The Time I Crossed a Crocodile-Infested River in Nepal

My Favourite Memories from 2 Months in Nepal

While traveling in Nepal for two months, I had so many amazing experiences. From trekking in the Himalayas to going on safari in the jungle to meeting the kindest people, I made so many incredible memories I will never forget. Among all these moments, there are some memories in particular that really stand out for me and I want to share those with you. So, this is part one of my new story series on my favourite memories from 2 months in Nepal!

Story one: A Well Earned Rhino Sighting

CHITWAN/SAURAHA REGION

My friend and I had arrived in Chitwan National Park wide-eyed and optimistic for all the animals we might see – monkeys, crocodiles, birds, and most of all rhinos and tigers! Now, we had our hopes in check about the tigers since we had heard how rare they could be, but we had already been lucky enough to see a sneak peak of a rhino from the bus into town and were anxious for a better sighting. After wandering around for awhile looking for a guide that aligned with what we wanted, we came across Jungle Explore Tours. After a conversation with the owner, Chandu, we decided this was the company we wanted to go with. Chandu assured us he had a great guide that would do his best to help us find sloth bears, pythons, tigers, and more.

“Rhinos too right?” we asked.

And, jokingly, he responded with “oh! You want to see Rhinos? Well I think they’re a bit boring but sure, if you want to, we can definitely do that.”

The next day, after a restless night of anticipation, we awoke bright and early. We met our guides: the senior guide Ganesh, who we became friends with over the next 3 days, and a lovely junior guide who was with us for the day. After a short tuk-tuk ride our adventure began with a boat ride up a beautiful jungle river, teeming with wildlife. We saw countless colourful birds and many crocodiles perched on sand islands in the river. We even saw one eerie looking crocodile swimming nearby our boat.

Then, another tuk-tuk ride brought us to the starting point of our full day walking safari. Yes, you read that right. Perhaps, like me, you’ve always associated the word safari with a sort of jeep tour (which we did also do the next day), but we would be on nothing but our own two feet for this.

We paused just before entering into the jungle to hear a … nerve wracking safety talk about what to do for a bunch of ifs. If a rhino charges, if a tiger gets too near, if, if, if … With every if I felt my confidence dropping. I mean, was this really a good idea?

“But don’t worry, we do this every day and nothing has happened to us yet. The animals don’t tend to bother humans, especially in groups.”

Okay, he’s right. There’s no point in worrying, it’s more so a reminder to be smart than to scare us. Let’s go see some rhinos!

The morning passed pleasantly. We watched monkeys jumping in the trees, saw a python curled up across a river, and found fresh tiger footprints. Some of the footprints were even still wet! So, we knew a tiger must be nearby. Around noon we paused for lunch in a small clearing by the river, eating rice and curry on plastic plates.

Continuing our journey in the afternoon, we decided to make a rhino sighting our main objective and started to check out all the usual spots. We started with the easier to get to places. In one area, the guides wanted to a check a little off the path and asked us to wait for them. Of course, waiting alone in the jungle kind of defeats the safety aspect of the purpose of having guides. Luckily, they had a plan for that. They asked us to climb a tree and wait for them there. This felt rather funny to us, “here wait in this tree until we come get you out,” but it was actually a pretty enjoyable place to wait, with a good view!

While we were enjoying ourselves in the tree, they weren’t having much luck on the rhino front. They returned empty-sighted, collected us from our post in the tree, and we continued our trek through the jungle! On and on we marched, along smaller and smaller less walked paths, searching for that greatly desired rhino sighting. Not that it changed anything, but our guides continually expressed how common rhinos were around here and that we really should have seen one by now, but you just never know with wildlife! Eventually, we had checked all the drinking holes and most frequented rhino hangout spots this side of the river. And you can probably guess what that means … we had to cross the river!

“You might want to roll up your pants and take off your shoes for this.”

So, we did, in addition to putting everything from our pockets into our backpacks and tightening the straps. Now, in hindsight, the rolling up the pants was pretty unnecessary. As we started to wade in, it quickly became clear that the water was well over knee deep – closer to bellybutton deep! Not only that, but it was flowing quite quickly!

Slowly, we waded our way across with careful footing, for if we slipped not only would we get all of our stuff, including phones and money, soaking wet, but we would be pulled down stream. The water was cold but felt pleasant on the hot day, and the bottom was rocky. In order to make sure we were alright, the guides paired up with the two of us, one of them each holding one of our hands.

About halfway across, the guide that was helping me , said “hey, look over there” and pointed upstream. Thinking he was referring to the beautiful view of the river and surrounding jungle, and focused on not getting pushed in by the current, I smiled enthusiastically, nodded, and went back to looking at my path ahead.

“No, look there, on the bank,” he said, referring to the sand island in the middle of the river.

And that’s when I saw it … a huge crocodile perched on the sand, very close to the water, watching us.

Oh. My. God. We were literally in the middle of this huge river, moving as fast as we could, which, for the record, was incredibly slowly, and not too far upstream from us was a crocodile!

Now I knew if that crocodile got in the water and decided to attack us, I would be no match for it. As we continued our trudge to the other side, with a newfound hurry in our step, it started to move. Luckily, it was moving even slower than we were. But, nonetheless, the fact that it was making its way towards the water was pretty unsettling.

It began to submerge itself as we approached the shore on the other side and, thank goodness, we were able to watch it fully enter the water from the safety of the bank on the other side.

Relieved, my friend and I looked at each other, laughing nervously, and expressing how crazy that had been. Meanwhile, the guides looked at each other with a different sort of smirk. With some prompting, they admitted to us they had seen the crocodile before we had even started to cross! They didn’t tell us about it because they figured, correctly, that we would be too scared to cross.

They told us they were confident the crocodile wouldn’t do anything because they do not like to hunt in fast moving water. But, as we discussed crocodiles, it was also revealed to us that the are two types of crocodiles in the area. One is known as a fish-eater, appropriately named as the only thing it eats is fish. The second is known as the mass murderer crocodile. I’ll give you one guess as to which one was in the water with us that day.

Yup! The mass murderer.

Putting our shoes back on and rolling down our soaking wet pants, we were happy to put the river behind us and continue on our search for a rhino! We began methodologically checking all the drinking holes and rhino hangout spots on this side of the river, but, again, were having no luck.

As the sun began to set and the day drew to close, we made our way out towards the edge of the park. Stopping in a beautiful clearing, with a beautiful sunset lighting up the sky, we stopped to reflect on our day. We hadn’t managed to find a rhino, but we saw so much other wildlife, had a crazy adventure, hung out with delightful local guides, and got to spend the day exploring in nature. So, were we disappointed we didn’t see a rhino? Sure, maybe a little. But overall it had been an incredible day anyway and was already one of our favourite memories from Nepal!

Satisfied, we turned to make our way out of the park, but our guide stopped us.

“Let’s just wait 5 more minutes, you never know what might happen.”

And, sure enough, as if he had manifested it, a rhino appeared. With our guide, we got as close to it as we could, before it started walking straight towards us and we had to back up a little. We watched it wander slowly through the field, snacking on grass as it went. In awe of it’s grandness and marveling at it’s almost-alien body structure, we snapped a few photos before putting our cameras down in favour of our own eyes.

After all that searching, and hoping, after accepting it wasn’t meant to be that day, there it was! A rhinoceros. Something we had previously seen only in photos and videos, save a brief glimpse out a bus window the day before, was standing right in front of us. It felt serendipitous that it hadn’t happened until the end of the day. After all, the best things in life are worth waiting for.

We would go on to see several more rhinos in the following days. But this one was the most special. This one I will never forget.

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I hoped you enjoyed reading about one of my favourite memoires from Nepal. If you have been to Nepal too, I would love to hear about your favourite memories there! And if you are planning a trip there, let me know if you have any questions!

Check out part 2 of my favourite memories from 2 months in Nepal here!

In the meantime check out these other posts from Nepal:

• Things to know before going to Nepal
• My Nepali Homestay Experience
• What to do in Pokhara: Best Itinerary After a Trek

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