Tansen

Tansen used to be a capital city of one of the most powerful kingdoms of Nepal (Magar Kingdom), now it is just a small hill town with maze of narrow cobblestone streets and historical atmosphere. What makes Tansen especially pleasant place to visit, is that the streets are too steep and uncomfortable for cars, so wondering around the city center, almost free of vehicles, creates even more feeling of medieval times.















street of Tansen
















chicken in the shop















central square

We arrived to Tansen just before the dark and quickly started to look for hotel, to avoid the "night price". The choice was actually not that big, so the search did not last too long. We got a room with normal standard - dirty sheets and walls, broken window (in spite of the cold nights) and cockroaches, who tried to steel our food in the night.

Above Tansen is a ridge covered with beautiful pine forest, which usually gives a view to the wide range of Himalayas. To experience this view was actually our main aim for stopping in Tansen.

But sometimes it happens, that if you are looking forward for something so much, then eventually you have to be disappointed. So it happened with us - just slightly after arriving to Himalaya region in Nepal, the weather turned and all we could see from the hilltop was a grey cloudy sky. Rain was making the atmosphere even more melancholic.

"Well, ok, if not here, then let's hope in our next stop, Pokhara," we thought...

The walk in the pine forest, that made us feel so much like at home, was quite a refreshing change to the jungle though....














Tansen

Lumbini

After leaving Bardia to Butwal, we said good bye with Thorsten and Natascha and headed to Lumbini.

It is actually just a village in south of Nepal near Indian border, but what makes it interesting and attracts thousands and thousands of buddhists and visitors, is a fact that Siddhartha Gautama - Buddha - was born here and lived till the age of 29.

In the bus to Lumbini we met a nice Swiss guy Adrian, who had come through Tibet and now headed to India, after a quick stop in Lumbini.

We reached to Lumbini in the dark.
Adrian had information, that it is possible to sleep in pilgrimage home somewhere inside the temple area. So we started to walk though a big dark park, fallowing the path, which was sufficiently lighted by starry sky.

Finally reaching to the large monastic zone, and looking for the pilgrims home, we met a nice buddhist monk, who gave us a room. No fixed price, only donation, he said.

In the morning, Adrian left early to see the temples and hit the road again, as he had a long journey ahead. We, however took our time, after being harassed by the whole gang of mosquitos during the night.

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All buddhist places that we have been visiting so far, have a very peaceful energy. And very huge power at the same place.

Temple, built on the site, where Buddha was born

Pillar, that Indian Emperor Ashoka, dedicated to propagation of buddhism all across the Asia, erected to honor the place where Buddha was born.

The actual birth place of Buddha. A pond, where his mother took the ritual dip right before Buddha was born.

Inside a huge garden, many buddhist temples of different buddhist countries have been built next to each other.

Bardia National Park

There are some things very similar and some things very different between Northern India and Nepal. Most noticeable similarities are cows and many layers of rubbish on the streets. The street picture however is much more poorer and emptier in Nepal compared to India - no cars, only buses, houses are poorer. Also the atmosphere that people create is different than in India. This is possible to feel right after entering to Nepal. Very many faces passing are Chinese-Tibetan rather than dark like in India.

In Mahendranagar (border town) we got hooked up by a seemingly very friendly, polite and intelligent person, who said he can lead us to a good and cheap hotel. First we were skeptical, but later on we followed him. He said he is actually a jungle guide from Bardia NP. What a great luck, we thought, as we were planning to visit Bardia anyway, so now we could ask some information from him.

The hotel that he showed us was good enough, so we stayed.
The jungle guide Primo also mentioned us among other things that he met one German couple, who want to go to Bardia NP the next day, so if we want we can join. Cheap accommodation is available and jeep would come to pick us up from the bus station FOR FREE.

Hmm, again we were skeptical about all this, but next day still decided to go, since we knew that we will still have free choice to choose the place to stay around the NP...

We met the nice German-Kazakh couple Thorsten and Natascha and went all 5 (including Primo) by bus to Bardia. Primo "helped" us with buying the tickets. Tickets costed surprisingly a lot for us for this not so long distance...

The jeep was already waiting for us in Bardia bus stop and took us to a guest house called JUNGLE BASE CAMP. Hukum, the owner of the place welcomed us with the "welcoming tea, for free". We were shown the rooms. They were quite ok and cheap. Environment was good and nice as well. It as already going to be dark and around was a jungle with all the jungle dangers, as we were told, we decided to stay there rather than find another guest house.

Our Jungle Base Camp house

This was not a city hotel though, so we had to share the room not only with lizards but also with other creatures

In the evening we were introduced different possibilities for experiencing the jungle. Boat trip and elephant ride were possible, but the cheapest option (that was still quite a high price compared to the prices given in Lonely Planet) was walking tour, 1500 Nepalese rupees per person (approx. 15 EUR).

We had already come to jungle so it would have been pity not to discover it more thoroughly. We decided to take this offer.

When dinner time came close and we saw the menu.....wow wow wow.....the prices were double, some even triple as the normal prices anywhere else in Nepal.
Yes, that's a good business plan, to give cheap rooms and high food prices in the guest house in the middle of the jungle - people need to eat, right !

So, next morning we set out to jungle tour - Kadri, Branko, Thorsten, Natascha, Primo and another young guide. First of all, our guide Primo warned us about rhinos - they have bad eyes, but good smelling and hearing, their defense is attack, so if you spot a rhino, first thing you have to do is to look around and find an "easy tree" to climb on, because as soon as the rhino sees you, he will run towards you with a great force.

OK, easy tree, easy tree, must be easy !?

Entrance to Bardia NP

We spotted tiger footprints, walked around in bushes, hearing all kinds of voices around, that made our veins fill with adrenaline and brain look for an easy tree...

our jungle pathfinder Primo

First animal that we spotted

We reached to the river bank and saw fresh rhino excrements. So they were close !
After long waiting, we decided to continue inside the river bed, since there was almost no water in it.

Primo was walking bravely in the front and the other guide behind us. Suddenly the guide from behind stopped us: "psst, psst !!!!" He had spotted something in the bushes, some 25 m away from us, that we were walking towards. We froze, kept our breaths, looked through binoculars and saw something big moving in the bushes. There were two huge rhinos !!!!

Two backsides of the two rhinos in the bushes

It was the true moment of adrenaline ! And at the same time quite a ridiculous situation, as we were in the middle of the river bed, no easy trees around..... we were the most easiest target in the whole jungle. If we had gone just few more steps and not noticed the rhinos.....who knows what would have happened....

So, it was time to back off quietly, but quickly. We had to cross little water body to reach to the other side of the river. We climbed up the bank and were ready to watch an amazing show of nature !!!!

This is not exactly the way to escape from rhinos :-) ! Natascha on the back of our young guide.


We were sitting on the river bank, just some 50 m away from rhinos. Observing quietly and being amazed by the huge size of these animals. After some time they decided to go for a little walk in the bushes. This seamed good time for us to have lunch and watch other animals coming to the river to drink.

Suddenly we heard a desperate scream coming from somewhere further away, which after few moments subsided into jungle silence again. Primo explained us that it was a dear, taking her last breath in between the teeth of a tiger.

Now we had another reason to stay waiting on the bank, because there was a chance that the tiger would come to drink after great feast.

Tiger did not come, maybe he spotted us first and went to drink somewhere else.

But nevertheless, next we had chance to see something that was astonishing - rhinos came back, and this time they came out of the bushes.

First the big male used the toilet...

...then female sniffed if the place is right and lightened herself into the same place...

....they moved towards the water body (this is the real distance on the photo between our hiding place and rhinos).

Male goes in front, female follows.

Male drinking.

Some of us moved a little, which cause some noise. Of course, females are always the ones who can foresee the possible danger. She was looking towards us and sniffing the air.

Female was troubled, so she started to run away and called the male to follow her.



Off they went.

We were finally able to breath again after these stunning scenes.

And start moving towards the human habitation, since it was already afternoon.

Back in the jungle village

The evening in the guest house was filled with excitement and enthusiastic conversations about the day adventure. Natascha also kept trying to convince us that she saw a tiger though binoculars....

Well, one way or another she was the lucky one - to really see a tiger or to imagine to see a tiger is same same :-)

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Next morning we were leaving together with Thorsten and Natascha to go to Butwal.

Hukum, the JUNGLE BASE CAMP owner said that he can not take us with the jeep again, since it costed a lot for him, but we can walk 1 km to the near bus stop and he will bring our luggage by motor bike. Seamed very nice of him...

Before going, he also suggested us, that it is better to book the bus tickets, since the bus comes from somewhere else and there might not be places. He was so kind to make a phone call and book tickets for us.

After long waiting for the local bus that was to take us to the main road, to catch the bus to Butwal, Hukum was already there with our luggage.

Now the real theater started.

Our disadvantage was that we had been in Nepal only few days and were not acquainted with the prices, customs and other daily stuff.

Hukum insisted us to buy the tickets from some hut, that was suppose to be the ticket selling office and not in the bus. The price was enormously high - 800 NRP (~8 EUR) per person, including booking the ticket. We were hurried by all people around, and bus were already leaving, so we had no time to reason if everything was right or not....well it did not seam right, but the numbers on the ticket were in hindi script, which we were not able to read and bus was already leaving.....

So we payed the amount and went.

Later we asked from different bus stations how much is the ticket price between Bardia and Butwal and the answer was always : "around 300 per person !!!"

So aside from high prices on food in Hukum's guest house, he earned on four of us 2000 NRS (20 EUR), when actually 80 % of Nepalese live from less than 1,5 EUR a day ! Maybe he gave some little amount to the ticket seller as well....

Also we realized that the price of the bus ticket from border town to Bardia was more than normal price, so we kindly and unknowingly enabled a free ride for Primo, out jungle guide and recruiter.

Here is our ADVISE / WARNING to all people wanting to visit Bardia NP in Western Nepal:

1. Be cautious about the people in the border city Mahendranagar, who are trying to take you to Bardia NP.

2. Avoid guest house named JUNGLE BASE CAMP. There are much nicer ones just near it.

3. The jungle visiting tours are always much more expensive when you buy them from your guest house owner. It is possible to get the guide from the NP headquarters for much more fairer price.

Although getting cheated does not feel good, the money we spent was worth the amazing adventure.

Haridwar

In Rishikesh we took a quick desicion to continue our route towards Nepal, as long as there is still not that cold near Himalayas. Also our hotel receptionist, a nepalese guy, approved the idea and gave us some advise. The best option seamed to be to enter Nepal from the most western border and go there by night bus from Haridwar.

So that was it ! We went to Haridwar.

Haridwar is another holy hindu city, also located on the banks of Ganga. This is the place where Ganga is leaving mountainous landscape behind and entering to the hot plains.

When in Rishikesh we felt safe and sound in the tourist hub, then once again we were back in real India - hectic traffic, air and noise pollution, streets full of animals, all weird kinds of people, beggars and everything else you can only see in India...

We wanted to leave our big backbags to the bus station cloack room, but cloack room there seamed to be together with toilet and the guy in charge of the place did not seam very competent, so we went to try our luck in train station cloack room. There we were told that as long as you don't have your own chain and padlock to tie the bags, they will not accept to guard them...
Finally one hotel took our bags for 50 Rs fee, which we luckily did not had to pay in the end.


Branko went up to the hill temple to see the view to Ganga. The main attraction up there was not the view however, but the monkey thieves who stole the offerings (cocoanuts with some flowers and rice), that people had bought down and took up to the temple to give these to gods.

banana leaf boats for the river Ganga

in the ghats of Ganga

When waiting for the closing ceremony of Ganga, an event that takes place every day after sunset, a pilgrim family from Mumbai district approached us and after a little chat we got a friendly invitation to their home and a chance to see rural India. After seeing the "rural India" between Delhi and Rishikesh, we were not that facinated about the idea however...















The closing ceremony was ......crowdy first of all. We did not see the first part of it, but the last part consisted of people thronging near a little shrine, fighting with elbows if nessecary, each one wanted to get his/her blessing and light the candle to offer it to Ganga.

Finally it was time to catch the bus. In the bus we met three Czech tourists who tought us that in the back of the bus it jumps much more than in the front of the bus. It was good advice, especially because the night in the bus was ahead.

It was a memorable night, but even more memorable was the place where we reached early in the morning before the dawn. Bus conductor woke us up "This is Banbassa !"

It looked like a place you can only see in some Hollywood catastrophy movies after all Earth has been destroyed and only few have been survived - no houses, just huts, rubbish bon-fires everywhere, people around them warming their hands, rovering dogs....

After adapting to the situation, young rickshaw drivers offered us to take us to the border for ridiculously low price (of course this ridiculously low price came after many attempts to give us ridiculously high price), but since it was still dark and the border point was supposed to be opened little later, we decided to walk few km-s through the tropical forest to see the miraculous event of the light slowly slowly taking over the darkness.

Banbassa border point on Indian side

Nepalese border officer / business man (hallo. hallo, dollars !)















Border office and the house of the border officer

We were in Nepal. New day, new country, new customs, new adventures ahead.

Rishikesh

When we arrived to Rishikesh, it was already dark and the end of our first Indian day. Shocked from the bus ride and everything that we saw along the way, the first possible option how to gain back our calmness seamed to be tasting some well-known delicious Indian dishes. One outdoor restaurant was just near. So we sat down and tasted aloo gobi (potato-cauliflower) and aloo mattar (potato-peas) with north Indian chapatti (bread). It was spicey, but the masala chai (tea) that followed was truly our first Indian delight.

Next thing was to find a way to tourist ghetto.
For that, the great first battle with rickshaw drivers had to be knuckled down to. Branko was patient, so after 10 min the price was half of the initial price (which was still overpriced as we realized later) and the destination was a cheap hotel.

We got a nice double room for 200 Rs (~2,5 EUR). Not bad for the first night ! Actually it was the best price and quality duo during our whole trip so far.
The pet in our room was for free. Cute little lizard came to visit us every evening and we affectionately named her Lizzi.






















Lizard Lizzy


Rishikesh is the city located on the banks of the most holiest river of India - The Ganga. Thus there are many huge temples situated just on the shore, including the main temple with 13 floors. There are many ashrams in Rishikesh - schools for mediation and yoga - which attract many tourists in present time and also attracted The Beatles in their times. Here they recorded their album "White Album".


Ganga water in Rishikesh is still relatively clean, as it is still hilly terraine, close to the Himalayas and the flow is quick. Branko found courage in him to take a sip of this Indian holy water (a month later in Varanassi, he was not that courageous anymore :-)






















































This is not block of flats, this a a temple from the backside















Sunset at Ganga


In Rishikesh it seamed that India has a very special smell. It is a smell mixture of spices, incense sticks, urine, shit and cows.
















A holy cow eating rubbish on the street is nothing unusual in India


Next day, walking on the tourist street and seeing all those beautiful "indo-western" clothes and handicrafts, we become so much excited about the cheap prices and good quality, that we almost got infected by the shopping bug. Fortunately, soon our common sense slowed us down and made us understand that we have several months still ahead of us.

Was it shopping fever, excitement, smell of India, spicy food or lack or water and a strong sun, but all of the sudden Kadri started to feel dizzy and ill. Soon she had cold sweat on the forehead, darkness in front of the eyes, weakness in the muscles and so desperate urge to vomit. The walk over the bridge to the rickshaw stop seamed like never-ending walk in the desert. But after reaching to the hotel room and lying down under the fan, things took better turn. Still hugging the toilet bowl (this hotel had western toilets !) in the night was about to come.
















Monkies teasing a dog


Branko went out to buy bananas for recovering Kadri.
After making the deal and setting the steps towards the hotel, banana bag in the hand moving back and forth, eyes observing everything around, suddenly he felt like an heavy burden had fallen on him. Soon he realized that he was under attack of three monkeys - one on the shoulder, other on the leg and the third one trying to steal the bag full of bananas.
Bold Branko however did not let go the bag and fight back. Soon many people turned up with sticks and chased the monkeys away.

We learned our first lesson in India - NEVER MESS WITH MONKEYS !


























































Women bathing in Ganga

















Sitar concert in one of the ashrams

Behind our hotel were living common people in their modest houses and spending their daytime working on beautiful landscape of terraced rice fields. We had great opportunity to watch and observe how rice is cleaned in 5-step procedure.