A visit to Chitwan

It was around 1pm in the afternoon when my phone rang, I was in a program in Hetauda. Thus, I came out from the program hall and picked-up the phone ‘Sunil Jee, I have decided to take you to Chitwan.’ It was phone from a writer/poet Bhisma Upreti. I couldn’t deny to his proposal. I replied, ‘I am returning from Hetauda to Kathmandu today, we can go to Chitwan the next morning. ‘

On that day around 4 pm I returned back to Kathmandu. The next day- the poet Bhisma Upreti picked me up from Dhumbarahi and we went to Thamel where the critique and translator from SouthKorea Mr. Brother Anthony was waiting for us to go to Chitwan. Here come to Nepal to participate in an International literature festival and it had just completed. We were going to Chitwan on the eve of English new year.

We had an obligation to cross Mugling-Narayanghat road before 11 am as the road was under construction and from 11 am the road was going to be block for the next 4 hours. We crossed the road before the mentioned time and reached the home of writer, poet, professor L.B. Chetrri  at around 12:30.

Residing with him for some time at Kabidanda height at the corner of Chitwan was a new experience for me. He served in Indian army for a long time. While he was residing there he obtained higher education and language and English language and had returned back to Nepal after his retirement.

After that he started giving lecture at Birendra Multiple Campus chitwan, and now he has retired from there too. He had a separate home for writers and had even constructed a grand library for those writers. The library consisted of more than five thousand books. Any writers could get opportunity to recite and write from that home. it was a great moment for me to here and meet such a great personality with great thoughts.

From there we went to Sauraha. At Sauraha we met writer/poet Suman Ghimire at his hotel. we decided to reside in his hotel with name Jungle Safari. Though we met him for just a moment, his composed personality and smiling face was a welcome in itself. On the room that we were given, there were two wild bee-hives.  The honey obtained from bees are consider to be elixir. It was a great moment for us to we were surrounded with those elixir.

Since it was a New Years’ Eve, Sauraha was packed with national and foreign tourists. Most of the restaurants were crowded.

In order to make Brother Anothny acquainted with Nepali cuisines. We decided to take him to a Thakali restaurant. He liked the taste of Thakali food and ate his fill and we too joined him.

Tharu cultural center was also attraction for tourists. At around 7 pm to next one hour there was a cultural program which Brother Anthony liked a lot and took several photographs. His photographs was not less than a professional photographer. After that we returned back to our hotel and slept that night.

The next day, early in the morning brother Anthony came to our room wishing us a new year. It was the first day of the beginning of tourism year 2020 which was announced by Nepal Government. After obtaining information about the special program in held at sauraha, we went toward Devghat.

There is a Trisuli and Kaligandai river meet at Devghat and after this meeting point the river is known as Narayani. There is an old-age home and some important temples at Devghat. The Harihar temple inside Mahesh Gurukul was really peaceful. In this Gurukul (Ancient School) small children were reading Sanskrit verses. After going further on Gurukul there is another temple of ‘Divyachakrasila’. The king of Palpa,  Mukunda Sen  had established this temple and there were various stone writing near the temple. There were different images of OM, conch, Chakra, feet of cow etc. I really enjoyed the environment of this place.

At around 1:30 in the afternoon we returned back to Sauraha and watched elephant picnic at the open space of Baghmara Chaur. Suman Jee had already given us information regarding this program, there were around 100 elephants and there were gather in one place to make them eat the food. it was a new experience for us and Brother Anthony was really elated and was capturing as much as he could in his camera.

People were walking under the elephant and somewhere putting money and food in their trunk. I was curious as to how the elephant could recognize food and money. The elephant was giving the money to the ‘Maute’ and eating the food.

That night was special for foreigners as it was their new year. Brother Anthony had a desire to drink beer on the bank of Rapti river watching the setting the soon. we accompanied him in his desire while we were setting on the bank of Rapti river, we could hear sounds of peacock and different birds that come to the river.

The night was coming and all of the sudden a one horn rhino came directly behind him. He was really elated and we were really happy that a foreign tourist could see an exlucive view of one-horned rhino. After that we moved to the city area where different ethnic groups like Tamangs, Sherpa, Gurung, Tharu, Newar were exhibited their cultural dances in the street. they were wearing their traditional dresses, dancing, showing their typical cultural, Dhami dance, Sherpa Dance, Balan etc.

On the next day we were to return back to Kathmandu and while returning the poet and the writer Bhupen called us and we met him at “Sampurna Book shop” at Narayanghat. We had tea with him and talked about various aspects of Nepali literature. After that we return back to Kathmandu.

I am very great full to poet/writer Bhisma Upreti for taking me in the journey and very elited that I could help the internal tourism on the beginning of Nepal Visit year 2020.