Elephants in Chitwan & Lumbini: Birthplace of the Buddha

Group of elephants at the beginning of the safari.

The whole Chitwan experience was interesting and not necessarily what I expected, though I’m trying to avoid developing expectations about this trip. We arrived at the resort, which was actually pretty quaint…maybe even one of my favorite places we’ve stayed at so far…in the early afternoon, had lunch, then took a quick nap before the elephant ride. We took a bus to the park area where the elephants were waiting for us. I wasn’t quite sure how we’d actually be sitting on the elephants, but it turned out there was a wood frame that four of us stuck our legs through on top of each elephant.

Tad and I in front of our elephant.

They tell you that you may see tigers and rhinos, though spotting a tiger is extremely rare…and I almost doubt that it’s even possible. I still hoped that we might spot a rhino…that would still be pretty exciting. As we begin the ride, the elephants walk through a small river, through a jungle area, and around some open spaces. Just as we are entering the forest again, one of the elephant operators/drivers (I’m not sure what you call the people that sit in front and tell the elephant where to go) made some sort of call from the distance. All of the drivers directed their elephants towards the call. We had no idea what was going on, but we hoped they’d spotted some sort of animal.

Sure enough, we arrive at the location and there is a mother rhino with its baby. All of the elephants were forced to surround the rhinos in the shrubbery, and it was pretty clear that neither the rhinos nor the elephants were very happy about it. Multiple times the rhinos charged out from the brush and the elephant drivers steered the elephants towards them time after time. It got to the point where it was kind of odd. We eventually moved on from the rhinos, saw some deer, quite a few monkeys, and made our way back to the base point after about two hours.

The rhinos in Chitwan.

The following day we left Chitwan and made our way to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha. I don’t know very much about Buddhism, but its very prevalent throughout Nepal after Hinduism. While it was interesting to visit such an important site to Buddhists, I felt a little odd being there. I’m not Buddhist, I know very little about the Buddhist way of life, yet there I was, standing next to Buddhist monks and religion tourists from all over the world to whom this site meant much more than it did to me. The reason that Lumbini was relevant to our travels and studies was that it’s a planned city. Many countries that have a high Buddhist population have a temple and monastery near the actual site. These were organized by the plan that also divided two of the main Buddhist sects (I can’t remember what they were called, but I think it dealt mostly with those that are more traditional and those that are more modern), with one on each side of the canal. The whole thing was interesting, though I was mildly unimpressed. Part of it may also have been that I wasn’t feeling well. I did the Parle G and coke diet for the rest of the day and felt much better by the next day when we headed back to Kathmandu. Although our bus trip to these sites in the southern part of Nepal had collectively probably taken 14-15 hours, we flew back in less than an hour in a 16-passenger plane through the mountains.