Feb 14. 2015 Today I visit lake 20.000 by bicycle which is not really worth it. I spend more time at the guesthouse (rhino land – recommended for clean and cheap rooms with some of them offering very good birding view!) and at the river. Tomorrow I will explore the National park inside. By walk with two guides (and three wooden sticks for self defense – try that mr. obama!) and surrounded by wild elephants, rhinos, hyenas, leopards, tigers, kobras, krokodiles and so on….

The pictures speak mostly for itself. 600mm rulez. Some of the birds I would not even have noticed without the lens and on the second day it accidentally proves military potential. I accidentally enter the park area by bicycle so somewhere in the jungle two guys stop me telling me to go out. They claim to be park rangers and one of them wears a paramilitary jacket. I ask them for an ID which they don’t have. I believe nothing, turn around and left a few meters later. I see monkeys and some deer before I come back to a fence with cattle and some people on the other side. I have to agree, the area I had passed was very jungle and with the deer (4 of them) jumping out of a bush right next to me I became aware of being aware of nothing around me.
I take the bike on the other side of the fence and myself a rest under a roof. On the other side of the fence one of the rangers I had met before shows up trying to tell me that I am not supposed to be here. He does not speak english and I don’t speak hindi so what to do…? He tries to call somebody to translate and walks of searching for a connection on his cellphone. When he is some 100m away I step on the bike and ride of direction where the cattle comes from. In the cat and mouse game now the lens helps me to make them crazy. I can stand on the open field watching them without them having an idea where I am. A few locals around who look after the cattle see what I do but are on my side as I had bribed them with a cigarette – they have fun.
On the way back from that adventure through the surrounding villages I meet some really amazingly hospitable locals who are proud and happy to show me around. I suddenly realize how low the real local prices are when I get shaved. Face? 20. Head? 30. I like that old barber in his small wooden box next to the road. He has to interrupt his work knitting a fragile net smilingly making an inviting gesture. I really enjoy this second shave in nepal. At the end I give him the 50 rupees he had asked for and get 20 rupees change…

Feb 2. – Feb. 10

We get up early the next morning and do as quickly as possible what we have to do in the touristic center. This means basically we get chai, change money, get more chai (and breakfast) and a bus out of here and it takes until early afternoon. In the suburbs of Kathmandu we meet a friend and Bijays family member from Kathmandu who invites us full of love to stay for the night. It is too late to go to Hetaura, Bijays home, anyway so we happily accept. Food is more than amazing and I eat until I cannot move anymore – Aloo Ghobi, Dhal, spinach, chutney, rise, couscous – neverending. We spend the evening very cosy in a room of maybe 12 square meter, between 10 to 12 people most of them children staring at me and the pictures of my journey which I show to the family. I sleep like at home on the floor sharing the small room feeling happy like hardly ever before on this journey.

While at daytime the temperature is quite pleasant its freaking cold at night and in the morning. After getting up I soon climb the roof top with my camera and a cup of chai in my hand desperatley waiting for the first rays of the sun. After an amazing breakfast and a very warm Good Bye we hurry to get to Hetaura. 40km away drawn on the map in a straight line we have to pass two mountains of 1800 and 1900m as well as getting a bump hole of 150km length behind us. Including (noticing their condition fortunately only) one exploding tire it takes us about 4.5 hours jumping at insane speed between wall abyss and curves. A little before we arrive flashes of lightning illuminate the night. When we arrive in Hetaura its late at night. I am very happy to meet Bijays family for the first time and we soon go to sleep.

In Hetaura we visit a farm of another part of the family up in the foothills. An amazing place but the damp prevents good pictures. Most of the time its hard to see the the opposite mountain even though its sunny.

A few days later I go back to Kathmandu to get my visa for india. When I find out it takes a week I decide to see Chitwan National park – famous for its rhinos – in the meantime. Still I will be happy to get a visa at all as they where not really happy of the canceled leaving stamp from the last time when my car was seized and the Pakistan visas. I am happy though because now the old passport is full and I can get a new one. Border officials are mostly freaking out about the many stamps of axis of evil states.

On the way from Kathmandu to Chitwan (6 hours bus ride) I luckily managed to get a seat in the drivers kabin right next to the driver. Riding through Narayani river valley offers incredible views and I wish to have fishing gear, snorkeling gear, a kayak and a motorbike with me. However I decide I have to come back here to do this all.

Arriving at Chitwan I had talked so much with the busdriver to ask him to get my passport in a week in Kathmandu and bring it for me. He knows a hotel for me too (surprise!) and as the rooms are nice, clean and inexpensive I check in. In Kathmandu I had fallen in love with a 12 string guitar and first time I have a chance now to try it in a quiet surrounding. I fall in love even more when sitting in the garden for more than an hour playing with all the guesthouse stuff surrounding me.

Late afternoon I decide to explore the area. I take the camera with the 35mm lense leaving the other equipement at the guesthouse. 20 minutes later I see my first ever rhino – in the jungle on the other side of a small river maybe 500m away from the village. I enjoy the view but am hopeless to take pictures with the attached lense. Prassan, a young guy from the guesthouse had invited me to join him on the river for sunsetwith the guitar. I quickly walk back to the guesthouse getting the photo equipement instead of the guitar. Coming back to the river the rhino has moved closer to the bank and now I see it’s a cow accomponied by a calf. I sweared on myself many times already for taking the huge ‘n’ heavy 600mm lense but again I am just too happy to be able to have this amazing tool with me. I can nearly make portraits of the rhinos in the sunset.