Chitwan 6th June 2006

I’ve had a couple of really relaxing days, waking late, drinking chai, reading books down by the river, watching elephants bathe and enjoying the monsoon. The monsoon has hit in the last couple of days and I’m really enjoying it. The first day was 3rd June and Dessie and I were in the next village trying to use the internet (no power!) and as we were talking to the woman in the Internet café it started to bucket down. We had a cup of tea with her (Dessie knows here from going in there on and off for the last six years), but the rain didn’t let up, so we decided to go and get something to eat. It was a quick thirty-yard sprint and we ordered chow chow (noodles & veg) and had another chai – still the rain didn’t let up. I then went and had a shave and Dessie went to see if he could find a rear mudguard for his bike. By the time we met up again three hours had passed and the rain was still coming down ‘cats and dogs’. We decided to make a run for it anyway.

Dessie was staying the night with friends in a small village in the foothills of the mountains and he had a twenty-kilometre ride ahead of him and I was heading back to the guesthouse, which I’d never ridden to on my own. I was wearing a pair of shorts and short sleeve top; I was soaked before I even had a chance to kick-start my bike. I couldn’t see through my glasses after ten yards, so had to peer through the rain covered lens for a general blurry view and if I spotted something worth investigating (or avoiding!) I peered over the top of my glasses to get a rain free (though blurry) view. Luckily only local traffic uses the roads I was on, so I don’t think that I hit anything other than a couple of kids on the way back and no damage was done to the bike…. It took me about twenty minutes to get the six kilometres back and I was wetter than a drowned rat, but a hot shower and a quick change of clothes put everything back on track.

The rain hammered down for over five hours in total, but it was really fresh and green once the rain stopped. I went down to the Jungle Bar for sunset and was rewarded with a sky that turned from yellow too red to purple.

I’ve spent a lot of time walking around the local villages and it’s really like stepping back one hundred years in time (or Ireland twenty years ago…). The traditional style of house is made from bamboo that is then covered in mud (inside and out) and most houses have livestock (cows, ducks, hens, dogs etc), which they keep, in rickety old barns attached to the main building. The Tadi tribe have really strong family values and it’s not unusual to find complete family’s living together (grandparents, parents, uncles / aunts, cousins and children). I’ve heard of one house not so far away that has forty-eight people living in it! All the farm work is done by hand, I’ve spotted the odd tractor, but they seem to be used to ferry people between villages. It’s really good having Dessie around as he’s been coming here for six years and everybody in the village knows him, and I even get a 10% discount in the Jungle Pub!

I woke on Sunday morning to the sound of torrential rain on the roof, the roof here is made of corrugated iron, which whilst not the traditional method, it’s reassuring to know that snakes won’t be slithering through the roof to say hello. I looked at my watch and it was 05:00, I couldn’t get back to sleep so I lay in bed reading until 10:00, by which time is was still lashing rain. It didn’t stop raining until 13:00 and by this stage I was getting cabin fever, as soon as the rain stopped I went down to the Jungle Pub to get some lunch. It appeared that everyone else had the same idea and there was a good atmosphere down there. The Jungle Pub is basically a couple of tables and chairs right on the riverfront overlooking the Jungle and it’s really nice to sit there and watch the elephants wading through the water and if I’m lucky enough I’ll spot a rhino on the far shore. The elephant handlers come down to the river to wash the elephants and if you slip them 50 rupees, they will let you get in the water and wash the elephant. I had great fun watching an English family in the water washing the elephant, as the handlers will let you sit on them and will show you how to roll with the elephant when it rolls around in the water (I’m not sure how they would stand legally if you got the roll wrong and ended up getting flattened!).

Dessie and I went around to a small “restaurant” last night to have something to eat. I call it a restaurant because we had food, drink and paid for our meal, but it was actually a villager’s house. On the way to the Jungle Bar for sunset we passed by the house and Dessie told the woman that we’d be around for Dal Bhat at 19:30. We continued onto the Jungle Bar by the back lanes (unknown to us, Cheddup had ridden down from Pokhara and was in the next bar, but we didn’t find that out until the next morning) and had a couple of beers and I spotted my first Jungle Pub Rhino. There should, hopefully, be a photo of the Jungle Pub either above or below this blog entry and the Rhino appeared on the far bank of the river and started to make its way across the river to our side. It was dusk though and we lost sight of the Rhino about twenty metres after he entered the water heading our way! It’s been a couple of years since a Rhino actually came as far over as the Jungle Bar, and we were hoping that it’d be a couple of years more until it happened again! We sat there supping our beers watching the fireflies performing acrobatics over the river and decided we’d better go and get our dinner.

When we got to the ladies house, there were a couple of Nepal guys in there and we sat with them. The lady has two kids, the girl is seven and the boy is ten and they speak really good English. Dessie knows the kids really well and he started laughing and playing around with them. The food was ok, not the best I’ve had, but it was cheap and cheerful and we know that the money is going straight into the local community. I showed the kids a couple of tricks and games and we all played ‘shove halfpenny’ and then I showed them how to balance coins on your elbow and to ‘snap-catch’ them in your hand. We had a really good time and stayed there until nearly 22:00, our guesthouse is only two minutes walk away, but by the time we got there, there was a rumble of thunder in the sky.

I got into bed and started listening to my ipod and I heard the by now familiar sound of raindrops on the hot tin roof. Boy did they come down, the roof was really taking a battering, so I switched off my ipod and listened to the rain. I’d like to say that it was really therapeutic, but I’d be lying. The thunder was like nothing I’ve heard before, actually I tell a lie; it was like a bomb going off. Real close. There was one thunderclap in particular which sounded as though it was just above my head and it actually made me jump. The loudness of the thunder was intensified by the complete silence that followed it. For about two or three seconds there was no wind, no rain, no nothing. Silence….. Then the rain started up again and I heard a weird sound from the roof. It sounded like footsteps. Then there was a sliding sound and the steps started up again whilst the thunder thundered and the lighting light. The steps would stop for a second and then there would be the sliding sound and they’d start up again. Dessie had told me to expect this, it’s either a mongoose or a rat, either way, I was glad that I had my corrugated iron roof! This was one situation where I’m all for progress!

I don’t know what time I managed to get to sleep at, but I didn’t get much of it. I heard Dessie up and about outside and I had a look at my watch. Dessie had said that he was getting back to Pokhara early, so I was surprised that he was still around. I thought that my watch was having me on when it read 07:00! It surely must have been at least 11:00, but no, it was indeed 07:00. I rolled over and tried to get some kip, I could say goodbye to Dessie next time we caught up. I was managing to doze off when I heard a knock at my door, it was Dessie. He told me that Cheddup was in town (he’d been up since 05:00 and Cheddup had left word with the Jungle Pub that he was around), and that he was going down for breakfast and meeting Cheddup at 10:30, I told him that I’d have a shower and follow him down. By the time I was ready, I couldn’t be arsed to walk the 500 metres to the Jungle Pub, so I got on my bike (back carrier loose…) and had a nice breakfast of poached eggs, toast, and fried potato with garlic and tomatoes (divine).

There was no sign of Cheddup by 11:00, and there was the distinct rumble of thunder coming from the hills, so Dessie decided to head back to Pokhara. We went to the first village together as I was going to try and use the Internet and it was on his way, this also gave him a chance to say goodbye to the woman in the shop. We got there and there was;
“no power”.
“When power come”? (our Pidgin English is improving)
(shrug of shoulders)
“today”?
“maybe”

And I gave up after that; god knows how many emails I’ll have when I finally get around to checking my account. Let’s hope that my Internet provider doesn’t delete the twenty odd emails I get about penile dysfunction (did you know that just one box of tablets can cure it?) before I get a chance to send my money away….

I got back to the village at about 11:30 and met up with Cheddup and “friend” at the Jungle Bar. I had to laugh, Cheddup had a curry and roti in front of him, these were surrounded by four drinks (coffee, soda, Pepsi and some local beverage I didn’t want to ask about). I hadn’t seen Cheddup since the Bar Room Brawl ™ last week and it was really good to catch up, I’d met his “friend” before and we had a bit of a laugh. It started to rain as we were sitting there, so Cheddup decides to “get one together”; how can they do it that early in the morning? I bade them farewell and told them I’d probably see them in Kathmandu over the weekend (they informed me that Wolf and Raju are already there). I went to the book shop and traded a couple of books and sat down by the river and read until the rain forced me back indoors. I’m going to head off to Kathmandu tomorrow and try to pick up a new camera lens and I’ll probably stay there for the weekend and make my way slowly back to Pokhara. The road tomorrow is meant to be one of the best roads in the world, I can’t wait to get on it, so much so that I’m probably only going to do half of it and stay overnight in Daman, before tackling the two hour (!) journey to Kathmandu the next day. I’ve already been told of one place that does free wi-fi Internet access in the mornings…. Let the good times roll!