south to sauraha

Our trip to Chitwan National Park was as planned as a short discussion about how we should go there, followed by a packing of bags and a taxi to Kantipath the next morning at 6:30 am, hoping to catch any bus that would take us there. Every bus in the long line of tourist buses turned us down, with the exception of one dodgy-looking one named Sai Baba. The last two seats in the back of the dilapidated bus were available for about 500 rupees each, which we gladly took.

The ride was perhaps the most hair-raising I have had in Nepal, with the driver speeding down the Prithvi Highway in the fog, slamming on breaks at nearly every bend, which took a good 10 minutes to screech to a crawl. We grinned optimistically at each other with clenched teeth, silently and desperately hoping to avoid taking to the sky— deeply aware that the Trisuli river was rushing somewhere frighteningly far below us in the white mist. Rather than study how the side of the road plummeted into nothingness, I kept staring at the small photo at the front of the bus of a smiling man with an afro. The faded photo seemed important to the driver, by its prominent placement. The fog eventually lifted as the hours passed, as the mountains and hills were ironed into flat green paddies.



We wobbled off the bus with jelly legs, surprised that we arrived in one piece— vowing never, ever to take a Sai Baba bus again. The moment our boots hit the dirt, we were approached from all sides by people offering us rides to their guesthouses. Though we had not planned out the trip, we did know where we wanted to stay: Gaida Lodge, which is run by one of Nepal's most renowned ornithologists. There are over 500 species of birds in Chitwan National Park, and with our hearts set on seeing anything feathered, we decided there wasn't a better place to stay than at a lodge run by an ornithologist. I offered Pedro one of the two boiled eggs I had been saving in my pocket since the rest stop in somewhere before Dumre, and with a vague notion of the direction of Gaida, we set off.

"Crumble the shells up small so the little birds can use them."

I ground the shells in my hand, delighting in the sensation. It tickled me, the thought of some colourful bird carrying off the little pieces to his nest, in hopes of impressing a lady bird. The air was thick, and smelled of animal.

the birthplace of buddha

It was here in Lumbini, somewhere around the sixth and seventh century BCE, that Queen Maya gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama under a sal tree while grasping a bough for support. The young prince would later be known to the world as The Buddha. Ancient ruins and a stone marker of the very spot where Buddha was born are safely housed within the stoic, white walls of the Maya Devi Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Passang and I followed Acharya K.S. in silent wonder as he recounted the story, explaining the holiness of this site.

I am still at a loss for words.
There's a peace that vibrates in the soil, in the air and in the light here.

the terai in july

Whenever I travel, I feel a great widening, or inner expansion occurs. The more I experience and grow to understand, the more I realise there is so much more to experience and understand. I feel like I'm unfolding, layer by layer, spreading out, extending little green vines. I believe travelling alone opens you up to deeper personal experiences and allows you to meet people you otherwise never would have met, had you been with a group or travelling partner. You have all the time in the world to have those great, rushing rivers of conversation, to reflect, and turn strangers into friends. You learn to see through different lenses, you learn that there are as many colours in the spectrum as there are thoughts and perspectives in the universe.

I was lucky, so very lucky indeed that Acharya K.S. offered me a ride to Lumbini. He, a young monk named Passang and I climbed into his comfortable, air-conditioned car and began the seven hour journey to the Terai, the southern flatlands of Nepal. We flew down the Prithvi Highway, swerving and twisting around massive hillsides that dropped off into nauseatingly deep valleys. As we weaved past scars of landslides and ramshackle tea stops, I found my thoughts drifting off to last year's roadtrip to Pokhara. The scenery zipping past my eyes had remained unchanged, but an entire year had past, and though my sense of awe and wonder had not diminished, I was being carried in the arms of familiarity.



We arrived in darkness, and though I could not see the landscape, I felt its flatness— as though the heat and humidity had somehow ironed out the hills of the north. The night was heavy and thick, the stillness broken by the whining of mosquitoes. I spent a restless night seized by the heat and a rattling cough, occasionally startling myself awake with a slap to my face in some unconscious attempt to slay the tiny flying terrors who attacked any inch of exposed skin.

The Terai in July.

foggy-headed and gummi-legged

I just returned from Lumbini yesterday evening, and after the eight or nine hour bumpy, twisty, beautiful microbus ride, I'm still foggy-headed and gummi-legged. I had a great time in Lumbini, and though it was only a few days, it felt like a week. I'm a shade and a half darker and have lost what feels like a kilo from all the sweating— the Terai in July is truly, very hot indeed.

I tell you, the flip of a coin can really point you in wonderful directions.
More stories and pictures to come, once I wake up!