A Tour in the Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal
Original article by Yuan Haiying in 1982
Foreword:
“When we had the retreat of leadership team of Bower Group Asia in Bangkok in Feb 14 2023, we were just warming up at the welcome dinner. As I introduced myself to Mr Yuan Haiying as the Senior Advisor in Nepal, his eyes lit up. He talked about Nepal being his first foreign trip abroad forty years ago, and recalled of the article he wrote. He is my counterpart in China and runs a very well respected practice Yuan Associates, and so happy to be connected through Bower Group Asia. Over the next two days, he had many stories to tell of his trip and contacted his office to send the article he wrote forty years ago. I am so thrilled that we have The Araniko Project that bridges the two countries through making writings of one country accessible in the other.
A big thank you!”
Sujeev Shakya,
Author: Unleashing The Vajra, Unleashing Nepal and The Pandemic Years
*****
At noon on May 19th, we took off from Kathmandu by plane, flew 120 kilometers southwest, and landed at Meghauli Airport. The staff from the National Park were already waiting for us when we arrived. As soon as we got out, an off-road vehicle transported us to the center of the park—Tiger Tops.
The first activity after arriving at Tiger Tops was to roam around in an elephant. The reeds were five or six-meter-high and the forest was dense. It takes an elephant to reach deep into the hinterland. We rode the elephants from a two-story terrace. Each elephant was driven by a trained and professional mahout. Seven to eight elephants formed a team. After entering the reeds, we parted ways. Our mahout took huge strides through the dense jungle without roads, as if walking on flat ground.
In the dense reeds, there were various wild animals, including leopards, wild boars, sloth bears, langurs, peacocks, white geese, and the most common deer, such as sambar, hog deer, chital, and also a deer that barks like a dog. Regardless, our main goal was to find rhinos. Although nearly 300 one-horned rhinos live in seclusion here, it is not easy to see their majesty in the wild.
We set off at 4:30 pm, walked for two hours, but failed to find one until we were on the route back. The mahout directed the elephants to get closer to the rhino, and we were all ready to take this rare shot. Unfortunately, the reeds were too high and dense that before I could see the whole picture, the rhino was gone. When we returned to the station, someone told us that there was a rhino in a small river nearby. We hurried to the river and finally saw a brown rhinoceros floating in the misty river water in the distance.
When I came back at night, I took a closer look at our hotel, "Treetop Hotel". This is a three-story building. The first floor is a wooden frame, which is not inhabited. There is a huge oak tree in the middle of the building. In fact, the whole building seems to be built on the top of the tree, thus the name "Tree Top Hotel".
The houses are mainly made of sal wood, with slatted walls and thatched roofs. The appearance looks very simple, but the design has ethnic features. The facilities in the house are no less than in the Malla Hotel of Kathmandu. There were carpets, a sofa, running water, a flush toilet, and even hot water in the shower through solar energy so that visitors can take a comfortable bath after a tiring day. In order not to disturb the wildlife, a power station was not built here, and kerosene lamps or gas lamps were the only sources of light.
At 7:30 in the evening, the park organizes visitors to watch a slide show, introducing Chitwan Royal National Park and Tiger Tops. Chitwan Royal National Park was established in 1973, with an area of about 932 square kilometers and an altitude of 120-150 meters. It is a subtropical lowland bounded by rivers to the west, south and north. As these streams are often diverted, many lakes, swamps, and grasslands are created, providing excellent habitats for a variety of wild animals, especially tigers, and rhinos.
After watching the slide show, we went for dinner while we waited to see the tiger. 40 tigers live in the Chitwan Royal National Park. Every night, the staff would use buffaloes as bait to lure the tigers to a place for tourists to watch.
According to a tourist who arrived two days earlier than us, he had seen three tigers the night before, and we were waiting with great hope, but the tigers didn't show up even at ten o'clock, so we had no choice but to leave in disappointment.
When we were about to fall asleep late at night, the roar of wild animals suddenly came from downstairs, which alarmed the elephants. It was a mess. The next day, I found out that it was caused by two rhinos competing for territory.
Early the next morning, we drove to visit the crocodile farm. The car stopped from time to time on the road, so that we can better appreciate the peacocks entrenched in the treetops and the deer running in the forest. What is particularly interesting is the clear footprints left by the tiger on the road last night. Walking and watching like this, it took an hour to cover 19 kilometers.
The crocodile farm is home to two species of crocodiles - the estuarine crocodile and the gharial. According to management personnel, gharial is an extremely rare crocodile species, which is only found in Nepal, India, and Pakistan.
Before 1978, due to people's aggressive extraction of crocodile eggs, the gharial was on the verge of extinction. In 1978, with the support of the World Wildlife Fund, a breeding farm was built here, and now the number of gharials has reached 250. Since 1979, 50 of them have been put into wild rivers every year and 150 of them have been released till now.
About the author:
Yuan Haiying is currently the president of Yuan Associates, a premium government affairs firm, dedicated to providing professional and strategic consultancy and government affairs service. He was the Director of the Ministry of Forestry’s Department of International Cooperation and has over forty year’s experience in the Chinese Government.
Original piece provided by Mr. Yuan:
** Special thanks to Sujeev Shakya for introducing this piece to The Araniko Project and contributing to the overall Nepal - China discourse.**