Tails From the Terai

The tiger wasn’t a complete surprise. The warning barks of panicked deer had tipped us off as we rode an elephant through tall grass on the forest floor.

But I sat frozen in disbelief when the roaring tiger rushed us, her displeasure the sound of a thousand tents ripping. I remember her magnificent black facial markings, her furious pale yellow eyes. She sprang forward, then paced back and forth, twitching, her anger directed at the elephant and the four humans on its back. In her eyes, we were threatening her two cubs, which our guides said were nearby.

The world’s tiger population has dwindled to 5,000 to 7,500, and only 100 or so of the reclusive creatures can be found in Royal Bardia National Park. For some visitors, giant pug marks on forest trails and territorial gouges on trees, the handiwork of mighty claws, must be magic enough. Other visitors, like me, leave with a more volatile tiger tale, but more on that later.

Many travelers to Nepal seek revelation, whether spiritual or physical, in the form of tigers or mountains. Most passengers on my flight to Katmandu were heading north into the Himalayas for their epiphanies. But I was going south, traveling solo last March to the Terai, a narrow, fertile strip of farmland that stretches 500 miles along the Nepalese-Indian border.

The Terai’s fabled forests were intriguing enough to lure me from Singapore, where I had been living for seven years. The area is at the top of the vast plain of the Ganges River that, at only 325 feet above sea level, is tabletop-flat land.

I spent at least three days at each of my destinations: the remote Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve in the extreme eastern part of the country; Royal Chitwan National Park, the best known and most accessible wilderness from Katmandu, in the central Terai; and Royal Bardia National Park, in the far west.

I planned to travel from east to west, which meant crossing most of the Terai by car using the recently completed Mahendra Highway. I was under the excellent care of a driver, Surya (or Sun), named after a Hindu god whose wife is Dawn and whose father, Brahma, is the creator himself.

When we arrived at Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, a nine-hour drive from Katmandu, I emerged from the back seat feeling as brittle as parchment, amid a dust storm.

The weather conditions didn’t bother Dinesh Giri, the naturalist at Aqua Birds Unlimited Camp, one of two tourist sites where I stayed. Dinesh advised us to forgo rest and proceed immediately to a narrow spot in the Sapt Kosi River, one of the largest tributaries of the Ganges, where he had located freshwater dolphins. We bobbed in a dugout and watched them surface while villages around us prepared for darkness.

Children, silhouetted against the setting sun, appeared to walk on water as they guided submerged water buffalo across the river by standing on their backs. Others drove herds of cattle and goats.

I began learning about the region’s birds, with Dinesh educating me on some of the 350 species there. Amateur bird-watchers, as well as ornithologists bearing binoculars, telescopes and camera lenses the size of small cannons visit between October and April, when birds winter in the area.

Later I retired for the night to my “room,” a spacious tent under a thatch shelter. At 5 a.m., a camp staff member woke me for more bird-watching. Because of the early hour, the staff member brought a peace offering: “bed coffee.”

After more bird-watching at the camp, we moved on to the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, which occupies a 110-square-mile rectangle of the flood plain to the Sapt Kosi River. A barrage (a barrier that deepens the river) was built in 1965 to control annual floods during monsoon season. Even so, during the monsoon months of May through September, parts of the reserve can be up to 10 feet underwater.

Koshi Tappu was established in 1976 to protect some of the world’s last wild water buffalo, aggressive animals with horns up to 6 1/2 feet.

Dinesh and I beached our boat on a sandbar where buffalo were grazing. We went too close to a bull, who apparently didn’t like our proximity to his females. When the bull charged, I ran toward the boat, but Dinesh stood his ground. The bull stopped in his tracks and carefully eyed us until we got back in our boat and floated away.

After a day exploring Koshi Tappu, we headed back to Aqua Birds Unlimited. The camp is set in the fields among villages of the Danuwar, one of 35 or so ethnic groups and castes in Nepal. The Danuwar are subsistence farmers and fishermen living in the eastern Terai. Their kin, the Tharu, are found in greater numbers in the west. Both are considered some of the Terai’s first inhabitants, refugees of the 13th century Mogul invasion.

They were preceded only by the Mithila, who lived on the plains of the Ganges from the 10th to 3rd centuries BC and whose descendants, the Maithili, today form the largest ethnic group in the eastern Terai. Most people in the region are of Indo-Aryan origin--taller, darker and with facial features more like the residents of northern India than the Tibeto-Burman people of the Himalayas.

One morning while I sipped coffee outside my tent, women in red and orange saris tended the fields. Two centuries ago, women disfigured themselves with tattoos in order to discourage kidnappers. Today the tattoos have become fashionable. When I visited their village, the women revealed indigo designs that covered their hands and arms.

The indigenous people’s heritage is reflected in their building materials: clay and cow dung on bamboo walls, thatched roofs to keep interiors cool, and colorful, lively murals on house exteriors. Maithili women are particularly known for their mural painting, which is primarily religious.

A two-hour drive west from Koshi Tappu lay my next stop, Janakpur, which at first seemed little more than a disorderly market town with dismal accommodations. Ultimately, however, I appreciated the timelessness of Janakpur’s heady combination of the religious and the secular.

The town, a stopping point midway between Koshi Tappu and Royal Chitwan National Park, derives its name from folklore. More than 2,000 years ago, when the eastern Terai and what today is India’s Bihar state were part of a Mithila kingdom, Janakpur’s forests were the setting for the “Ramayana,” an epic morality tale, philosophical treatise and adventure/love story.

The author of the “Ramayana” was a holy man, and the wisdom he dispensed through one of his story’s forest sages hasn’t lost its relevance. “Life and death, joy and sorrow, gain and loss: These dualities cannot be avoided,” the character says. “Learn to accept what you cannot change and give up sorrow.”

The same understanding was reached by the most famous son of the Terai, Prince Siddhartha, later to become the Buddha, born in a grove of sal trees at Lumbini in the central Terai.

Nepal’s dominant vegetation of the shrinking forests is sal, a hardwood that grows arrow-straight and as tall as 100 feet. When I first saw the fabled forests, the sal’s large, flat leaves were a winter gold, and the broad trunks of the leafless kapok bloomed with scarlet flowers. The undergrowth and grasses recently had been burned black by the Tharu to encourage speedy regeneration, the new growth eventually providing tigers with camouflage.

That kind of camouflage did little, however, when the Chitwan Valley was the private hunting estate of Nepalese royals. In the early 1900s, one expedition alone would kill 40 tigers. In addition, Bengal tigers and Asian rhinoceroses lost their habitat to agriculture.

But the rhinoceros population has increased from 310 in 1973, the year Royal Chitwan National Park was formed, to more than 450 today; tigers, which had numbered 20, are more than 100 strong in the park’s nearly 400 square miles.

I stayed just outside the Royal Chitwan park in Sauraha, a village of farmers who double as wildlife guides and providers of budget rooms, faxes, haircuts, pies, pizzas and massages.

Visitors almost always can see Chitwan rhinoceroses because of their relatively large numbers. From my perch on the roof I also saw a sloth bear and her two cubs. Tharu guides fear the sloth bear’s attack more than a tiger’s because the animal defends its territory more aggressively.

From Chitwan and the central Terai, Royal Bardia National Park is a nine-hour drive west. The Geruwa River, a tributary of the Karnali (a branch of the Ganges), cuts scenically through its 590 miles of wilderness.

A Nepalese company, Tiger Mountain, operates two places to stay at Bardia, neither of which is roughing it. The Karnali Lodge is adjacent to the park’s entrance and built with bamboo walls and thatch roofs, like the Tharu houses that surround it. I preferred staying at the lodge, because twice a day, six female elephants (all named after Hindu goddesses) and tour guides (all with attitude) arrived to take guests through the park. As we rode, spotted deer, a tiger’s favorite prey, exploded out of the undergrowth, followed by langur monkeys.

Introduced from Chitwan in the 1980s, one-horned rhinoceroses grazed in dense, yellow grasses, ready (although not eager) to take on an elephant to protect their young. Visitors atop elephants (not in noisy vehicles) often will see other park inhabitants: large antelope called blue bulls, leopards and wild elephants, of which a Bardia bull is said to be one of the largest specimens in Asia. My sightseeing group had bad luck on the day of our trek, however, and saw little wildlife.

But then there was the tiger. A Terai proverb says, “When you come to Nepal, you bring your destiny with you.” So the four of us--tour guide, animal caretaker, a Nepalese woman and me--shouldn’t have been alarmed when our elephant, Sundarakali (Beautiful Girl), faced off with the fierce cat. I remember thinking: “Don’t miss this. Don’t miss a second of this.”

After her initial surge, the tiger charged again, this time coming so close to Sundarakali that she disappeared from view under the elephant, which trumpeted madly.

But Sundarakali’s years of training and the skill of the caretaker came together. Elephant and tiger parted, the big cat growing calmer as Sundarakali distanced herself from the cubs.

The Nepalese woman, an employee of Karnali Lodge, saw it as a divine gift. When we dismounted, she bowed to the elephant in praise of its bravery, while I walked away on trembling legs. Several nights earlier, this young woman had dreamed that she had seen a tiger from atop Sundarakali. Perhaps fate was her good fortune, or perhaps we shared it.

GUIDEBOOK

Watching Wildlife on the Ganges Plain

Getting there: Thai Airways and Singapore Airlines offer connecting service, with one change of planes, from LAX to Katmandu, Nepal. Round-trip fares start at $1,575.

Getting around: Katmandu travel agencies and hotels can arrange a car and driver for your final destination. Expect to pay up to $40 a day. Try Sagarmatha Trekking and Cross Country Tours, P.O. Box 2236, Naxal, Katmandu, Nepal; telephone 011- 977-1-411110, fax 011-977-1- 415284, e-mail crosscountry@ crosscountry.wlink.com.np.

Wildlife preserves: For the Koshi Tappu reserve, drive from Katmandu or fly to Biratnagar, an hour’s drive from the park.

For the Royal Chitwan park, rent a vehicle or ride a tourist bus from Katmandu to Tadi Bazaar (a six-hour trip); transfer to a jeep and ride a few more miles to Sauraha. Or take a half-hour flight from Katmandu to Meghauli, near Chitwan’s resorts, or to Bharatpur, near Sauraha.

For Royal Bardia National Park, drive from Katmandu or fly to Nepalganj, two hours’ drive from the park.

When to go: Weather is best October through February. Royal Chitwan and Royal Bardia are closed during monsoon season, May through September.

Where to stay: Koshi Tappu has Aqua Birds Unlimited Camp (10 tents, common bath and restaurant) at Kusaha, next to the park. Room and board is about $40 per day. Call 011-977-1- 429515, fax 011-977-1-416516, e-mail aquabird@ccsl.com.np, Internet https://www.travel-nepal .com/adventure/aquabirds.

At Royal Bardia National Park, Tiger Mountain Co. operates the Karnali Lodge and Tented Camp (12 double rooms at lodge outside park, 12 tents at camp inside park). The cost is about $165 a day per person; it includes excellent meals and activities, such as rafting and game viewing atop elephants. Write to Tiger Tops Mountain Travel, P.O. Box 242, Lazimpat, Katmandu, Nepal; tel. 011-977-1-411225, fax 011-977-1-414075, e-mail info@tigermountain.com, Internet https://www.tigermountain.com. Budget accommodations are near Tharkurdwara, where a basic cottage is about $20 per night. One of the best is Forest Hideaway Cottages, tel. 011-977-1-417685.

At Royal Chitwan, Sauraha has scores of budget places. A good mid-price choice is the Royal Park Hotel, where an airy cottage is about $35 a night. The hotel has a restaurant and bar. Tel. 011-977-56-29361. Tiger Mountain also has three sites.

Package tours: Many companies offer tours of the plains and foothills. They include Wilderness Travel, tel. (800) 368-2794, and Geographic Expeditions, tel. (800) 777-8183, both in San Francisco, and Backroads in Berkeley, tel. (800) 462-2848. They run 11- to 15-day tours starting at $2,595 to $3,998, all land-based, most all-inclusive.

For more information: Write to Royal Nepal Embassy, 2131 Leroy Place N.W., Washington, DC 20008; tel. (202) 667-4550, Internet http//www.info-nepal.com.