Day 79 - Chitwan National Park, Walking & Elephant Safari.

Today we both slept in, embracing the air con and somewhat of a sleep in. We woke and had breakfast at 7am, preparing for another morning of foot safari minus the canoe and crocodile encounters.
We set off across the river and again into the buffer zone, walking in a different direction to the previous day. Todays walking safari would go a lot longer, resulting in similar sightings as the day before. Lots of spotted deer, we are able to approach closer to them on foot in comparison to the jeep. The antlers on the male deer look exaggerated and huge in real life. They are truly magnificent and I'm considering them as inspiration for my next nature themed tattoo.
The only major difference in today's walking safari is that we see several sets of fresh tiger paw prints!
The elusive Bengal Tiger of Chitwan. After 5 hours of jeep safari & 2 separate walking safaris totaling 5 hours, the only sighting was these magnificent, fresh paw prints.

In a way this is a good thing. If they stay hidden they are less likely to be poached. The Bengal Tiger has less than 2,500 individuals alive today, in Nepal alone there is less than 250 & most of these live in Chitwan.
Chitwan is one of Asia's best national parks & boasts a huge variety of mammals, insects, birds, fish & plants. Slowly over the last 100 years the land has seen many changes to help protect & conserve its inhabitants. With a heavy presence of the army to prevent poaching & CC Cameras hidden in tree's, it's hard to believe this land use to be a designated hunting ground for royalty. Despite this modern day effort the balance between mans greed & nature is still heavily tilted. The local & native people still live on its borders, the tourism industry is steadily increasing & the illegal trade of rhino horn, tiger parts & even the forests timber is threatened by illegal activity.
Last year 30 people were injured by wild animals & 2 people were killed by tigers alone.
I hope one day, we can achieve the balance our world so desperately needs.

We arrive back at the lodge just before lunch and aren't required back for our next activity till 3pm.

Our next activity would be an Elephant back safari, something we didn't necessarily choose to do. All of our activities were included in our package & despite all my reading, I was still really unsure if I would want to ride an elephant again. As we stood on the platform waiting for the elephant to walk over I asked our guide how many rides she had done that day & he replied only 1 in the morning. When she arrived I could see her mahout holding a metal hook and a wooden stick. I asked our guide is he going to use that hook on her and he shook his head, I then asked again how many rides she had done that day, wanting to be 100% clear, his reply was the same. I stood on that platform for a full minute very emotional about my indecision, I even said to Tom "I dont know if I can do this". Eventually I sat down on her back, feeling very emotional and unsure. I decided to try and ask as many questions about her daily life as possible.

She has a Nepalese name that I can't pronounce or remember,  she is 15 years old and was born in India. Her mahout told me that she does 1 safari trip in the morning which last's no more than 2 hours, then she goes to the river for a bath. After her bath she has about 6 hours of free time which is mostly spent eating. The Mahout went in to detail about how much water she needs and how much food she gets every day, he explained her favourite thing was rice parcels with molasses wrapped in grass & that she eats about 200 of these a day which have to be made by the mahout. After 3pm once it has cooled down she goes for another safari trip of a similar distance before unloading the tourists and then walking 1 hour back to their home. At home she gets more food, another bath and is tied under her shelter. The Mahout wakes during the night, goes outside to check on her, provide more food & water at 10pm and again at 3am. They normally start the day at 6am.

He seems very friendly and happy to answer my questions, despite the ominous metal hook and wooden stick he doesn't use either of them on her, nor can I see any evidence that he has recently. They seemed to have a good relationship, he barely had to use his voice to tell her what to do and the few times he did, was because she was reluctant to stop grazing. As she was walking she was snatching trunk fulls of grass, picking up branches and waving them, swishing her tail & flapping her ears, all signs that she is happy. While on her back we made our way into a clearing that contained a mother rhino and her calf, we were able to get really close to them from the protection of the elephants back and watch them graze together. It was a really special moment to be able to see the efforts of the conservation & the funding from the elephant tourism standing right in front of us.

After the ride we went and brought her 2 bunch's of bananas to say thank you, from the front she looked very happy and relaxed, insisting we put the bananas directly into her mouth. I did notice what looked like scarring on the side of her head on the left side which concerned me, she is 15 years old though and it could have happened from anything, not necessarily from humans wielding the metal hook, which is my fear.

It's also worth mentioning that we saw other elephants & mahouts gathered about taking tourists for rides and of the 5 close enough for me to see, none of them had metal hooks with them. All of those elephants as well looked to be happy and healthy. I guess the metal hook is a personal preference of an individual mahout.

After the elephant safari we eat a quiet dinner and head to bed. 

- Alli