Royal Chitwan National Park

I have been remiss in not updating the blog of late. For this I blame my brother, who has joined us for a two week stint. In between catching up with him and indulging in Nepal's fine selection of food and beverages I have found little time to write anything.

Since leaving the double edged sword of luxury and cabin fever of Kathmandu behind we have been in Royal Chitwan National Park. I won't deny that the whole point of this was to see a Royal Bengal Tiger in the wild. We had seen them up close in Patan Zoo near Kathmandu but that, of course, is not the same. It wouldn't matter to us if it was only a fleeting glimpse in poor light at 500m distant, just to see one of these magnificent animals would have been a tick in the life long ambition book. In reality however you are more likely to see Rocking Horse poop in the park as you are a big striped cat. Our guides only see them 2-3 times a year and they are out pretty much 30 days a month, which works out as less than a 1% chance of seeing them. Not good odds when you only have 4 days.

The rewards of Chitwan however run much deeper than just reclusive pussy cats. Glorious dusty sunsets, peaceful Sal forests and an abundance of magnificent wildlife make this a remarkable place to spend time. On top of this comes the challenges of capturing this wildlife on camera. Very little of it hangs around long enough for you to fiddle with getting the correct shutter speed and aperture settings, couple this with shady forests interspersed with sun bleached grasslands and you have a very taxing process indeed relying on the constant adjustment of ISO and aperture to achieve the best quality image possible at very high shutter speeds. What a learning process however.

Despite very lucky sightings of some spectacular wildlife such as Great Hornbills, Bison, Gharial Crocodiles and Maribou Storks the most memorable moments were the ones where we 'almost' saw a Tiger. Guides would look thoughtfully at a paw print in the fine dust and then report authoritatively that it must have been here just 10 minutes previously... The best of all these however was the time we came across the fresh blood, still bright red and wet on the dew soaked grass of the early morning. Deer blood, we were informed, from a fresh kill being carried away for consumption in private. We followed the guide following the splashes of claret away from the safety of our jeep deeper into the 6 feet high Elephant grass where visibility shrank to the kind of distances a Tiger could cover quicker than you could shout "Oh bug...". Eventually the guide stopped and turned to me with a grave look on his face.

"If we follow, we will find." He said with totally certainty.

"but... very dangerous." He added with absolutely no trace of humour.

I did my best David Attenborough impression by trying to look knowledgeable and relaxed in such apparent close proximity to a man eater... time to get back to the jeep.

Another of the treats in store for us was the Vikram Baba festival we came across at a sacred site inside the forest. This annual event we were lucky enough to have coincide with our visit celebrates Vikram's Tiger hunt of years past. The story involves a Tiger turning white and Vikram's disappearance amongst a bunch of other stuff I couldn't quite get from our guides mumbled explanation. The end result however is a veritable army of the faithful converging on this one spot in the middle of the forest with their best goat in tow. Can you guess what happens next...?

Those who want children come here to request this of the gods and offer up payment for their prayers in the form of fresh blood, enter the goat from stage right...

Goat: "Baaaaa!"

Cleaver: "Thwaaaak"

Blood: "Squirt"

Headless Goat: "Flop"

Man with cleaver: "Next!"

...and so the process goes on and on and on. In the less than three minutes we stood there watching, four goats were despatched with the same kind of ceremony and sense of occasion that an office photocopier machine delivers on deadline day. Upon the Lingam (Post that resembles Shiva's phallus, the symbol of creation) the separate heads and bodies were tossed whilst they oozed and twitched their last, soaking everything around them in thick, sticky post box red gore.

Taking a metaphorical step back from what we have seen is a necessity. Barbaric or spiritual? To a tame westerner used to his food arriving safely wrapped in polystyrene and cellophane and looking nothing like the original cute and fluffy form, I find myself yet again, merely an observer unable to pass opinion or judgement.

I can say that, as an experience, it was pretty intense. Like rubber necking at an RTA that strange mix of revulsion and fascination complicates my perception of my own values and forces me to reflect. I'd also add that if you do eat meat then you should bear witness to the requirements of your choice at the very least, that is a given. Further to that thought, I find myself wanting to be the dice man. Not because I am attracted to the idea of killing, only that if I eat meat surely I should be prepared to do the killing myself? Delegating this task to someone else seems like the privileged way out of a coward.

These are some of the big questions that travel sometimes poses us. Nepal is without power for so much of the time I have stopped taking electric light at the flick of a switch for granted (almost). Tap water is not safe to drink, luckily bottled water is widely available but this still throws into stark relief the gratuitous waste and greed of the western world. We leave lights on when we don't need them and use drinking quality water for flushing our turds away! How far removed we are from the basic realities of life such as where our food comes from and how it reaches our table?

Perhaps I should buy a tie dyed t-shirt and get myself some dreadlocks... instead I think I'll order a steak and another Americano whilst I think on this further.

I actually have a series of photos of the goat butchering. Another ethical dilemma of whether I should have been photographing such a ceremony in the first place, sigh, is one I am putting off for later thought. At this stage however, for the sake of decency I have opted not to upload them.

In conclusion at this stage, Kurt Hahn's (educator and founder of Outward Bound) words ring true. "Indoctrination is of the devil but it is culpable neglect not to impel young people into value forming experiences." I have had such experiences and as such I am not going to offer you my opinion, instead I shall recommend experiences of your own. Then you are free to make up your own mind.