With everything that happened, I’ve had a difficult time trying to figure out how to tell the story without having a monster blog post. Besides, with so many pictures, the story gets even longer! So I’ll begin at the beginning, even though it happened quite a while ago :)
The first leg of the trip was from Kathmandu to Gaidakot, Chitwan where we stayed with a few family members of Ashok sir (Rotary man from Banepa who’s been a huge help in orchestrating trips!). The Shrestha family was warm and welcoming and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay, getting to know the family, and playing with the resident baby and precious puppies.
Our host mother and the resident baby...we never did learn his name, but had a blast playing with him!
Such a sweet puppy
The first morning, our host asked if we wanted to walk to the temple, so we agreed – not realizing we were in for a several-hour hike up a mountain! Despite the never ending stairs, the walk through the jungle was beautiful.
This tree was found about a third of the way up the hill, where we first stopped to catch our breath. With the early morning fog, it was such a neat view.
The temple itself was fairly basic, but I enjoyed getting to see it, and we received tika and puja from the Hindu priest. Tika is a mark on the forehead made with crushed flowers and given with a blessing, and puja is a gift (in this case an orange shoelace necklace) often given with it as well.
The temple - at the VERY top of the "hill"
The rest of the day was spent at a school in Torikhet that has a number of deaf students and two teachers of the deaf (TOD). The school was far away from the town, out in the midst of some gorgeous fields.
The deaf students and teachers. Everyone was so friendly, and I'm really glad we got to meet them and see the school.
This school was the first that we have observed which is “inclusive” – meaning that the deaf students attend classes with the hearing students with the TODs going from classroom to classroom interpreting and explaining difficult concepts. It’s not an ideal inclusive situation because the students only have full access when the TOD is in their classroom, but given the resources, I was extremely impressed with the school. The teachers (both hearing and TOD), were sensitive to the students’ needs and spent time ensuring that they understood the concepts, and the deaf students seemed to get along well with their hearing peers.
"Inclusive" teaching - the regular classroom teacher leads instruction, while the teacher of the deaf interprets and explains in more depth to the deaf students.
Though we’re on a research trip, after looking at our original schedule and discovering we’d only given ourselves 1 day off in 20, I decided we needed at least 3days devoted to rest or play. We had our first fun day at the Chitwan National Park in Sarahau where we spent all day around elephants!
Me in our ride for the day...a thanka
Transportation was fascinating that day – we rode in thankas (basic horse drawn carriages), buses, on an elephant, and in a rickshaw (bicycle-drawn carriage). Once we arrived, we went to two museums – a biology based nature museum which had all kinds of animals and animal parts in formaldehyde – interesting…but a bit gross - and a museum about the Tharu culture (a cultural group found in the Terai).
My first time around live elephants. The ones in Nepal may be smaller than their African counterparts, but they're still huge!
We also went to an elephant breeding center to see the elephants and baby elephants up close. This was my first time seeing a live elephant outside of the zoo, so it was very exciting! Even more fun, we were able to watch the elephants being bathed in the river. Tourists are allowed to help, but neither of us had brought things to change into, so we settled for watching.
Elephant bath time
It was a surreal experience watching these enormous trained elephants listening so obediently to their drivers and submerging themselves into the water so only their sides were showing – and the trunks, as they came up for air intermittently. Finally, we were hopelessly touristy and went on an elephant ride!
Anu and I riding Raskumari :)
It was great – four people rode in a basket on top of the elephant with the elephant’s driver in front. Our elephant, Raskumari (meaning ‘princess’ in Nepali), was a beautiful 25 year old elephant (a baby – they can live to be up to 200!). During the 2 hour ride, we lumbered through the jungle and spotted a deer, wild boar, peacock, and 3 crocodiles – 2 different types – who were lounging by the river.
Two of the MANY tourist-burden elephants on the elephant ride. When the elephants spotted the crocs they all began to trumpet. Twelve elephants trumpeting makes for some serious noise that even a deaf person can hear!
I was a bit disappointed not to see the one-horned rhino or a bengal tiger, but hopefully there'll be more chances in the future! It was an incredible experience regardless and I’m really glad that we took the chance to see what the area offered while we were so close.
The guardia (sp?) croc we got to see. Apparently they're pretty rare, so we were lucky.
Just to remind those who might be on the fence about visiting – here are a few things you can do in Nepal: Go paragliding, rafting and trekking in the Himalayas, see Mt. Everest, ride elephants, and see crazy animals like one-horned rhinos. Sometime in the next 6 months is a great time to start working on your bucket list…. It’ll make my year too! :-)
Stayed tuned for more posts in quick succession since I finally have reliable internet....
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