On our third night in Sauraha, a sleepy farming village on the edge of Royal Chitwan National Park, a rat fell out of the thatched ceiling of our mud-walled bungalow, landed on our bed, squeaked once, twitched twice and died. The night before, a rhino came nosing and snuffling its way through the rice field behind our bungalow and stood munching just out our window. When they promise you an up-close wildlife experience at Chitwan, they aren't kidding.

As recently as half a century ago, the only people who lived in the Terai were Tharus, indigenous tribespeople who didn't die of the malaria that killed everyone else who spent much time there. It was the liberal use of DDT that made the Terai habitable, and land-starved Nepalis came slashing and burning through the jungle with a vengeance. By now about half of all Nepalis live in the Terai, mostly as subsistence or tenant farmers. Fortunately the government has set aside an old royal hunting ground as a wildlife preserve, and today Chitwan boasts an increasing population of tigers, rhinos, deer, birds of all kinds, crocodiles of two varieties, rhesus macaques and langur monkeys, among other critters.

Just getting to Sauraha was a bit of an adventure. The long, slow, cramped bus journey from Pokhara took us down out of the foothills of the Himalayas, which give way suddenly to the wide plain that is the Terai. At Tandi Bazaar, we were disgorged from the bus and into a waiting frenzy of screaming touts, all offering free jeep-rides to Sauraha proper if only you'll stay at their hotel. Fortunately we managed to find our way into the jeep belonging to the hotel we wanted to stay at, and in a few minutes we were bouncing down into a muddy river bed, then right through the water itself.

*

The highlight of our stay was a two-day walk into the jungle, led by a charming guide who is working toward his master's degree in English literature and philosophy. He spoke an English you don't hear much anymore, one learned from Jane Austen and John Milton rather than from Austin Powers and Milton Berle, and he went by the name of John, at least among the foreigners. His knowledge about the flora and fauna of Chitwan was impressive — he frequently told us not just the common and Nepali names for plants, but also their Latin names.

Our walk began early, about an hour after the Incident of the Falling Rat. In the early morning mist we crossed the Rapti River into the park, riding low in the water in a dugout canoe that the ferryman pushed along with a great bamboo pole. "Tonight," John said, "remind me to tell you the story of why there is mist on the water. It's a long story, and if I tell you now, I'll be talking and we won't see any wildlife."

The jungle doesn't start right at the edge of the Rapti. First you have to pass through the grasslands, and I'm not talking about the kind of grass they have in Flushing Meadows, or even the thick grasses that cover the hills of Northern California. This is elephant grass, which is in fact taller than the elephants that feed on it. It looms up in great dense tussocks topped with purplish tails of grain. In no time John had led us right into the middle of it — never mind about trails. The giant blades of grass slashed at our arms as we shoved our way through. At long last we pushed out onto the muddy banks of the river, in search of rhinos. We didn't see any — we managed not to see any at all in the park, though they came to visit nearly every night next to our hotel room — but we did see crocodiles sunning themselves on the banks. Then it was back through the grasses, across trickles and creeks, back up again, along muddy banks into which I managed to sink ankle-deep at one point, and finally back onto a trail. It was exhausting, but good fun. And after that came the jungle.

Americans are surprisingly obsessed with jungles, considering that we don't actually have any in the continental U.S. What we do have are the asphalt jungle and the blackboard jungle, "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Jungle Boogie." In business it's the law of the jungle, in romance it's jungle fever, in politics it's jungle warfare and Save the Rainforests. Disney has made cartoons of Tarzan and The Jungle Book. Metaphorically speaking, it's a jungle out there.

It's surprising then to realize that there's no precise meaning for the word. When we think of it, we usually think of Vietnam or Africa or South America, though the word comes from the Hindi jangal, which simply means forest. In Chitwan the jungle consists of sal forests, which are not quite as densely overgrown as the pictures I've seen of South-East Asian or South American rain forests. I'm not sure I would even have thought to classify it as jungle, though Kipling's Jungle Book takes place in a sal forest not far from Chitwan. But it had none of the menace that we usually associate with jungles; it seemed, in fact, a benevolent place full of fruits and berries and lush vegetation, and never mind about the leeches. It was into just such a forest that the Buddha slipped away when he became a wandering ascetic; likewise, in the Ramayana, it was in sal forests, overgrown with giant vines and filled with monkeys and exotic birds, that Rama took refuge. In fact, Chitwan is very close to both Lumbini, the Buddha's birthplace, and the birthplace of Valmiki, the original author of the Ramayana. In Hindu culture, the jungle is not the malevolent universe of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but a place for escape and renewal and spiritual development.

*

In the early evening, we came out of the forest again and stopped at a small lake to wait for the rhinos, who of course failed to show up. Still, we saw more crocodiles, and in the trees were a fantastic range of birds: turquoise and orange stork-billed kingfishers, green parakeets, big brown vultures and dozens more. Now and again, giant swarms of bees would pass in great clouds overhead. As the sun neared the horizon, we continued through a patch of forest that was filled with pink-faced rhesus macaques, who leaped acrobatically from tree to tree, limb to limb. At last we came to the river again, crossed it in another dugout canoe, walked through a game of soccer on the flat river plain, and climbed up to our lodge for the night.

As we waited for dinner, John lit up a hash cigarette and began to tell us the story of the morning mist. In the Ramayana, the evil demon Ravana steals Sita, Rama's wife, and runs off with her to his kingdom of Lanka in the south. Lanka, of course, is an island, which is hard to attack. Here's where Hanuman, the monkey god, comes in. He marshalled his monkey minions, and they stretched themselves out to create a bridge on which Rama's warriors were able to cross into Lanka. But Hanuman himself was captured. After much debate, the Lankans decided to punish him by wrapping his tail in oil-soaked rags and setting fire to it. But Hanuman, tail alight, took revenge by leaping from house to house, setting them all on fire and burning down Ravana's kingdom. Then he rushed to the water's edge and thrust his burning tail into it, sending up a vast cloud of steam. And that is why there is mist on the waters in the morning.

Later, John told us another story — this one, he warned us, rather bawdy. We told him to go ahead. Why, he asked, does Nandi the Bull, Shiva's vehicle, wait outside the door of the great Shiva temple of Pashupati in Kathmandu? Well, when Shiva and Parvati were married, Parvati begged and begged to be allowed to go home and visit her family. In Hindu culture, a new wife leaves her birth family pretty much for good and joins her new one, so Shiva denied her request at first, but she was insistent. Anyway, she promised to return after two days. But she didn't. The days rolled on, and Shiva, without his Parvati, began to feel a certain frustration. Likewise, for some reason there were no cows around, so Nandi was also feeling rather pent-up. Ultimately he and Shiva struck a deal: they would take turns and satisfy each other. Shiva went first, and then it was his turn to accomodate Nandi. That's when he saw the size of Nandi's equipment. Immediately Shiva fled, Nandi running close behind, until at last Shiva ducked through the narrow doors of the temple of Pashupati — too narrow for a great big bull. And so Nandi sits outside the temple, still waiting for his turn.

Ahem. I told you it was bawdy.

The second day of the hike was much like the first, except in reverse, and with a stop at the crocodile breeding center. The next morning, back in Sauraha, we took a ride on an elephant's back through a different forest. The elephant's mahout (keeper) was a young man who's voice kept cracking, Hitler-like, as he barked commands at his charge and whacked her regularly with a big stick. In response, the elephant would grumble deep in her belly before letting out an impressive trumpet. At one point, just because, she paused by the side of the trail and ripped out a small tree.

The next day we headed for the elephant breeding center to see the baby elephants. They were, of course, utterly adorable, the two tiniest toddling about and not in complete control of their legs or trunks. One accidentally stumbled into Jenny and stepped on her foot. Even a baby elephant is a big animal, and that night Jenny had a nasty bruise, though it fortunately went away by morning.

*

Having had our jungle adventure, seen rhinos and monkeys and crocs and falling rats and staggering baby elephants, it was time for us at last to say goodbye to Nepal and hello to India. But that will have to wait for another email.

-Josh

--
"To find oneself where one has longed to be always, to a reflective mind, gives food for thought."
- Virginia Woolf, "Orlando"