Christmas

An inauspicious start to our Christmas holiday as we are both struck down with Giardia, David has terrible cold and cough and all flights delayed by fog in Kathmandu. When we eventually reach the Pacific Guest House, it is freezing and we have a tiny room with no natural light, cold shower and lumpy cotton mattress. Went immediately to the big shop and bought a fan heater to stop David shaking. We managed to be fairly jolly when we went out with friends about to set off for Dorset and Delhi for their Christmas treats. On Monday David felt worse and went to the clinic while I went to VSO to prepare for the action research workshop next month. Text message conveyed severe upper and lower respiratory tract infection and suspected malaria. Tests inconclusive. He spent the next few days sitting in the sun in many layers of clothing attempting to keep warm, then diving under many layers of bedcovers still fully clothed in the evenings. Shakes subsided; malaria unlikely; as the antibiotics started to alleviate the respiratory infection, his face erupted into a massive cold sore. He remained cheerful and determined that we should go to Bardia. So after a successful few days work, we returned to the airport to find no flights to the Terai because of fog, but we eventually got to Nepalgunj in south west Nepal by early afternoon on Saturday 22nd. We were met by a jeep and the charming Raju and sped along the western part of the Mahendra Highway, passing small mud villages, rice stacks, laden buffalo carts, bright yellow fields of mustard, surprisingly pink pigs, and YCL road blocks. Gradually the forest thickened on either side of the road, and we entered the national park. An hour of dirt road, fording two rivers and passing through many prosperous looking Tharu villages brought us to the lovely Tiger Mountain lodge (no tigers or mountains) in traditional mud and thatch. After a delicious daal bhat snack, we walked in the sal forest, hearing wild elephant and parakeets, seeing fresh tracks of rhino, leopard and tiger, holes of porcupines and pythons and seeing crocodiles, deer (various) and monkeys (various). We returned past the 5 domestic elephants eating their supper, and were greeted by tea and popcorn around a blazing fire, hot shower with an alarming jet propelled shower mat, dinner and a bottle of wine, before retiring to our room where hot water bottles had been placed in the huge bed. The only other guests were a white Kenyan couple doing research as part of an international rhino conservation project. Rhinos are severely threatened in Bardia. The 80 transported here from Chitwan were all poached within a year. An early morning walk on Sunday; the misty forest smelled remarkably like an English beech wood in autumn, but there the similarity ended. Many tracks and noises, but few animals. After a late breakfast and relaxing morning in a sunny hammock, we set off into the forest on top of the enormous Laxmi Kali in a sturdy howdah. A green sea of towering elephant grass opened before us and we crossed rivers of swirling waterand seemingly impenetrable thickets in search of elusive animals. After 2 hours she sank to her knees so we could dismount with some dignity, and we were jeeped to a tented camp by the massive Karnali river where we spent Christmas. Safari luxury, with big tents, hot showers, camp fire, the wine bottle and hot water bottles. There were 2 resident python beneath the camp, the female with a ‘waist’ measurement larger than mine. A perfect Christmas day, rafting down the Karnali in warm sunshine, watching birds and Gangetic dolphin playing, stopping for a picnic on the river bank, before meeting Laxmi Kali on a sand bank. Worries about mounting were short-lived, as she knelt down, hooked her tail into a stirrup and propelled us up her mountainous backside. We encountered wild elephant (surprisingly not poached for their ivory) on the way back to the lodge. Christmas dinner (lots of vegetables but no sprouts) was followed by a flat brownish cake with Merry Xmax in white icing. Two more days of elephant safaris, walks and reading in hammocks. Colonel Jim Edwards, the founder of Tiger Tops and owner of the lodge arrived on our last night with some of his children and their friends, with much hospitality and entertaining stories around the fire in the evening.
We spent 5 hours in Nepalgunj airport on Thursday afternoon waiting for a plane, and a further 4 hours at Kathmandu airport on Friday waiting for our flight home. Security tried to confiscate David’s candles as a WMD. We did not know that domestic planes flew at night – there are no lights on the planes or the runways. Everest by moonlight was spectacular and landing a big surprise!