Weka
15th April 2007, 02:20 AM
Having just got home and still waiting for my heart and soul to catch up with my body, I though I’d like to share a few thoughts about this little-visited part of Nepal.
Though I love trekking (and I do), I’m really a hot weather guy who, unlike some, enjoys the Terai and, particularly, it’s wildlife. Having spent a lot of time in Chitwan, I thought the next logical step would be Bardia. However when suggesting this in KTM, I was repeatedly confronted with the same three arguments: it’s too far away; it has malaria; and there is still fighting.
Still, if any of the above were correct, it would still be worth the trip.
True; if you take the bus from KTM to Bardia it is a trip to make Frodo’s look like a stroll in the park – 18 hours of bone rattling hell. But for $128 airfare and 2000 RS taxi ride you can catch the 9:40 flight to Nepalgunj and be eating Dahl bhat in Bardia by 1:15. There is no malaria and what fighting there has been was confined to Nepalgunj (which you needn’t visit anyway) and then only really between Maoists and a splinter called the Forum.
Bardia is a large, well-managed (by Nepali standards) National Park in the west of the country and has all the usual charismatics (rhinos, tigers, wild elephants, hornbills etc) but without the crap Chitwan now presents with. There are no CD shops, wooden elephants, independent “guides”, high-rise hotels – nothing. Just a gorgeous mud brick, thatched roof village called Thakudwarra and a series of guest houses built in the same charming style. To imagine it, visualise the village of Asterix the Gaul and you’ve got it. And, best of all, virtually no tourists. At one point, two weeks ago, there were four visitors in the park.
So for eight days, I hung out there with the sort of folk who would hang out there. That is, special interest types: fishermen, animal nuts, folk escaping India and those escaping the busloads of Germans who have taken over Chitwan.
I rafted down the Karnali river, trekked in the park (with guide who stops you from being eaten by tigers) and lay in my hammock reading the Life of Pi. At night I could sometimes hear the locals out with fire sticks chasing off the wild elephants which had wandered out of the park to feast on the wheat harvest.
And, oh!, the fireflies. It’s worth going just for the fireflies.
Though writing this is kinda counter-intentional, I loved the place to bits and it really could do with a slightly higher profile – but do keep it to yourselves, please!
Bardia is a place to chill-out. Bring an iPod and heaps of books.
:-)
Cheers
Weka the Treka
Though I love trekking (and I do), I’m really a hot weather guy who, unlike some, enjoys the Terai and, particularly, it’s wildlife. Having spent a lot of time in Chitwan, I thought the next logical step would be Bardia. However when suggesting this in KTM, I was repeatedly confronted with the same three arguments: it’s too far away; it has malaria; and there is still fighting.
Still, if any of the above were correct, it would still be worth the trip.
True; if you take the bus from KTM to Bardia it is a trip to make Frodo’s look like a stroll in the park – 18 hours of bone rattling hell. But for $128 airfare and 2000 RS taxi ride you can catch the 9:40 flight to Nepalgunj and be eating Dahl bhat in Bardia by 1:15. There is no malaria and what fighting there has been was confined to Nepalgunj (which you needn’t visit anyway) and then only really between Maoists and a splinter called the Forum.
Bardia is a large, well-managed (by Nepali standards) National Park in the west of the country and has all the usual charismatics (rhinos, tigers, wild elephants, hornbills etc) but without the crap Chitwan now presents with. There are no CD shops, wooden elephants, independent “guides”, high-rise hotels – nothing. Just a gorgeous mud brick, thatched roof village called Thakudwarra and a series of guest houses built in the same charming style. To imagine it, visualise the village of Asterix the Gaul and you’ve got it. And, best of all, virtually no tourists. At one point, two weeks ago, there were four visitors in the park.
So for eight days, I hung out there with the sort of folk who would hang out there. That is, special interest types: fishermen, animal nuts, folk escaping India and those escaping the busloads of Germans who have taken over Chitwan.
I rafted down the Karnali river, trekked in the park (with guide who stops you from being eaten by tigers) and lay in my hammock reading the Life of Pi. At night I could sometimes hear the locals out with fire sticks chasing off the wild elephants which had wandered out of the park to feast on the wheat harvest.
And, oh!, the fireflies. It’s worth going just for the fireflies.
Though writing this is kinda counter-intentional, I loved the place to bits and it really could do with a slightly higher profile – but do keep it to yourselves, please!
Bardia is a place to chill-out. Bring an iPod and heaps of books.
:-)
Cheers
Weka the Treka