16. Bathing with Elephants

Sept 7th

As I end my Tibetan trip back in Kathmandu, Alice and Dave arrive for the first time. After a boozy catch-up that sees us shaking our stuff on a Nepalese dance floor in the centre of Kathmandu at 2am, and a day or two of sightseeing, we take a rickety bus together down to Chitwan National Park in the South of Nepal.

On our second day there, we head out on elephant safari. We wake early and arrive at the elephant house where we are introduced to a friendly looking elephant and her bare-chested handler. Straddling her neck and using his feet to steer her, he sits atop like something out of the Jungle Book. A wooden platform, come chair, is harnessed to her back and she's standing ready for us to climb on board. Climbing up the steps and taking a corner each, we get ourselves settled. Then we are off into the jungle. Every movement of the elephants body feels exaggerated beneath us as we rise and fall with the movement of her steps. Soon the jungle is thick and dense and being on the back of an elephant is the only way to get through it.

Before long we have lost the other elephants and it is just us. We saunter on for a while and then suddenly hear rustling in front of us. Two huge rhino appear two metres ahead. They look at the elephant and step to the side of it: clearly there's a pecking order at play and luckily we are sat on the right animal.

To our left emerges another elephant who has also spotted the rhino. Disturbed, the rhinos turn and walk away. We head on a little further listening to the noises of the jungle and watching the birds. We enter a clearing and spot the two rhino again. This time they are mating, or rather waiting until we've passed so they can get on with it. After about fifteen minutes we move off and leave the pair to it. Next we spot a heard of spotted antelope and follow them for a bit. But eventually we return after a few hours and disembark.

After lunch we head down to the river where we change into our bathers and bravely climb on to the back of another elephant. Once we are on board she stands up, but without the safety of a harness it is pretty high up here. She walks down to the river and we do our best to stay on. Suddenly a firm, cold blast of water hits us. She fills her trunk and empties it over us. And then another comes from the other direction. I duck and Alice, who is sat behind me, gets it full on. As much as a game for the elephant as it is for us, she sits down and one by one we all slide off into the river. The current is strong and the water is deep so we swim quickly to shore and walk back. We climb back on again for another go and she stands up and throws more water over us before sitting down and tipping us off again. It's sticky and humid and this is a seriously fun way to cool down.

We finally climb up the river bank and leave our elephant to get properly scrubbed down by her handler. As we are stood watching we notice a log in the water. As it drifts down the river we suddenly realise it's a pretty big crocodile... Yikes, we never thought about crocodiles! It is a good job we are out of the water...