Doesn't that sound romantic?
Our accomodation for the next three nights was the Bardia Adventure resort, staying in mud wall and thatched roof huts around a large central dining area cum meeting place also with mud walls and high thatched roof and a mud fireplace in the centre. (This is the local Tharu peoples' style of building.) In between the huts and dining hall were beautifully lush and well laid out gardens and a lawn for Phil. And the best flushing toilets we've had so far.
We spent Monday visiting a local Tharu house (slept four families,) made from mud and elephant grass mix with interior walls that doubled as containers for rice made from the clay/grass mix also. All very clean and sparse. As well as a yard and shed for animals and carts they have a kitchen garden. Each house and yard backs onto fields, terraced in squares with low walls around for irrigating. After the wet they grow rice then as the fields become drier they farm wheat for the animals and flour, or corn.
Our personal guide then took us to the national park to see the crocodile breeding centre and Thar museum. But the highlight was seeing a six year old, hand-raised one-horned rhino wandering through the park entrance area and down into an irrigation channel to sit in the water, while we sat on the bridge and admired his bulk and tough hide.
Another highlight of the day was going to the government elephant breeding centre. There were four babies, three with mums who kept a close eye on what the tourists were doing to their babies and an orphaned one, who had been refused to be fed by the other mums, so was being hand reared. Once fed he was so playful; playing tug of war with branches of leaves, head butting Phil's butt, and finally thoroughly enjoying a bath from the hand pump after much persuasion. He stole the show and indicated that elephants are quite intelligent animals.
The following day started with an early morning elephant ride through the jungle, flushing out many spotted deer, monkeys and some beautiful birds. Its a great vantage spot and the way an elephant uses his trunk to remove obstacles as he travels through the undergrowth is quite amazing.
The rest of the day was spent with Raju our guide, trekking through grassland, rivers and jungle looking for wildlife - the ultimate prize being spotting a tiger. We found footprints of tigers, more deer, macaque monkeys, wild pigs, a horn bill, a rhino but no tiger much to our guide's disappointment. The thought of happenning upon a tiger scared me, so I didn't tell him I was actually relieved. By the end of the day we were looking forward to a cold drink of Fanta (needed the sugar hit) and a cold shower.
In the evening we celebrated with about 12 other guests and staff, Wim's birthday (a Dutch mountain biker) and our 25th wedding anniversary by drinking rice wine ('moxy'- smells like champagne, tastes like straight alchol), rice beer (tastes good after four cups:) and a pancake cake decorated in petals.
Wednesday morning we relaxed,packed and prepared for our departure and epic journey to Pokhara.
