Trekking Bardia, Nepal
I was trying to get to Pokhara by the 24th of April for an outdoor/camping music festival but I had a 5-day trek in front of me and it was around the 18th of April. Johnny, Chris, and I sat drinking tea and enjoying a slow morning between the jungle and building tables for the six guest houses and a couple of meeting places set near a pond shaded by trees and grasses. Birds come through and look for the minnows in the shallows or collecting grass for a nest. In the roofs of the guesthouses there is a small owl living in number three and I had a couple bats somewhere over mine. Others have numerous other species of birds nesting. We found small reptiles such as frogs and small frog eating snake and some fun little lizards. It was a great place to read a book and enjoy nature and Nepal. In all this I had to make a decision to either go to the show or go on a trek. Although music is wonderful, you never know when you’ll be back this way so the obvious choice.
We did one more run to the ATM 40 kms away because I had to pay my tab and I thought it might be closer to leave from the other end of the trek straight to the music festival. I still wasn’t going to have enough money so I left a bunch of stuff at Wild Trak Adventure in a smaller backpack and we took off with a driver to our walk in point. So there was Johnny, Chris, me and, one of the boys from the resort to carry and cook and wow he could do that.
We needed two items before we walked into the jungle, a Bardia National Park guide and more water bottles. While we waited for the guide to show up I walked out onto the nearby bridge and took a couple pictures of the Gavials basking in the sun at waters edge.
We set out not far from the resort. This helps me fill in the landscape puzzle and have a rough understanding my location in relation to something like the resort where I had spent the last week or more. I lost track of time. We walked past a house that had been burnt by the Maoist Army not so long ago.
The first day was brutal due to the previous time not spent trekking and the new weight on my back in western Nepal in the dry hot season. Johnny had explained the trek to us but then something struck him and we altered our course to maybe get a glimpse of a Hyena or a Sloth Bear and always looking for the elusive Tiger, Leopard, and all the smaller cats and animals that leave tracks in the sand from the night before or earlier that day or just ahead of you. This is a sloth bear back left foot.
For the most part we followed a park access road for the many park stations out in the jungle. It’s basically a jeep trail with lots of sand and tracks of all kinds in it. After a day or two and asking questions you can find and name your own and figure maybe when they came by. You will know fresh when you see it and you will see it. Fresh Tiger tracks.
Chris and I being the two guests were sweating profusely and taking in water only to sweat it out in a constant flow. With a little bit of a late start we were hiking in the heat of the day with intermittent cover.
The river crossings were always a highlight with the cool water on the feet. I’d get to the other side and wash the sweat out of my shirt and hat and replace my shoes and walk off in a cool shirt for as long as it lasted. The rivers have round rocks ranging from softball size to a basketball size and difficult to walk on in the water and on land. The bigger sizes are more fun because you can walk rock to rock and it becomes a game never to touch the ground. I’m easily entertained.
We hiked around 22 kilometers and arrived at a military out post. Apparently our guide had radioed ahead. We were all pretty burnt and exhausted by the heat that had just subsided when we arrived. I remember being out of water. Of course we would have lasted a few more days but it was nice to come to. This was the big gamble Johnny had taken, not knowing our water source options. Johnny speaks Nepali and between him and the guide this is where we were supposed to put up hammocks outside the perimeter of the army barrack and post. They couldn’t have been nicer and interested in us with an Englishman who could speak their language on other side of the bench. Many moved within earshot and had a spark of entertainment seeing three sweaty white boys with smiles. They had a fire going for their tea and starting it up for their evening meal and we used their fire verses our precious stove fuel.
We didn’t know how much water we were going to have to boil. With Chris also from England and more recently Portugal there was also the fuel used boiling water for tea to be considered. I think they were more than happy that I was a tea drinker. Coffee has remained null and void on my taste buds, except by accident with coffee candies which are a volatile involuntary spit-out.
The evening was spent taking quick baths from gravity fed spring water piped to the middle of a low section of a river that only really flows on the surface during the monsoon season. The water is down there.
We woke up to our guide in a Nepali accent say in English, “Good Morning, the door is open!” at about 7 am. It was very amusing. He continued to amuse us with other antics you’d have to be there for. The military told us of a short cut that would be a half hour quicker. All of us agreed to be up early and get as much done before the sun took us to the whipping post. We followed up river until we could get down to it and cross over. There was a cool breeze running down the river that was going to be the last time I felt cool until the evening.
The jeep trail did many things for us, it gave us a way to go with a destination, we could travel more quietly than walking off the road, and it gave us tracks. We found relatively new Sloth Bear tracks, leopard and tiger all going the same way we were. I’m not going to talk about deer tracks much because they are everywhere and in every direction. There are five types of deer and they were all there depending on terrain and water availability with an abundance of Spotted Deer.
Our second night and third night were spent near a tower where we could cook and eat on a platform off the ground and watch the night from the top of the tower. Sounds like teatime.
We had a patch of water connected to the main river flowing past us and it’s where we got water to clean dishes and soak sweaty shirts and bath before it got dark. At night we would turn on our torches and find Gavial and or Crocodile eyes shinning back at us not 20 meters from where we get water. The closer Johnny got the closer the 2-meter reptile came. It was young.
We saw lots of animals cross the water but we were looking for the Tiger, Leopard, Elephant, and Hyena, something more than deer. It’s not a science so this is where patience comes in. The bird life was off the charts even if only for an instant or a blurry picture. Below is the cook house at one of the ranger stations. the elephants have been causing damage to the screens.
During the day we took a walk without our gear so we were free to move faster and quieter. We walked one-way in the morning and another walk after lunch in the opposite direction. In the morning our guide sent us down the wrong trail by ourselves because we were coming back, eventually. We got close to lots more deer and birds than before but we were still following tracks of the bigger mammals and Johnny was in the mood to explore so that ‘s what we did. I think he was trying to learn this trail and it’s surroundings so when he brought other guests he would be more educated and comfortable knowing the area and what it offers. Good point. This area is untouched and tourists, jungle enthusiasts, and birdwatchers don’t come here unless they are fit. We followed the river up to an elbow and sat in the underbrush for a couple hours waiting for life. Most of what we were walking on was thick forest but also a seasonal flood plane with wades of debris 2 meters in the trees in some spots.
After tea and lunch we went the other direction and looked for a water source that one of the park rangers told us about. We didn’t have enough time to get to it but we saw a lot of Sambar Deer. They are large and I think the Tigers prefer them because there’s more to them. It was a boulder-hopping riverbed buried in trees and dry leaves. On the way back we found a couple large herds of spotted deer down by the river.
After a couple days at 3 meals a day our backpacks were considerably lighter and we still had fuel for tea. We walked on the high bench above the river every now and again breaking into clearings of tall grass and solo old growth trees bearing shade. The final campsite was a proper one hidden in the underbrush at the confluence of two rivers into third. Tracks of everything were heading in every direction. After setting up camp you could see in Johnny’s eyes that an exploration was in order.
We took the shadiest creek and followed a set of elephant tracks that seemed to coincide with a tiger and a leopard. The tracks led into a narrow gorge and meandered upward. Something was definitely up there but we needed more time to explore and the sun was setting.
A spotted buck ran through the camp, a wild boar came down off the mountain not 20 meters away. We sat and listened to the night animals come alive, frogs, cicadas, deer barking a warning and the ever present dropping leaves. Later that night after we had all climbed into out mosquito net hammocks and fallen asleep animals came to visit; a group of monkeys making a racket, a few deer barked warnings, and I don’t know what else but they were close and wild. Johnny’s eyes were huge in the morning. “I have to come back here with cameras.” I’m in.
We packed quick enough and backtracked to the ranger station where we picked up our guide. . I don’t think our guide is much for the jungle at night preferring to stay with the rangers in proper quarters. We had tea in the mornings at both the military and the ranger stations before setting out, it was a nice touch. We wandered down the jeep trail and crossed a lot of rivers, some I’d say unnecessarily but that was due to our guide’s short sightedness. A larger than life old growth tree and stump crossed the jeep trail and a path went up the mountain but he didn’t bother to go look and see if it went back down the other side. It did but we didn’t go that way. It was all right I like water and this water this far away from civilization is drinkable out of the river. I drank liters of it myself. With half our walk done we weren’t far from our exit point. We hiked around 80 kilometers total. It was really excellent.
Johnny is one of the few who venture into this area of the park and that alone makes it worth it. This little fragment of the world is still quite wild and relying on a very fragile ecosystem that should be monitored for health reasons due to countries vying for water and possibly taking more than Bardia National Park can bear considering how many animals depend on it’s flow. I don’t know the name of the company yet but there’s a Japanese company that built a bridge over the Karnali and then added a concrete river diversion sending water to further south farmlands taking it away from its ancient course. At the moment, the southern farmlands are feeding Nepal but I don’t think that’s how its going to end up.
It felt good to be out there and I’m going back. We had a couple down days looking over photos and playing around in the jeep exploring some of the smaller villages and keeping an ear out for Gangetic dolphin sightings.
Sitting on my bed at Wild Trak Adventure the mosquito net above me started swaying, the fan wobbled out of balance, the bed shook and the curtains fluttered. We just had an earthquake way out in western Nepal. The power went out temporarily until someone switched over to auxiliary battery system. With Internet still functioning we got news of the earthquake magnitude and destruction reports. Next.
