Adventures from the forest of Nepal

Adventures from the forest of Nepal

It’s been so long since I wrote my last article. I was a little busy in the past few months and had a trip to goa in January (but I am not writing about Goa in this article). So it took me a little longer to write this article. This is an article on my Nepal trip, which was not quite as I had planned, but it was one of the most thrilling experiences. It was the trip where I took the least pictures.

After the trip to Darjeeling, both I and Subodh (my friend and travel companion, you may remember him from my previous articles) were keen to see the snow. It was the month of December, so we started to look for places where we could find snow. The snowfall generally starts from mid-January in Sikkim, so we decided to go to the next nearest possible place from us (Jamshedpur), and that is Nepal.

About Nepal

Few things that you should know before I start my story. Nepal is located in the north of Bihar. Yes, it is a neighboring country where you do not need any visa or passport to enter. In fact, many times you can enter the border without any identity card (but you should always keep one with yourself). You can change currency on the border or Indian currency will also work there. There are people there who exchange your currency for nominal charges. It is better to have a few Nepali rupees, but again it is not necessary. Indian rupees are 1.6 times the currency of Nepal, which was the same at that time. 

One interesting thing that we came to know is that petrol prices in Nepal are cheaper than in India, even though it is supplied from India. What the people of Raxaul (the city of Bihar that shares a border with Nepal) do is that they cross the border and buy petrol and diesel from there.

Your mobile network will not work in Nepal, so it is better to download the offline map of the entire location that you are going to visit. People usually buy new sim cards there, as you can get them at quite a cheap rate. You only need your photograph and a copy of your ID card. Well, we did not take any sim.

Our Plan

There are two main centers in Nepal from where you can travel there, Pokhara and Kathmandu. Chitwan National Park is one of the most famous national parks of Nepal, so we decided to go there first and then to Pokhara. Our plan was to go to Pokhara and from there we thought of going to the last place where the road would take us and then to the jungle towards the snow since the minimum temperature there at that time is around 4-8 degrees celsius. One thing that is important to mention here that for this trip, Subodh bought new shoes (eventually it played an important role in the end).

On the way to Nepal

We started our journey from Jamshedpur. We came to Patna from where we took the train. We caught the train in the morning from Jamshedpur and reached Patna by evening. From Patna, we took the train at night and finally reached Raxaul in the dawn. Birgunj is the neighboring town of Raxaul from Nepal. The border is within walking distance from Raxaul railway station. We exchanged some money and crossed the border. There was a checkpoint, but no checking was happening there.

We took a bus from Birgunj to Ratnanagar (Chitwan National Park). By 12 p.m., we were at the gate of Chitwan National Park. Now to enter Chitwan National Park, it was mandatory to take a guide. So, here was the catch, we did not want to travel in the forest with a guide. Moreover, they were charging way too much to Indians in comparison to the Nepalese citizens. So, we opened the google map and found that the forest covers a lot more area than Chitwan National Park.

I said to Subodh - “Jab jungle hi ghumna hai to kya jaruri hai ki yahin ghume!” (If we have to roam inside the jungle, why is it necessary to roam in the park!)

Subodh agreed. We looked for the nearest road from the forest. Besides the park, there is a forest called Tikauli forest. An east-west highway passes through the forest. It is around 6 km long. We decided to go through the forest from there.

E-W Highway crossing through Tiakauli Forest

Into the Tikauli Forest

We reached the edge of the forest where the highway was entering the forest. Tikauli forest guard post is there on both edges of the forest as the forest is so dense and dangerous. There is a notice board which says - “The forest is dangerous as animals like tigers, rhinoceros, elephants, leopards etc. are found in the forest. It is prohibited to stop any vehicles in the middle of the forest. In case of any emergency call the forest services and wait for them before getting out of the vehicle.” I don’t remember exactly but perhaps the minimum speed of sixty was also mentioned there.

It was not planned, still, here we were, on the verge of entering the forest. We decided to walk a little back and enter the forest from behind. From where no one can see us. There is a river, which does not pass all the way from the jungle as it turns on the way (You can spot this in the image). It was around 2:30 p.m. when we reached there. There we filled our bottles. We found trees of blackberries. We ate and kept a little. While we were sitting on the bank, we saw a herd of deer who came to drink water. We also saw otters there.

We were not planning to stay in the forest as the major plan was to go to Pokhara. We knew that the forest was dangerous, so if we had to move at night, it would be difficult. So we made two torch lights using two sticks, plastics, cloths, dry grasses, woods and anything we found there which would help in burn (we tested them with a small piece). We took out our knives and entered the forest.

Few photos that we took before entering the Forest

While going, apes and many birds were seen on the way. As we were approaching towards the middle, the forest was getting denser and denser and paths were getting difficult. It was the month of December, so the sun was setting early. Anyway, very little was visible even in the daylight. It is one of the densest forests I have seen till now. The more we were getting deeper, the more it was getting denser and the more furious sounds were coming.

At around 5, the visibility was gone. I took out my small phone (I had a videocon phone which had a torchlight, not very bright like in old Nokia phones). We did not want any animal's attention so we used that phone. So, all in all, we were walking in the dark. There were large pits and dense bushes which were constantly diverting our way. We had to move quietly. The most frightening was the rustling of the bushes, causing shuddering in the body. In those moments we would stop and look around us. We did not leave until we were confirmed that there was nothing there. We were trying to move fast but quietly.

In the middle, it felt like we lost direction. It was immensely dark and we were unable to understand the way we were going. The danger was that instead of crossing the forest, we might keep walking in the forest. We took out our phone (which has a map downloaded in it). Fortunately, the location was working. We estimated the direction. We were a little less than halfway. We kept moving.

The weather was getting colder now, but it was not our major tension. It was night, and we had to keep moving in the dark and dense forest. We could hear roaring, screeching and I don’t know how many types of other sounds. Fortunately, all the dangerous ones seemed to come from a distance. After crossing the halfway, it was around 8 in the night, we came in front of a big tree which had fallen. There were several destructions on our way. It seemed like they were the result of heavy winds. The paths were muddy there. While we were crossing the tree, Subodh asked me to hide behind the tree quickly. He said that it seems he saw two eyes flashing in the mobile’s torchlight. We hid there. Our hearts were thumping hard. A few moments later we heard the rustle as if someone was running fast through the bushes. We were all prepared with knives and torches that we had made, but it did not come to that. After a few minutes, we came out and ran away quickly.

Lights that we saw from the Forest

Walking for three more hours, we could now feel how forests were getting less dense. We finally saw a light glittering at a distance. It gave us enormous relief. We ran towards the light. In 10 or 15 minutes we were at the end of the forest. A large pit was dug along the edge of the forest. We later find out that they were dug to prevent wild animals from entering the city. Somehow, we managed to cross the pit and we were back among the humans.

It was a terrifying as well as tremendous eight hours. We managed to pass through the dense and wild forest. It would have been great if we had camped a night in the forest, but we had different plans. During our entire journey from the jungle, we did not think once of eating something, but as soon as we got out of the forest, we were starving. It was 15 past 11, but we found a hotel where we ate and asked the manager where we could get the bus for Pokhara. He said that it was difficult, but we might find one. Luckily, we found the bus.

Pokhara

The road to Pokhara was not so good. There were construction works going on for most parts of the journey. We slept in the bus. Pokhara was not the final destination, so we asked the conductor to wake us up as soon as we reached Pokhara. But he forgot, when we woke, I asked a passenger where we were, he replied that we were about 40-50 km ahead of Pokhara. We asked the conductor to stop the bus immediately. We got out of the bus. We had a little argument with the conductor there as he was asking for more money. Anyway, he had to go empty-handed.

The place where we got off, was beautiful. We could see the huge mountain in front of us, which was full of snow. We were seeing snow for the first time with this closeness. It made us more excited to feel the snow.

We took another bus and returned to Pokhara. We got off early, where the city was just starting. It was around 8:30. We ate at a hotel and then took the path of the Seti Gandaki river to go towards snow. Upon walking for a few kilometers, Subodh started to limp. When I asked, he said his fingers were clenched and he could not wear shoes. The new shoes were showing their effects. Well, even after a few efforts, when the pain did not go away, we decided to drop our plan as the journey would be so difficult if he was already injured.

The Seti Gandaki river beside which we walked for few km

Our desire to feel snow had to wait. We roamed in the city and watched a few places and took a returning bus in the evening. It is a beautiful city, commercialized of course, but still. Phewa lake is beautiful, which is in the center of Pokhara. There are few caves that you can visit. The market of Pokhara is also attractive.

In the End

So, our trip was not exactly what we had planned, but in the end, what matters is that it was a great experience. Going through the dense forest in the night and listening to the furious sounds of wild animals, the memory of the journey still chills me out.

The one thing that I learned from this trip is that always prioritize your main plan. Keep all the secondary things for later. If all goes well, you can do more things. But anyhow if you lose your energy on your secondary plans, it might affect what you actually wanted to do. Well, everything can never go exactly as you have planned, but again, in the end, it is all about whether you have enjoyed and learned or not!

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THANKS

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