A moderate heat is the worst kind of heat. It tricks you, letting you dry and cool for a brief relief before bringing you back to the inevitable swelter. It is an array of ebbing and flowing unpleasantries. It will lie to you. The constant, humid, tangible, sauna-like heat of the jungle is a different beast. It never pretends you will feel comfort in the form of dry skin, or slow, deep breaths. It is honest and cruel. The sweat will fall from forehead to eye, from nose to ground. You will taste the salt of your body on your lips. It will never cease. But this itself becomes a respite: your expectations are always matched. This is the way of life in the summer heat of Chitwan National Park.
I am writing this in the relentless discomfort of 85% humidity, 85°F climate at 8:35 at night. My feet have been chewed by so many bugs I have given up counting the raised abrasions. I recently discovered the thin rayon elephant pants I acquired are completely mosquito-penetrable. The plastic one-and-a-half liter water jugs I am chugging seep right through my forehead. These facts of life have caused most tourists and animals to hide in home or watering hole, respectively. Yesterday I was the only tourist crazy enough to explore the National Park in its off-season reality. My two Nepali guides, Prem Bode and Aitaram Derai, spent five hours alongside me in the jungle depths.
They began the tour with a lecture on animal safety. Since we were venturing on foot, instead of by Jeep on which most tourists explore, we had to take utmost precaution we would not become a tiger cub’s next meal or a human kebab on a rino’s horn. Their primary safety methods included beating the earth wildly with their bamboo hiking poles as well as throwing rocks at any large, dangerous creatures we encountered.
In the monsoon heat of the early afternoon, most animals hid in the tall grasses or bathed in the shallow river. The first few hours consisted of walking through the park’s forested region, cautiously stepping between twigs and dried leaves, while tracking the herds of skittish white-spotted deer. Eventually we came out from the forest and entered a path within the grasses. We cautiously watched a sloth bear, my guides prepared with bamboo weapons in hand, and myself ready to fire with a camera shutter. As we walked, we faced bears and rhinos that we were forced to walk around or risk a dangerous encounter. These large animals were largely apathetic to our arrival, and we marched on further into the grass. At this point in the season, the grasses are tall overhead, reaching around 6 feet. In late monsoon, a month or two from now, they will reach as high as 10 feet, and the guides must clear the overgrown path as they walk.
Almost three hours of walking later, we came to a lake and watched for bathing rhinos, surveying the land like an army scout. Through camera lens and binocular, we observed the massive beasts that rested in the water. In the heat, the rhinos seem especially lethargic. Birds rest on their wrinkled gray backs, and they do not make a sound.
After nearly four hours in the relentless sun, we came to the only tall tree around for miles, a fig tree. A group of army men stood around it when we arrived, but they dispersed back to their outpost a short distance down the road. Their massive black guns strapped to their backs always give the Nepali soldier a fearsome look. Ever since the government installed a permanent outpost around 2007, poaching has dramatically slowed and the park’s rhino, tiger, and elephant population continue to increase.
After our long rest under the fig tree, we slowly wandered back to the river which separates Chitwan National Park from the town of Sauraha. As we approached the tour’s end, a Jeep’s engine cut through the insect din. Ten or so passengers sat with tired faces on the jeep’s roof. I did not envy their experience. The real fear that comes with chasing away rhinos and sloth bears with bamboo sticks is unique and powerful. Despite the heat, I am happy.
