East to Eden

2nd July 2008

In search of rhino
After Sumatra, I flew home for a brief visit before heading east again, this time to Nepal, another country I had never before visited. After an uneventful flight and having negotiated my way through customs, I was met by my good friend, Nanda Rana, who worked with me on tigers in India at the beginning of the year.

For the first part of the trip, I was focussing on Rhinoceros unicornis – the Great Indian rhinoceros – categorised by the IUCN as endangered. Until recently, Nepal had a population of around 500 of these animals but the insurgency that took place between 2003 and 2007 reduced this number by half, the losses caused primarily by poaching.

The pachyderm express
To track them we reverted to elephants, the great organic 4x4’s that have the advantaqge of being more familiar and less a threat to the rhinos than humans. There is an art to riding an elephant, which I picked up in India, earlier this year. And, much like riding a bike, once mastered the skill never leaves you. We are quickly into the swing of things and, for the next three days, we crash through the forest, stumble across the grasslands and wade through rivers in our search for this elusive creature.

We find a few. Often they’re cutting through the grassy plains like a mower across a lawn, other times they’re lolling in the cooling water of a river or pond. At one point, a mother shields an inquisitive calf, whose stumpy-nosed head, yet to grow its prominent horn, pears around a bush to check us out.

A change in strategy
All along, I keep the camera clicking but, in truth, so far I’ve managed just a single shot that I’d be happy to put forward for the book. The rest of the images are good material for the picture library, revealing behaviourial traits and a sense of place, but I need more, something different. A change of stratefy is called for.

For the last couple of days, I track a single rhino, following it throughout the day. As we’re using elephants, the rhino is undisturbed by our presence and the tactic enables me to gain a much more informed picture of the habits and behaviour of this mighty beast. As a result, the final images are more revealing and more aesthetically compelling than my earlier work. I can leave Chitwan happy that the images are in the bag.

The road to hell

Top gear challenge
From Chitwan I headed across country to Koshi Tapu National Park on what turned out ot be the road to hell. Okay, “hell’ might be a little too harsh a term for it but the journey was certainly one to forget. It started well enough, with a stop in Bharatpur for a meeting with the head of Police, to progress my request to interview captured tiger and snow leopard poachers. It was after Bharatpur that the fun began.

The fun begins
First, a student protest blocked the main road. Well, I say the main road, it was really the only road out towards Koshi. We found a way around, cutting through farm tracks and what appeared to be people’s private driveways. Back on the main road, despite the relatively good road surface, our progress was slowed by a contsant stream of cattle, people on bikes, goats, people on foot, chickens and ... well, just people. The problem was that no-one (or thing) seemed to have any sense of traffic. At least not so the consequences of being struck by a fast-moving, heavy object. And so, anyone and everything with legs would quite literally step or ride out directly in front of our car when we least expected it and, frankly, when it was least advisable to do so.

For whom the bell tolls
The only effective measure against what otherwise appeared to be attempted mass suicide, seemed to be the car’s horn. And so for the duration of the trip (around nine hours, as it turned out), every few seconds the driver would toot-toot-toot the horn. For a few miles, this was fine, but It wasn’t long before a gentle toot took on the impression of the bells of Big Ben ringing inside my head and I was all but ready to reach down, grab the stearing wheel and rip out the wires.

Top of the pops
On top of all this, for much of the journey, I was subjected to the driver’s favourite music CD, which, it transpired, was a collection of soundtracks from Nepal’s most popular TV adverts. Every so often I’d ask him to turn it off, but my request obviously got lost in translation, as he would smile at me, nod and turn the volume even loader until I felt like I was in one of those boy-racer cars that have a sub-woofer instead of a back seat. All we needed were tinted windows and go-faster stripes.

The Suzuki sauna
To cap it all off, it was over 30-degrees outside and close to 100% humidity but, because there is a severe fuel shortage in Nepal, the driver refused to turn on the air conditioning, turning our dinky Susuki into a mobile sauna. Finally, after I had shed several pounds and most of my clothes, and as the first signs of dementia set in; and as the sun began to set (I think it was the same day, although I could have been imagining it) we came to a sign that read, Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, 2.6km. Just two and a half kilometeres to go! An hour later we found the camp, along a completely different, unsigned road. The joys of travel. I headed straight for bed.

Buffalo soldiers

A new vigour
I awoke with renewed energy and enthusiasm. The purpose of my visit to Koshi Tappu is to photograph the endangered Asiatic wild buffalo (Bubalus bubalis). We have a meeting this morning with the Warden of the park, which takes over an hour, simply because that’s the way things are done around here. Over tea, the Warden agrees to our request for special access to the park for my photography.

Because of the location of the buffalo, we plan to use river rafts to find the herds before heading out on foot with the cameras. After our first attempt, quickly it becomes apparent that we’re going to need more people. The buffalo are shy and, with strong senses of smell and hearing, run at the first sign of man. So far, it’s been impossible to get within 200-meters before they’re high-tailing it across the plains.

The press gang
That evening we head to the local village and recruit a team of what I would nickname “buffalo soldiers”. The plan was to set up a hide behind the buffalo, from where I would take the photographs. The “buffalo soldiers” would then circle around to the opposite side, in front of the buffalo. As the team became visible to the buffalo they would turn and retreat, charging directly towards me, hidden in my hide. For the “buffalo soldiers” it was hard and, at times, dangerous work. We started out with six members of the team but, by the last day, this number had halved, as one by one, people dropped out through exhaustion or, frankly, simple common sense! However, despite the difficulties, and with a great deal of help, the job was done.

When is a Kingdom not a Kingdom?
I had a couple of days free at the end of the assignment and Nanda and I headed back to Kathmandu to relax. But Kathmandu was in the middle of high celebration, as the new government had announced the disbanding of the monarchy and a new political era for Nepal. When I arrived in Nepal it was a Kingdom, when I left it was a republic - and I'd only been there two weeks!