have been the best idea! Some of the other elephants appeared also then, and just surrounded it in a big circle – which made me a little nervous, but I was surprised at how well a wild animal tolerated it! We watched him have a mud bath, and then set off in search of more animals. About five minutes later, we came across another rhino in a clearing, this time with a baby. It was incredible to see them so close up in the wild, and they didn’t seem at all perturbed by our presence! We saw some peacocks, which didn’t excite me too much, but Lewis was an avid bird watcher so was quite taken with them. After seeing some more Samba deer and a wild boar family, we crossed a river. The elephants stopped in the middle of the river, to spray water over themselves, whilst the mahouts all stood on their heads with umbrellas up! We then broke away from the tracks, and headed through some dense jungle again. Eventually, we came to a watering hole, which we crossed, and came out at a clearing, and saw a jungle tower – our home for the night. We climbed off the elephant, onto the first floor of the tower, where Dev, our guide was waiting for us. We checked out the rooms – hot, tin rooms, with wooden beds in them – luckily there were mosquito nets, but they were full of holes! There was no power there, or running water, so we settled in before we had to do everything by candle light! We sat on the veranda, with the rum and some snacks that Dev had brought…dried soy beans, buff sekuti and dry instant noodles! As the sun started to go down, we spotted a herd of deer in the clearing, and then a family of three rhinos emerged from the forest, and started grazing. As it got darker, the rhinos got closer, and by the time it was completely dark, they were underneath the tower! Eventually, once we decided there was no point looking out for animals any more, we lit a candle. This attracted lots of huge moths, insects and a curious praying mantis! We sat on the veranda, sweating and chatting all evening, until we decided to turn in. We took a group trip to the toilet on the ground floor – where we’d seen rhinos a few hours earlier – it was one exciting toilet trip, complete with large spiders! Laura and I went to bed a bit before the boys, and as soon as we stopped chatting, we heard a loud growling noise coming from somewhere very close by. Sloth bears are the biggest fear in the jungle – as they will attack unprovoked – so we sat up terrified, to try and hear the noise again. We heard it and shouted to the boys to get in the rooms. Strangely though – the noise stopped as soon as the boys got into their room-turned out the growling noise was their chairs on the sides of the tin rooms – we knew it was close by! We eventually got to sleep, to the jungle lullaby of mosquitoes, crickets, barking deer and occasional distant howls and roars from the forest.
We woke up early, to find more rhinos grazing just below the tower. We had to pack up early to get our bus back to Kathmandu. We got a jeep back to the town and had a final breakfast of puri tarkari at the Nepali kitchen. It consisted of two hard boiled eggs, curried vegetables and sweet bready pancakes! Laura and I then went to go and wash and clean our teeth using the water pump out the back of the café. It was a fun experience, but not something I’d like to do every time I needed water – it was quite tiring pumping it after a while!
We walked across town to the bus – there were plenty of horses and carts on offer, but they looked so badly treated, and covered with injuries from the harnesses that we decided to walk anyway, despite the baking hot sun. When we arrived, we found our seats were sat the back of the bus – not a good place to be on a Nepali bus! So James had a word in Nepali, and we found ourselves in the cab with the driver – very spacious – and he nearly even let me drive the bus, until I admitted that I don’t actually drive a bus at home! The downside of being right at the front was that we saw every near miss – nearly hitting a woman, a cow, a micro bus and a few trucks – scary!
We arrived back in Kathmandu, and I have never been so grateful to land in a cold rainy city! We were all in desperate need of a shower, so got clean at my guesthouse, and then went to try the steakhouse in Thamel that everyone raves about – and it turned out it deserved all the good reviews!
I am now back at KAT, and today have assisted in surgery all morning, and done a castration myself! 2 days to go and I’m finally accepted into the OT! Typical! I only have a few days left here – I can’t believe how fast the last month has flown by, but I’ve had a fantastic time. Not sure if I will have anything more worth posting again – just two more days at KAT and some shopping! I have posted some pictures of Chitwan on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22434&id=278600184&l=417638d4fa which you shouldn’t need a facebook account for…so enjoy!

Some pictures on facebook follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22334&id=278600184&l=a10b790482

Garden parties and sightseeing

Since I last posted, I have had lots of fun, and many Nepali experiences, but still, unfortunately not done a great deal at the clinic. I have mainly been offering medical advice for the dogs at the clinic, and cleaning more maggot wounds. Becoming a bit of a pro at pulling out maggots! Thursday was really quiet, so Laura and I went down to a little shack just down the road from the clinic, that does amazing banana lassis. On the way, we spotted a dog in a terrible state - it had horrendous mange and a huge wound across his neck, and some locals were throwing stones at it. We bought some biscuits with the plan of trying to walk him back up to the centre, but he ran off to hide in a nearby shed. Laura went back up to KAT to get some of the dog catchers and a chain, whilst I sat with the dog, trying to calm him down, and feed him some biscuits. The guys from KAT arrived before too long, and without too much difficulty managed to get a chain lead on him to walk him back up to the centre, where they cleaned up the wound.

The next day was similarly quiet at KAT, but Mo, Laura's dog was ill, and had a seizure, so I went with her to a private clinic on the other side of Kathmandu. It was amazing to see the facilities they had - Xray (something I have not yet seen here), Ultrasound, MRI, and full intensive care and hospitalization facilities. The problem is though, the clinic is in such a remote location and is prohibitively expensive for most locals, so it seems the facilities largely go to waste! We managed to get some blood tests for Mo though, and it seems the most likely diagnosis is tick borne paralysis.

The drive across town was a great insight into Nepali life - over the Bagmati river - which is the filthiest river I have seen, huge mountains of rubbish, with dogs foraging around in it. We were driving during the daily downpour - which is a quite a sight in Kathmandu. There are still hoards of motorbikes on the road, but all either covered with ponchos, or holding umbrellas up whilst riding with one hand! On the way back, we stopped at a little roadside shack, for some sekuwa, a Nepali snack. It is buff meat (water buffalo) barbecued with spices and served with rice krispies (!!) The woman was barbecuing it over a very smoky fire, so that we could barely see her, and the stall was very popular with locals, and numerous street dogs that obviously were living on the scraps! It was a bit spicy for me (which admittedly is not saying much!) but really nice.

That day was Suraj, one of the Nepali volunteers' last day. We arrived back at the centre and were told that everyone was going for wild boar at a garden centre that belongs to Suresh, one of Suraj's friends to celebrate. Laura and I didn't really have a clue what to expect, but piled onto the bikes with Radeep, Suraj and James (two bikes, 5 people, not a problem in Nepal!) We drove across town for quite a while - a not entirely comfortable journey, in the dark and the pouring rain! We arrived at said 'garden centre'...in fact a plant nursery, with a small room nearby, and a tin shelter as a toilet. First of all we were all ushered into the room, where there was a bed, a gas ring and very little else. When we realized we didn't all actually fit into the room, we went to investigate the garden centre. At first it looked like were going to be settling down in a foot wide corridor between potted plants, but then we came across a bit of a clearing in the mud. Luckily there was fairly effective tarpaulin to keep us dry from the continuing rain, and someone brought out a couple of rugs. Already quite a surreal experience, Laura and I were wondering where wild boar fitted into it all, and quite how long we would be sitting in the nursery before we could get back home to read our books! Soon though, a woman emerged from the room with the single gas ring, with plates and plates of freshly cooked prawn crackers, masala poppadoms and vegetables. Then the drinks appeared. Numerous bottles of whisky, beer and sprite. We were joined by Suresh, Ramesh, Rajesh and a few others, and they introduced us to the Nepali drinking rule of never being allowed an empty glass, and not really having any sprite with the whisky! They also taught us 'campai', meaning 'down it'!! They then brought out the most amazing plate of wild boar stew - it tasted amazing - I am trying to get the recipe for it so that I can treat you all to it in the UK! There was lots of singing to obscure English songs (in Nepal, as I also found in Africa and Malaysia, the English songs that are popular over here are things like old Boyzone songs, Baha men and various other songs that were barely given airtime in the UK!!) It was a really fun night (helped along I'm sure by the vast quantities of whisky drunk!) with conversation centering around language, (the crisps, cheesy balls caused much hilarity!) and humane ways to kill chickens.

The night came to a natural end, when none of us poor English people could stomach any more whisky! After a bit of a debate about how we were all getting home, and us refusing to get in the car with drunken Nepalis, it turned out the only 'safe' way to get home was back to Laura and James' on the bike again. So off we went. Turns out Laura was too drunk to actually hold on to the bike, so I spent the journey home, up the mountain and through the muddy, rocky tracks, holding Laura onto the bike, whilst she focused her efforts on singing Molly Malone!

We arrived back at Laura and James' and Suraj and Radeep came in to continue the party. I tried to drink water Nepali style from the kettle. Here, they have lots of shared bottles/jugs/cups/bowls of water, so you have to pour it into your mouth without touching the container, and without pouring it all down yourself. I had been practising at KAT, but seemed I had lost the art that night!

After a good night's sleep, we all headed back to KAT, to check quickly on the particularly sick dogs, and then I went back to Thamel to spend a quiet day in a café, reading my book. I put off my day of sight seeing till Sunday when I had a much clearer head!

On Sunday morning, I went for breakfast in the deaf bakery café - which I am becoming a bit of a regular at, and met a lovely German girl, Anna. She had just arrived in Kathmandu the day before, and was planning on a day's sightseeing too, so we decided to keep each other company and set off to Patan, to visit the famous Durbar square.

We got a taxi there and were immediately accosted by people wanting to be our guide for the day. We fended them off, but followed one guide's directions up to a terrace that gave us a great view over the square, which is a complex of amazing Hindu temples. There was a little stall at the top, selling the usual Nepali wares of laughing Buddha ornaments, beaded jewellery and bangles, and the not so usual copies of the Karma Sutra. They were selling them as 'family planning guides' which we found quite hilarious!

We spent the morning in the baking hot sun - for once no rain, wandering around Patan. It is a fascinating place. There are hundreds of different Hindu temples, stupas (4 big round white decorative domes, one at each corner of Patan), chowks (squares) and monuments just dotted throughout the city. Every corner you turn you come across something worth stopping at, but daily life just carries on around it all. We were followed around for about an hour by a little girl - she didn't speak to us, and wasn't asking for anything, but just followed us round the streets, chatting away to herself.

There are lots of little bazaars, and people selling street food, and we had some delicious samosas on the way. I even got to try out a bit of the Nepali that I have been learning, as, despite being one of the Lonely Planet's 'must sees' , many of the locals don't speak any English. After we decided we had just about seen all the sights, we went for lunch in a little rooftop café overlooking the main square. We then got a taxi to Swayambhu, a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Kathmandu - also known as Monkey temple, for the swarms of monkeys that live there.

Swayambhu is notorious for the thousands of pilgrim's steps leading up to the temple. Somehow though, our taxi dropped us just 85 steps from the top! It's a beautiful temple - white and gold with lots of brightly coloured flags strung all over it, and Buddha's eyes on each side of it it- I will try and put some pictures up so you can see it. Buddhists go there to spin the prayer wheels that surround the main stupa - and you have to walk in a clockwise direction around it. There were monkeys climbing all over the temple, and lots of naïve tourists nearly getting attacked as they got their cameras, and faces too close to them! We could go inside the temple, as it is Buddhist, unlike at Patan, where they are Hindu temples, and non hindus are not allowed in. There was a group of Buddhist monks all chanting and playing various drums and wind instruments - it was really interesting to watch.

After we had had a good look round the temple, we headed back to Thamel and met up with Laura, James and Marianne, and played a few games of pool and then went for Chinese (again!) We were all suffering a bit last night though, so have vowed, despite its deliciousness, not to go back to that Chinese!

I am now sat at KAT, and have FINALLY been into the operating theatre today and seen my first flank bitch spay. It's amazing how fast they do it, and all through such a tiny incision! Anyway, I am hoping that I will progress from observing in a few days - who knows, maybe I'll be putting in the odd suture by the end of next week!! We have had a bit of an outbreak of diarrhoea in some of the in house dogs - we're not entirely sure what it is, but are hoping against hope that it is not distemper, as some of the dogs are showing other signs. It could wipe out the lot of them, as they're not yet vaccinated, so fingers crossed I will have some good news on that front for you next time....