Upon waking up, it's still dark night, I turn on the iPhone, and there, a few drum beats, and then a melody rises out of thick fog, a fragile voice.
Joy Division, my favorite band of the late Seventies.
Ian Curtis. Their fragile frontman.
As I listen to Curtis' sonorous voice with my eyes closed, I feel once more the dark sadness in it. Hell's darker Chambers. In that sense, his suicide wasn't surprising.
One of the saddest songs ever.
Here are the young men, the weight on their shoulders
Here are the young men, well, where have they been?
We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chamber
Pushed to the limit, we dragged ourselves in
Watched from the wings as the scenes were replaying
We saw ourselves now as we never had seen
Portrayal of the trauma and degeneration
The sorrows we were and never were free
One might start the day with more optimistic music.
More positive vibes
I hope that today's excursion will brighten up my gloomy mood caused by Joy Division and will give me more insight into the special features of the National Park compared to yesterday's excursion. And above all that the guide in charge opens his mouth more than every thirty minutes.
It is also an insight (which I actually have had for a long time, but which I seem to forget again and again) that tourist offers can be as dubious as the weather forecasts or the stock exchange. Sometimes correct, sometimes wrong.
But what the hell (or "what the fuck!") matches the wonderful title of a recently read book):
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.
For decades, we've been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "Fuck positivity", Mark Manson says. "Let's be honest, shit is fucked and we have to live with it. "In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn't sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is — a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F ** k is his antidote to the coddling, let's-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.
The canoe and the crocodiles
The tour begins in an orderly manner, unlike yesterday, there is a plan, a thought-out organization of the trip, with the purpose of generating as many positive things as possible.
For a change the TukTuk drives in the other direction of the village, so that I get a short impression of this remote area of Sauraha.
At the edge of a river, apparently an tributary to yesterday's, we descend an embankment to some narrow canoes (are the things called canoes or barges or boats or what? And what is the difference? size?). But today we are alone, just the guide (which is also my hotel manager), two boatmen (or rather boatboys) and me.
Endangered Gharials
It doesn't take long, and the pointy snout of a Gharial emerges out of the water, two dead eyes like a shark (remember „Jaws“) throw us a short, disinterested look and close again rather bored.
The gharials are extremely threatened. This special species lives only here and in a few places in the north of India and needs to be protected from extinction.
The breeding in the crocodile station and later release into the wild, as seen yesterday, is therefore necessary because the free living crocodiles have no chance of survival. One of the main reasons: industrially contaminated water in the upper part of the river. Sometimes I hate humans!
So once again man plays the role of judge and executioner in one. It sucks.
Slowly down the river
With leisurely strokes the two boat boys take us down the river. The soft clapping of the paddles and a polyphonic concert of bird voices are the only sounds in the heavy silence.
Sometimes we cross or overtake another boat, a short nod, maybe even a smile.
The sky is still grey, a hoped-for morning blue hasn't shown up so far. But on this silent morning we also accept every shade of grey, as even grey fits to the cocktail of sweet-bitter aromas drifting around the nose, the sounds of water and animals and nothing else.
Egrets, storks and other birds
After all, I now get – thanks to my photos – the longed-for information about the birds in Pokhara. They are actually egrets, more precisely herons, unlike many other bird species they are not (yet) threatened.
Which does not apply to the rare storks that live here. As with so many other animals, their habitat is becoming increasingly limited.
At times I think that the Joy Division song in the early morning matches perfectly these observations and insights.
The weight on their shoulders.
We have to bear this weight on our shoulders. Forever and ever.
Pessimistic findings
You can escape anything. By putting your head in the sand. Or not looking and not listening.
But all that worries me on this beautiful morning is the fact that if we're not careful, we will be standing on the edge of a gigantic cemetery. The cemetery is filled with all the animals and plants that have forever vanished because of man, because of us.
And now I'm standing here, in a place that supposedly stands for people (or at least some people) caring. Caring about what happens to nature. That we have to do something. That we have to stop it.
But all I hear is terrifying.
That the tiger population is slowly growing, but is endangered by inbreeding.
That many other species are threatened by the same problem.
That - as stated above - Gharials can survive only by breeding.
That a stork species is threatened with extinction.
That due to climate change and the resulting floods, many rhinos are simply washed away and drown miserably.
That the elephants used for tourist excursions develop back problems due to the unusual heavy loads.
That the threat of climate change is already having serious consequences for the entire park.
What can you say? I don't know.
Attempt to cheer up
The guide, who has not escaped my increasing silence, tries some cheering up information. After all, the worst has been prevented for the time being. The populations have grown despite the problems described above, the poaching has decreased thanks to the support of the government, i.e. army. For the time being, tourism has also secured financing.
I'm just a little bit reassured.
Tiger or rhino?
Almost at the end of our tour we hear an archaic howl from the nearby forest. This is how one imagines the time of the dinosaurs, with wild roar of attack and screams of death.
The guide first believes in the attack of a tiger, but then changes his mind and rather thinks of the fight of two rhinos. However, one of the two seems to have definitely lost out. What happens then, I rather do not dare to imagine.
Elephant Camp
At the end of the tour an elephant camp. It is generously laid out; at least twenty stately elephants are housed. Huge bulls with massive tusks stand tethered in their places. Apparently it would be too dangerous to let them run free.
You don't want to meet them outdoors.
Others come back from the field, or work? They seem to enjoy it, as do their guardians, the Mahuts.
Human stupidity
Sometimes human stupidity takes on characteristics that seem even more frightening in the light of the morning's insights. At first glance they seem funny, it is, so to speak, man in his most original form: somehow dumb, impatient, aggressive, strangely innocent in his stupidity.
A simple dramaturgical experimental arrangement: since the road has deep holes in some places that fill with water when it rains, it is to be paved. So now trucks drive up, empty out gravel and sand so that the road is covered every few meters with a meter-high pile.
The corresponding machines for distributing the gravel are ready, it can be assumed that it will be possible to drive again on that road within an hour.
Wait an hour? Absolutely no way. So a few vehicles drive off, jeeps, minibuses, everything with wheels. And they all get stuck. Try it forward. Backwards. The engines howl, the sand splashes on all sides, the wheels eat into the gravel. To no success.
In the meantime, a large number of spectators have gathered and everyone is laughing, clapping and mocking the unhappy drivers who are red-faced and trying to save themselves from the trouble they have caused themselves.
What did I say about man? Strangely innocent in his stupidity.
On the way home, an encouraging picture - elephants on the way home.
And again no electricity
It is slowly becoming a habit for blackouts occuring in the evenings. Sometimes due to thunderstorms, then again due to repair work or whatever.
This also means that the in-house generator provides electricity for the light and other essentials, but not for the fan in the room. So I get to sleep in hot (>35 degrees) and humid air during the last night, while outside a cooling thunderstorm rages, but can't reach my accommodation ...
P.S. Matching Song: The last words - Animal World
And here the journey continues ...
