Travels in Nepal # 63 Elephant Breeding Centre
Elephant Breeding Centre, Nepal
After our canoe ride on the river in Chitwan National Park we went on an hour’s visit to the Elephant Breeding Centre. This is a government run agency attempting to breed elephants. It is open to the public every day and while it is a little depressing to realise that the elephants are tied up at night the centre seems to have the right motives and methods.
Elephant Breeding Centre, Nepal
I am no expert on elephant breeding and my comments are merely a reflection of those made at the time by our guide for the afternoon. The elephants are tied up in an enclosure each night to stop them raiding the nearby farming land and doing immense damage to crops. The village and farming communities rely on their crops to eke out a meagre living. Their attitudes to the elephants would quickly change if they were allowed to rampage through the crops at random. There is a big enough problem with the occasional rogue rhinoceros raiding the crops. One rhino came through a nearby crop that night and we saw the damage next morning.
Hazards of travel: Using squat toilets
No Comments »2nd December, 2006; Category: General
Most travel agents, travel books and travel articles gloss over the lesser delights of travel in many parts of the world. The reality is less than glamorous. The reality can be confronting. The reality often stinks.
I am speaking of squat toilets, a harsh reality in many parts of the world. On my trip to Thailand I was not faced with any problems but Nepal was another matter. On the trek through the Himalayas we experienced the challenges of numerous squat toilets. These included well-kept, mostly clean, cement-floored ceramic basin type toilets with an accompanying bucket of water. At the other end of the scale we encountered small smelly huts on the side of the track. These were no more than a few rickety floorboards with several boards missing; a pile of dry leaves in the corner was a toilet paper substitute (but we had our own) and no water.
Coping with this can be confronting to inexperienced travellers. The guide books are often silent on the protocols. What does one do? What are acceptable procedures? How does one manage this situation with dignity intact?
All these questions – and much more – are answered in this wonderfully useful, honest and forthright article:
- How to use a squat toilet – by Frank Bures.
Travel writing: an interview with Pico Iyer
No Comments »1st December, 2006; Category: General
Travel writing has not really interested me until my first trip overseas last December and January. My trip to Thailand and Nepal suddenly gave me a great interest in this genre of writing. I wrote extensively of my experiences in a journal, which I later transposed into short articles on this blog.
Unfortunately I have not really had the time since returning to investigate the many interesting books that have been written by travel writers. That delight still awaits.
Pico Iyer has travelled all over the world as a travel writer. I recently read the transcript of an interview with him. It is a very long interview. In it he describes how he goes about researching his topics, what he looks for in a place and how he goes about his writing.
It has much to commend it for all travel writers. He particularly gives a focus to the literary qualities of good travel writing, and to the barriers that travel writing causes many readers.
“I think travel writing has a hard time appealing to people who haven’t traveled and who don’t see a book on place as a literary text in the way they would see another nonfiction book, and that’s one of the hurdles that I don’t know how we can surmount.†Pico Iyer
Link:
- Pico Iyer: on travel and travel writing – a long article about travel writing.