My elephant was hungry...

So he grabbed a snack midway through our walk.



I do find it unsettling that an elephant's trunk is powerful enough to casually snap a healthy tree as he passes by.

An elephant ride is not a soothing journey, involving as it does a ludicrous amount of swaying, bouncing and lurching. Four or more people cram themselves into a small carriage of approximately the same configuration and comfort as the underside of a wooden chair, and bumble about atop an animal thoroughly indifferent to their comfort. But you've got to do it at least once in a lifetime - and really, it's the only reasonable way to see a handful of the world's essential places.

One such is Chitwan National park, a surprisingly large swath of virgin savanna and jungle straddling the Nepal-India border. It's in the Terai, Nepal's vast, blisteringly hot and mildly anarchic southern plains. The Terai is one of the more ungovernable portions of one of the world's more ungovernable countries, and it's been the wellspring of much of Nepal's recent chaos; indeed, another economy-crippling blockade began there this morning. Even the route there forced we tourists to skirt a feeble but inconvenient banda; we had to abandon our bus when tractors blocked the road, hoof it across a road bridge, its surface painted with the carbon-smear remnants of burnt tires, to reach the tourist enclave of Sauraha, at the mouth of the park.

Once there, thankfully, there's no indication you're in the troubled Terai; in fact, I half-forgot I was in Nepal at all. With its plentiful elephants, loudly diverse birdlife, and gorgeously expansive grasslands, Chitwan seduced my subconscious into thinking I was back in Southern Africa, notwithstanding the heffalumps being a touch smaller and the people noticeably paler. Chitwan is famously crowded with rhinoceri, and hosts most of Nepal's remaining (and dwindling) tigers. I saw neither from my elephant on the next morning's early ride, which is apparently unusual (re: the rhinos, anyhow). I did see much hauntingly beautiful fog-shrouded savanna.



And a few unexpectedly lazy deer, sitting serenely in the underbrush, with the confidence that evidently grows from the knowledge that Asia's tigers are nearly extinct






The ivy-like vine surrounding the deer is (according to our elephant handler, or mahout) an invasive South American weed, furiously overrunning the forest. It has apparently consumed more than a tenth of the very large park, and is resistant to all reasonable methods of extermination short of napalm.

From a wildlife perspective, it was an underwhelming journey. It was, however, crowded with exotic birds, the occasional camera-shy warthog, and and beautiful scenery.I did see a few elephants (namely the ones carrying us):




Better was to come later in the day. My uncooperative internet connection, I regret to say, is stubbornly refusing to upload the remainder of the day's photos, so it appears that finer photos will be yours tomorrow. More to come!