Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream.

At Chitwan National Park there were several optional tours we could do, David wanted to do the canoe trip down the river but I wasn't too keen and there was also a jungle trek you could do but I felt we had done both already in Peru and after the jungle safari wasn't too bothered about doing them. Anyway, to cut a long story short we ended up doing them! 

The canoe trip was supposed to be crocodile spotting but I don't think there are any crocodiles in this river because that is where they took us to wash the elephant and also the local children were swimming in it. Neither of these things would happen if it was seen to be dangerous, unless they don't mind tourists getting eaten! Probably not good for business. 

Anyway we got to the canoes which turned out to be hollowed out tree trunks , which were very wobbly and unstable. The little wooden bits you see on the side are seats which lifted us about 2 cm of the floor of the boat.  

Very gingerly we all climbed on and settled down for the trip. 

About five minutes into the trip it started to rain and when it rains in Nepal it really rains, we are at the tail end of the monsoon season. Luckily me and David had our ponchos on us from the inca trek, 

so put these on to protect our cameras. However this did not protect us from the rising water in the boat, as it quickly filled up and started swilling about. I had to clutch my valuables, okay my bag, to my chest and hope for the best. At one point David was pointing out elephants on the bank of the river but I couldn't see them as my glasses were covered in water. I couldn't see a thing, then the elephants turned and walked across the river in front of us, which was really cool and I could make them out through the rain spatters. They were not wild elephants though, they were being ridden by local people. 

We were all soaking wet but found it really funny and couldn't believe the situation we had got ourselves in, although I blamed David for getting me into it, after all he wanted to do it. 

A view down the river with the rest of the tour group in the other canoe. 

Soon the trip was over and we all gingerly climbed out, surprisingly we saw no crocodiles, our guide blamed the rain, I didn't know crocodiles hid from rain, learn something new every day! 

Anyway, from this point we were heading straight on the trek, we were led to a small clearing in the jungle and told what to do if a certain animal went for us. If a rhino chases you, you run in zig zags, if an elephant chases you run like billy ho in a straight line, if a tiger comes  for you, stare it out and walk backwards and if a sloth bear comes for you we had to stand in a huddle and punch it! There you go, now you know what to do if you ever come across any of these. 

So we set off in a long line, two guides at the front armed with a stick and one at the back armed with a stick. We had been told to walk quietly like a cat, we were like an episode of Most Haunted when they go creeping around or Scooby Doo when they go looking for the ghosts. Everynow and again the guides would stop and gesture us to be quiet and then cock their heads as if they were listening for something, sometimes they would make whistling noises to each other and do strange hand gestures, very impressive and dramatic, I felt like I was in a Bollywood movie! 

Basically we walked around in a circle on the outskirts of a wooded area, to be fair we did hear some roary noises. We did see some bones which the rangers said was the left overs from  a tiger's lunch, handily left in a clearing on the track, and some footprints, white rhino and tiger. 

At one point all the guides got excited, made us stand in a huddle, one guide was left with us while the other two went off, disappearing into the jungle. David sidled up to me and whispered they are away to put their  animal costumes on, which set me off in a fit of the giggles. Everybody was taking it very seriously. Anyway you will be surprised to hear they came back and said it was a sloth bear that had disappeared the other way into the jungle. So no animals were seen. We were aware of there being a monkey above us, but the guides did not stop to try and spot it or to find out which type it was. 

However all was not lost as two of the group got leeches on them, so we saw some wildlife! So we headed back to our lodges wet and muddy. 

In the evening we went to see a local cultural dance, which was better than we thought it would be and even had a dancing peacock! 

For the last dance people were allowed to join in , so David was up there like a whippet strutting his stuff as did Karl from our  group.

Bagpuss and Hootsmin making friends with a guard dog! Yes I know it is a statue but they don't. 

Chitwan National Park.

At Lumbini there were the cutest little lizards running around, if they knew you had seen them they would run and hide behind pictures etc and you would just see there little faces peeking out now and again.   Can you spot one just above the picture? 

After a lovely night in Lumbini we headed for Chitwan National Park. All the tour group were looking forward to this as  we were going on a jeep safari. On the way we stopped off at a roadside cafe, it looked really dodgy, not the type of place I would normally consider going in, but our tour guide took us and we trusted his judgement and well we were in the middle of nowhere, what else 

were we to do. As we walked in the door, I thought my sister, Denise would not be happy about this! 

Anyway we sat down at a big rustic looking table, as I glanced around I realised we were sat beside a double bed, so they obviously slept in that area at night. Open plan you might say! Some people left so they decided to move our group to another table with a scenic view, if we looked one way we could see over a valley into woodland and if we faced the wall we could see lots of ants trying to manoeuvre a dead stick insect which was huge in comparison to them into a very small opening. It wasn't happening but quite interesting to watch, they persevered.

After our meal which was from a very limited menu, most of us had veg thali a traditional Nepalese dish, as we avoided the meat version, we headed back to the bus. The dishes we had just used were being washed by a young boy at a well outside, he was using a cloth to wipe them down. The bus driver asked for the cloth, the boy gave it to him, the driver wiped his shoes with the cloth then gave 

it back and the boy continued to use it to wash the dishes. Yum! 

The well which was used for the dishes, these are common and are dotted outside houses, you sometimes see people sat in the platform area having a bath/wash. 

The road to Chitwan was beautiful, everything seemed so green and lush compared to India and I even saw a herd of cows in a field which had a stream and they were sheltering from the sun under trees. Looked blissful and I thought to myself how lucky those cows were. 

A man and small child walking in a rice paddy.

After another long journey we ended up at our lodge, which again was lovely. We had a nice room
and strangely very good wifi, seeing as we were in the middle of nowhere! Some of the big hotels in
the cities struggled to have good wifi and here we were out in the sticks with a good reception. I
know it probably doesn't work that way , but about computers,I know nothing!

Early the next morning we headed out on a jeep safari. We were in the leading jeep to start of with which was lucky as we saw a huge crocodile on the road, which crawled in front of us and slithered down into the river. We also saw lots of deer, three different types and more crocodiles in a lake area. There was also one monkey up a tree. Although the safari was good, I would have liked more
information from the guides about what we were seeing, we weren't told what type of deer or crocodile etc.
 

Later in the morning we got the chance to wash an elephant. I thought we would have an elephant in the water and be given brushes etc to wash it down. When we got to the river, I found it didn't quite work that way, me and Anne from the group climbed on its back and then it promptly washed us. I wondered why I was told to take my glasses off! I was lucky in that I got to go back on the elephant with David. I was super clean by the end of it! As a group we had a wee swim in the river, the current was really strong. David and Max , who is also in the tour group enjoyed just being carried along by 

it. I really struggled with the current and found it hard to keep my feet, at one point I had to be grabbed by two of the group as I started to head downstream. 

By the end we were all soaking but had a brilliant time and the elephant when she was lying in the water really seemed to be enjoying it too. 

Where did he go?

This post didn't send so out of sync now, but a strange but true story. While in Orcha we went to one of the local cafés which had seating outside, it was small so we could see all of the inside of the cafe as it was one of these open units with no doors on it. We  looked at the menu and I ordered a banana pancake with a sprite and David ordered a mixed fruit pancake and coke.  The one person who was working there gave us our drinks then crossed the road got on his motorbike and drove off! We sat there thinking where has he gone, what should we do. We we were left all alone with an empty cafe! Well we still had our drinks so we just sat there, as you do, about 15 minutes later he came back clutching a small bag of fruit, which he waved happily in our faces and went into the cafe. Soon after he came out with our pancakes. That's service for you! 

Leaving India, arrive at Nepal

We had to wake up bright and early to catch the bus out of India, as we were leaving at 5 in the morning. I was first to enter the lobby surprising the nightman on the desk who wasn't at the desk but sat watching a very dramatic and corny looking Bollywood type film. Looking flustered he scurried to put lights on and do things that looked very official and proper. Gradually the tour group staggered into the lobby all looking a bit zombified and plonked themselves down, and do what you always do when the telly is on, watch it! Didn't have a clue what was going on but as I said over the top, dramatic and so bad it was good. 

Time ticked on, twenty past 5 arrived when one of the group asked if anybody had seen Shivraj our tour guide , no one had so he asked the receptionist to call his room, he had slept in. Anne from the group took charge, got us and our bags all organised and on the bus, eventually a sheepish Shiv arrived, boy did he get stick from then on, friendly banter shall we call it! On the very first day he stressed how important it was to be on time and he was the one who kept us waiting. Was funny! 

Anyway, off we set, we had a new bus, again lots of seats so we had one each and this bus had very impressive individual fans, like the one you see on people's desks, with a cage around them, which was mounted onto the side of the bus just above your head. Brilliant, we thought, we will not get too hot on this bus, boy did we curse those fans by the end of the journey. Not only did they not work but they were just at the right height to head butt you, the road was long and very, very, in fact extremely bumpy so you were constantly smacking your head off them. I did it at least 6 times, I had lumps and bumps all over my noggin, was not a happy chappy at all. 

Once on the bus people tried to catch up on some sleep, David took the back seat, as you can see.

Soon a lot of them were out for the count including David, I couldn't get to sleep just when I was 

about to nod off we would go over a bump and that would be me wide awake. One girl was bounced 

right off her chair onto the floor. It was like India was determined to be mean to the end, even the road out was awful. I asked David the other day what he liked best about India and he said the road out, and then he remembered and said maybe not! He liked the Taj Mahal. 

It was a long, long day but eventually we got to the India, Nepal border, it was chaos so much traffic. We had to leave our lovely bus, giving the delightful fans a friendly punch as we walked past them and walk the last little bit to the border. It was horrendous with the heat, the noise and all the people.

 Eventually we walked out of India and into Nepal, and instantly everything seemed calmer.
We got onto our next bus and headed for our overnight hotel in Lumbini, which is the birthplace of Buddha. The Nepalese are very proud of the fact that Buddha was born in Nepal, with many lorries having it painted on their sides.

Before we could get to the hotel though we had to stop at a hospital as one of the group had an
infection on his foot. He was seen very quickly, we thought this might be because they could get mega bucks  from him through his insurance but actually it was quite cheap and we were impressed. While we were sat waiting for him, a little old man was wheeled out on a wheelchair all bandaged up. He was then removed from the chair, bundled onto a motorbike, someone climbed on behind him so he wouldn't wobble off and they drove off!

The hospital. 

From the hospital it did not take long to get to our hotel, which was lovely, it was set out in the countryside and was so quiet and serene and typically we were only staying there one night. Varanasi the night before was really noisy, right on the main road so honking horns and we had the kitchens 3 floors beneath us and they were washing big metal pots at 3 in the morning. David got grumpy! We stayed there two nights.

We went to our rooms and the plan was to meet later for a meal. On the way down to the meal though the electricity cut off, just as I was heading what I thought down one step. You guessed it, it wasn't, it was a small flight of steps which I proceeded to fall down. I was in full view of some of the tour group who luckily didn't notice but some of the staff did, they came out and asked if I was alright, 

which I was, just cuts, bruises and a scabby knee. Elegant and ladylike, that's me. 

The next day we headed for Lumbini, the birth place of Buddha. The story goes that Hindu women go back to their parents when it is time to give birth.  Buddhas mum was travelling back when she felt tired and started to get pains so she went into a small lake to bathe as she thought this may help ease the pain. She then went into labour came out of the water and gave birth to Buddha under  a nearby tree. 

The gold bits on the statue below are gold leaf that visitors put on as an offering. 

A lovely tree by his birthplace, not the tree though that was removed a very long time ago. That is Buddhist prayer flags on when we arrived there were lots of Buddhist monks sat around it. 

In the white building next to the stupa ( the chimney looking thing) is a stone marking the birthplace of Buddha, this is a temple so no photos could be taken inside. 

 

Two of the monks.

Funny moment here, as we were standing by the monks, a lot of our group were chatting to them and taking their pictures. Three men, also tourists walked up to me, ignoring the monks and asked to be photographed with me. So I posed with them, you could see the monks thinking , what's going on., we are here. 

The night train and Varanasi

Our next destination was Varanasi, this is a town that Shiva was supposed to have founded so is very important to Hindus. It is a very sacred place and is where a lot of Hindus go to get cremated, there are over 200 cremations there a day. There are hostels in the town of old and ill people who move there so they can die in Varanasi to get cremated. 

To get there we had to travel by night train, once more we headed back to the railway station, but I had convinced myself that by ten o'clock at night it would be cooler, less crowded and less smelly. Wrong, so wrong, well it was cooler. 

To get into the station we had to weave our way through people sat or lying on the pavements, then onto the platform where more people had settled for the night.  I did ask our tour guide if people lived on the station and he said some did but some were just waiting for trains which were often very late. 

A view of the platform, this is actually a quieter bit, can you see the cow wandering through and where there are cows there are cow pats, so these were dotted around. We also saw rats running around the tracks. At one point we saw a man pushing a large block of ice over the platform to the cafe, leaving a wet trail as it was directly on the pavement, was that going to be used in drinks? 

To get us of the platform, our tour guide put us into a waiting room and we were fine in there for over half an hour till one Indian lady came in, threw her bag down disappeared into the back section, came back grabbed her bag and stomped off. We weren't sure what that was about then she came back with her friends, shouting loudly in Indian. Well we didn't know what it was about but got the gist, she wasn't happy about the men being in there as it was supposed to be ladies only. We discretely left, other women and even a couple of Indian men were in there and seemed fine about us being there. 

In the waiting area was a list of prices for using the bathroom, it is cheaper to just have a wee, shall I say! What we were wondering was, how do they know what you do, in the cubicle? 

Once on the train we had to find our berths, each compartment had 6 beds, 3 tall on two walls facing each other then at the foot of the bed was a small aisle and on that wall was beds two high. Each person is provided a pillow, clean sheets and a blanket. Thankfully me and David were in a berth with other group members and were directly facing each other. One couple in our group were in with stroppy ladies from waiting room! They giggled and kept light on all night, we could hear them giggling from our compartment which was two away from them.

That's David's feet you can see. We were lucky in that we mainly had the compartment to our group but during the night an Indian came and slept on the empty bunk in the middle , just above David. Thankfully he was only there for a few hours as he kept trumpeting and at one point I woke up to find him sat staring across at me. We also had two Indians in the bunks at our feet one of them was a snorer, they obviously are more relaxed on train than we are. 

Surprisingly we all did manage to get some sleep, although I woke up a bit stiff and sore a few times 

and had to carefully try and turn around. I also woke up before anybody else in cabin but basically 

had to lie there as the space on bunk is not big enough to sit up on comfortably, you can do it hunched up hobbit style but a bit sore after a while, I know I tried it. 

Once in Varanasi, we settled into our hotel and then headed out early evening to see the sunset on the Ganges. To get there we took rickshaws, once again I felt sorry for our driver but at  least he was youngish! 

At the Ganges, we got a boat to sail out on the river so we could see the ghats which line the side, these are big stone steps, leading down to the river which are also used as seats for watching the sunrise and sunset ceremonies which are held every day. Walking down to the boat we watched them bale out water which was comforting then clambered aboard. I didn't take any photos as my iPad not good for night photos but also because of the cremations taken place along the river. You are not allowed to take photos of these and also I did feel we were invading their privacy. At one point the tourist boats stop very close and right beside the cremations which I felt was too much , we were right on the bank and you could see the families standing around the different pyres. I say families but only men attend cremations. 

Suddenly while we were there we saw flashes, like someone taking photos  close to one of the cremations. Grumbling started up and I could see a black camera sized box being taken from the person and handed along the family members until it got to one person, who looked at it more closely and promptly threw it in the fire.. At that there were heated voices and they all left, I can only presume that they were upset with camera owner and threw his camera on the fire. 

Once again we saw the sunset ceremony like we did in Rishikesh but this was on a much larger scale and we saw it from the river. It was lovely as there were more religious leaders doing the actions together along the bank and there were more people singing. As a group we also made our offerings to the water, once more flowers and a lit candle in bowl. This was nice as it was a lot darker than before and we all did it together. 

In the morning we went back to the same boat and saw the sunrise which was absolutely beautiful and so calm.

We also headed back to the main cremation point and once more was right on the bank. There were several boats there delivering wood for the cremations, and there was a huge woodpile in one area. You could also see ash piles from the night before, cremations are only supposed to take place between sunset and sunrise but because Varanasi is seen to be so holy it is alright to do it there after dark. Once more there were dogs and cows roaming amongst the ashes and there was one person swimming at the river bank with what I can only describe as what they use when panning for gold, and he was sifting through mud the mud there I can only presume for anything valuable that might be left after the fires. Our tour leader told us it takes about 4 to 5 hours for a total cremation but sometimes they run out of time for some people so after 2 to 3 hours they tip the cremation pile into the river but that some religious leaders will eat the meat of the bone, not sure if true or not! 

Orcha and nearby village.

Once more we found ourselves on a long bus journey this time we were heading to Orcha, this by far has been the nicest place we have visited so far. It is only a small town/ village and is really only starting to get tourists so is still very, rustic shall we say, it had a nice calm feel to it. We were even brave enough to walk the street alone. Although to be fair David is happier walking the streets than I am. The reason we came here was because it has a very important temple close by and another fort. We are seeing a lot of temples and forts! To the point of , please no not another one.

 These are cenotaphs made for the royal family that lived in the area. They were quite impressive. It looks like I have caught an UFO  as well but there were vultures flying around. Proper vultures like you see on TV , with the bald heads. After going to the fort we got the chance to visit a local village,
this was very interesting and we really enjoyed it.

 The school as you can see it is very basic. The children have no furniture and one of the classrooms 

is outside. There are up to 100 children at this school at times, but it is not mandatory and only 60% 

of children go to school and not always on a regular basis. On the day we went some children were not there because it was hot. At the school nearest to this one, the children were not going to school as there were no teachers, one was ill and the other hadn't appeared for over a week. There are 4 classrooms but one of these is outside and all are tiny.

That is the teacher' s desk you are seeing, when we entered there was a small boy stood on it. 

This girl is reciting the English alphabet, others stood up and spelt words in English. There are a wide range of ages in the class because they go by what stage or ability they are at rather than age. There is no specific starting age, our tour guide told us if he wanted he could start today, he is 23.

As you can see they do have text books. That is their bags laid out in front of them too. This class was doing maths. 

  Me, with some of the children.

I also have a video of the class singing the national anthem.

The blackboard at the school.

Then we went into the village. The houses below were provided by the government for families who were struggling financially they have one room and an outside toilet . Before this they had mud houses with a thatch roof. 

The children below are ones who have chosen not to go to school but one of them was pleading with us for a pen, and none of us had any on us. One person gave him paper and he clung onto it like it was treasure.

These ladies are splitting the wheat from the chaff.

They have lovely goats, the ones in the village are well looked after, in the towns they are often rooting in rubbish.

A baby cow again being cared for. 

There are tyres holding down the roof, some of the house roofs are like this too.

This man is the village potter, he showed us how to make pots, he spun the stone base by putting a stick in a hole in the stone and turning it round. David had a go at making pots too. The lady beside the man is mixing the clay, this is mud from local river and powdered cow dung. Some of the pots are used for lassi, a yoghurt type drink and ice cream which are sold on the street. 

This lady is spreading watered down cow dung at her front door, apparently it keeps flies away, this is replaced after a few weeks. 

Local village children these are from the more well off end of the village. One girl is proudly holding up new dolls that she has just got. The children were desperate to have their photo taken and then look at it. 

This girl showed this doll off as if it was the greatest thing in the world and is obviously her prized possession, it's eyes are missing, it has only one full arm and one tuft of hair. 

This baby is about 8 months old, if you look carefully it has black kohl at its eyes this is supposed to stop evil spirits. 

It was lovely of the villagers to let us into their lives, we also got to go into one house, one big room but it did have a telly. Some of the villagers have put wires from street lights to their own houses, looked very dodgy and dangerous!