Sorry Mom and Dad

I know my parents are not going to be thrilled with the contents of this post. I'm really sorry. But you only live once right? I'm pretty sure that several times in my life, I've promised you never ever under and circumstances ride on a motorcycle.... Unfortunately, I broke that promise. But don't worry, I'm totally fine!

So here's the story. Rebecca and I showed up at 6.30 am on Friday morning, to catch our bus to Chitwan. We met Birat, my travel agent friend, at Adrenaline Rush, so he could walk us to the bus. It's about a 5 minute walk. The bus was going to leave at 7am. As we're standing there, Birat walks over to his motorcycle and turns a key. Turns out, he was locking it. But I (stupidly) said, "Oh man, when you walked over there, I definitely thought you were going to drive us to the bus on your motorcycle." Birat essentially replied "Good idea, let's do that!" Anyhow, we ended up deciding to ride the motorcycle to the bus stop. But he couldn't take me and Rebecca both at the same time, so he took Rebecca first and then came back for me. The whole time, I waited in terror. For one thing, it's not too comforting to see Birat don a thick jacket and protective helmet and watch Rebecca jump on the back with no protection. But he came back for me and I took a deep breath and got on.

I think I nearly strangled Birat during the two minute ride. Luckily, at 6.30 am, there's virtally no traffic and we weren't going fast at all. Still it was terrifying. And the whole time I was thinking, Wow, my parents are going to KILL me! But we arrived safely and I'm really glad that I can say I've ridden on a motorcycle. Motorcycles are common vehicles here in Kathmandu. It's not uncommon to see a family of four on a single motorcycle, none of them wearing helmets. In some countries, the only type of taxi is a motorcycle so you ride them all the time. In any case, here are all the types of vehicles I've ridden in Nepal:

Motocycle
Tuk-Tuk
Normal Bus
Tourist Bus
Microbus
Rikshaw
Taxi/Car
Elephant
Horse-drawn cart
Jeep
Canoe
Raft

I think that's all. So back to my weekend. Chitwan was amazing. We got to see some traditional Tharu villages with mud huts and all. On Saturday, we went on a one-hour elephant Safari and saw Rhinos, wild boars, deer, some birds, and obviously, elephants. Later, we did elephant bathing. This invovled getting on a 2 story tall elephant with no saddle or anything. It was absolutely terrifying. Then, we went into the river. The water wasn't too deep, but there was soft sand at the bottom. Just as we'd gotten into the water, the elephant sat down and Rebecca and I fell off. Then, we got back on. The elephant started to stand up. Both of us slid off the side and were barely holding on. The guide managed to remain, standing up no less, on the back of the elephant during all this. He grabbed Rebecca and heaved her back up. She heaved me up, but did so a bit to forcefully and I started to fall off the other side. This time, there was no stopping it. I pulled Rebecca and our guide down with me. The guide gave a comand to the elephant and the elephant lifted the guide with his trunk and then the guide walked up the elephant's face to his back. He motioned for us to try. It was harder than it looked. The first time, I took too long and the Elephant relaxed his trunk before I was up. I tried to hang on to his head, but slowly slid back down. Rebecca was more successful although not as graceful as our guide. After several attempts, I made it up, with absolutely no dignity. There are several photos of me, lying face down with my legs spread eagled over the elephant's face. Don't worry, they'll be online soon...

Once we were up, the elephant would spray us a few times with his trunk and then start to shake and we'd fall off again. This happened a bunch of times. It's was so much fun and so hilarious. After we got back to land, some tourists informed me that my attempts at climbing an elephant's face provided them great amusement. Well, that's okay. It provided me great amusement too!

Later in the day, we did a one hour ride in a traditional dugout canoe. We saw lots of birds and a few crocodiles! Then, we went on a two hour jungle walk. On the walk, which was really fun, we climbed trees and tried to find animals. We saw a crocodile from about 15 feet above it. We were on a cliff overlooking the water. It was asleep, but I got some good pics! Then, we heard something in the jungle. Our guide said it was a rhino! We quietly crept closer. We could see it through the trees. We had to be really quiet or it might charge us. All of a sudden, I turned and saw our guide sprinting away from the Rhino. Ummm... thanks for the warning! I started running too. We got back to the trail and were fine. The rhino decided to run in the opposite direction. Just then, a jeep came up behind us. Our guide hailed it down and we got on. He said "This is what you call 'hitchiking.'" The jeep was on a trial route through the jungle and they would start taking tourists later on. They gave us a lift back to the river and we got a canoe to take us across. That night, we went to a traditional Tharu dance performance. It was so cool! They danced with sticks and stuff and it was really intricate and cool. One of the dances featured a man and a woman, or so it seemed! The woman was actually one of the men. Women are not allowed to dance in their culture.

So that was a pretty full day. And for 2 nights in the hotel, all those activities, and a bus to and from Kathmandu, the total cost was only $54!! And that's why I love Nepal.

PS The power cut out in the middle of this entry, but luckily blogspot had just autosaved. That's Nepal for you. You're just hanging out and then all of a sudden the power goes out for who knows how long. But it adds to the excitement!