My Apple Restaurant treats me to toast with butter and jam, plus two fried eggs (sunny-side up) and black coffee. You might say that the day started the way it was meant to be.
In addition, it is still pleasantly cool, but around noon the thermometer climbs incessantly to over 30 degrees and only stops at a temperature that is described by the common Central European with the predicate "unbearable".
My first rhino
The hotel manager takes me on his motorcycle to the starting point of the announced “safari” through the Chitwan National Park. A tightly packed bunch of tourists and their guides have gathered around a small house.
So while things are progressing slowly and sluggishly, I walk a few steps along the river, wave to a young man on a narrow boat, and there – I can't believe my eyes – on the other side of the river, a handsome rhino is wading through the bushes on the shore, regardless of the noise from the other side. Hey, my first free living rhino.
Normally you see them at best in the zoo, where they go lazily through their long boring days without having to worry about sleeping places, food or enemies.
The old problem with zoological gardens. Are we really doing something good for the animals, or is it exclusively for the curiosity of the visitors?
Over the river
A strangely confused way to distribute tickets. It takes an eternity for the uniformed young man to check all the information on his makeshift desk. Only when really everything is correct, the corresponding stamp is placed on the tickets. One could go mad while watching.
Our guide is a gentleman in his prime, small, wiry. The first impression is convincing. He leads us down to the river, where long, narrow boats bring the tourists to the opposite bank.
You squeeze yourself into the fragile looking barge, there is a low seat for every ass, and only when at least ten people are sitting in a row, the skipper puts off. The boat starts very slowly and carefully, gliding silently over the murky water until we arrive at the other bank after a few minutes.
The jeep, the guide and us
The jeep is large, offers space for almost ten people on the open loading area, the seats are reasonably comfortable, so ideal conditions for an exciting afternoon.
Once again, we are a mixed group. Three elderly people of English origin, who turn out to be bird lovers, a Bavarian couple, an Indian or Nepalese with his two sons, who are more interested in their smartphones than in the animal world, a pretty young lady, whom I can't place anywhere, as she hardly opens her mouth at all, the guide and I.
Over bumpy roads into the jungle
We are curious to see what might come, and so ten pairs of eyes pierce the waist-high green from the very beginning, hoping for animal surprises. However, these are still to be waited for. It takes a while until the jeep has struggled over the bad roads through dense forest, then open terrain again, to the region where the promised creatures should now become visible.
We're not the only ones, of course, but rather part of a long column of identical jeeps, all packed with excited visitors. Sometimes there is a traffic jam, then you have to wait patiently until the traffic calms down.
Where are the animals?
It's hot, one of the two English women takes refuge in the driver's cab with a bright red head for shade, while the Bavarian loses his GoPro and the jeep has to drive back. It reminds me of slapstick inserts, Monty Python couldn't have done better. I am having a great time, because the journey is extremely entertaining even without animals.
But the guide behaves strangely reserved. Actually you would expect him to give us information, even information that is not only about the temporarily invisible animals. About the history of the national park, about the problems, about the guards, about everything that could be said about such a world-famous park. Well, maybe we expect too much. In any case, there's nothing and as it turns out in the course of the afternoon, it will remain so.
But where are they, the famous animals? We have been promised lots of rhinos, tigers, bears, monkeys and birds. It seems clear that the probability of spotting a tiger or a bear is infinitesimally small. Not even a bear with an IQ of zero would show up to a column of jeeps on a bright afternoon, not to mention tigers.
When I look at the faces of my traveling companions, their slowly rising impatience, their disappointment when a supposed rhinoceros turns out to be a rotting tree stump, then I can not resist a malicious grin.
But finally rhinos
I'm already thinking of declaring the day a comfortable, somewhat expensive trip through the jungle, when a pond appears not far from the road, and in it – it is hard to believe – two real living rhinos actually cavorting in the water.
Now smartphones, cameras, film and video recorders and GoPros are being used, everything that the modern tourist carries with him in terms of technology, it's being photographed and filmed and oh! and ah! until the two pachyderms, apparently more intelligent than their human observers, disappear into the thicket.
A Kingfisher and a Rhino Methuselah
Sometimes I'd like to have a better camera and a little more talent to take pictures. Then I would be able to show wonderful pictures of a Kingfisher, which I now have to search on the internet for lack of own photos. They are my absolute favorite birds, and apparently there are many of them in the national park. But they are so small and so agile that you can hardly get them in front of your camera.
Somewhere on a meadow, very close to the road, a rhinoceros is grazing, quite a piece, but due to its appearance certainly an older specimen. It is not disturbed, not even by the voices and engine noises, and feeds comfortably in the high grass.
An extraordinary sight.
Stop at the crocodiles camp
All jeeps stop at the same place, apparently a center for breeding crocodiles. And indeed, different generations are raised in large pools, from tiny to almost fully grown. Since the guide has nothing to say about this, there is nothing else to do but to learn about it later.
The way back with monkeys and birds ... and birds ... and birds ...
The reason why we stop for everything that looks like a bird is because of the three Birdwatchers from Brexit-country. Apparently, the guide knows them personally and now makes sure that not a single bird is overlooked. We, who don't have the necessary utensils, have no idea what the ornithologists, who operate with strong binoculars, talk about when they point excitedly in a direction where a barely visible shadow has moved in the branches of a tree.
Apparently there are pheasants, peacocks (even we can see them), cuckoos and woodpeckers. The other birds are so unknown to me that I don't even google the German expression for them.
After all, everyone can see a very special bird, even those without binoculars – a White-headed Eagle. A beautiful, proud bird of prey that treats us not only with disinterest but with utter contempt.
But at least also the rest of the company is entertained occasionally, be it by wonderfully speckled deer, which flee with long jumps, when we become visible to them.
Or a langur, as cute as in Langtang, albeit with a lot less frosty temperatures. Are they really the same monkeys?
For once, the guide also fulfils his tasks and points to a small, agile animal in the middle of the road that only flees when we get threateningly close to it.
A mongoose!
And there – more rhinos, monkeys, even a wild boar running away with an indignant grunt.
A thunderstorm approaching
Slowly we're approaching the end of the tour, the turning point was at the crocodile camp, now we are driving back the same way.
The sky is covered with dark clouds, as is the face of the Bavarian gentleman who, in view of the impending thunderstorm, is worried about his equipment, which is probably outrageously expensive.
I wouldn't like it either. Especially because the rest of my clothes are in the laundry and I would have to wait until the evening in wet clothes.
But what doesn't seem to bother our bird friends in the least, despite the sky falling over our heads soon, there is still a bird to discover (“oh even a new bird for me”). The rest of the troupe apathetically surrender to fate, although occasionally one believes to hear a low moan.
At the Destination
But we are lucky, the first drops fall only when waiting for the renewed crossing over the river. The Bavarians are like me a little annoyed about the lack of support from the guide. But what the hell, it has become evening, we are a little tired (from the fruitless-stare-into the bushes?) And we're glad to have survived the "adventure". Which indeed wasn't one ...
We have seen a few animals, most of them from quite a distance, we have imagined others in our heads, especially numerous birds, and we have spent many hours outdoors, in heat and fresh air.
We don't exactly feel like Dr. Livingstone, the famous explorer and adventurer in the 19th century. But we can be a little proud that we have dared foolhardy into the middle of the jungle.
That's something, isn't it ? ...
P.S. Matching Song: Foo Fighters - The Feast and the Famine
And here the journey continues ...
