Reverie in Rajaji

By Marc Ethier

Gather Correspondent

After a restful week in Rishikesh – during which the most we did was yoga (Lisa) and massage (also Lisa) – we yearned for a little nature. Besides our short camel safari in extreme western Rajasthan we had not been outside a city since coming to India.

We had only a day and a night in Rajaji National Park, midway between Rishikesh and Haridwar, so we made the most of it by hiring a jeep and, along with a driver and a Belgian, tooling around the park’s bumpy dirt roads in search of wildlife. There was no extra charge for the Belgian. In particular we wanted to see elephants, remembering our unsuccessful elephant hunt in Khao Yai NP, in Thailand. 

We did not see an elephant. Nor did we see one of the park’s 11 tigers, understandably shy creatures that they are. We did see many spotted deer, chital, and many elk-like ungulates called sambar. Black-faced macaques, and red-faced rhesus monkeys eyed us suspiciously from the branches of the adina cardifolia, or Haldu, tree.

Rajaji comprises 212,000 hectares of protected land that is home to a happy variety of native wildlife. During our mid-April visit the park was pre-monsoon dry and very hot, but late in the evening the heat rose in waves from the cooling earth. Pea hens danced in the tall elephant grass. Peacocks flew low across the ground, tail feathers extended in a ruler-straight line, creating a sort of hovercraft effect. Some were on full display, visible from half a kilometer across wide dusty valleys, seeking a mate and unconcerned with our noisy intrusion. Their high-pitched plaintive whoop echoed off the canyon walls.

We stopped frequently to admire the random appearance of some exotic, or not so exotic, beast. Each time we finished snapping photos the driver turned to me, standing in the roofless jeep behind him.

“OK sir?”

“OK.”

We moved on. There were many birds: spotted doves, kingfishers, robins, finches, mynas, and something called a bushtail, not really an accurate description of the small, black, incessantly piping bird. A raptor, an eagle maybe, floats on the thermals overhead. Wild pigs and piglets wandered across our path, down into a dry watercourse and out of sight. A mongoose appeared briefly, long bushy tail bristling.

 Termite mounds, buttressed like the roots of a banyan tree, half the height of a man, punctuated the wide alluvial valley. The sandy hillsides were set about with a stunning array of tough, dense vegetation. Washes and gullies were totally dry, choked by polished stones, and the river, which in monsoon would empty prodigiously into the Ganges, was a trickle in places, in places altogether desiccated. The air was wholesome, the heat subsiding in the late afternoon. 

We saw many signs of elephant: lumpy piles of shit, some dry and old, some brown, fresh. They added an earthy fragrance to the air. Abundant tracks, too, followed the sandy two-track lane before diverging beneath the sagging shoulders of sal trees to disappear into deep forest. We waited atop a blind formerly used by hunters with a wide view of the incurving valley below but heard nothing but crickets, saw nothing but the rising moon.

The light was fast fading. Our driver, who hinted that he’d broken the rules by bringing us here, turned to me. “OK sir?”

“OK.”

 The next morning as we waited to return to Haridwar we had a lovely breakfast of omelets and tea under swaying mimosas, joined by armies of pale yellow butterflies in the shadow of a huge hydroelectric operation on the roaring green Ganges. Our driver, passing through, waved a greeting; the Belgian, who had remained mute all the previous evening, was nowhere to be seen. The air was thick with the promise of the day’s heat but a hint of coolness wafted off the nearby water.

We decided then that we loved this river. We decided, then, in the incipient heat of another Indian day, to go farther upriver. We would go to Nepal.

Marc and his wife, Lisa, sold their home outside Washington, D.C., quit their jobs and embarked on a yearlong world trip in September. They have visited Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia and will continue to India and Europe through September 2007. You can find all of the Global Nomad articles at www.twoheadedturtle.gather.com. Read more about their adventures at www.2headedturtle.com.

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