Things we encountered
India
30.03.2010
39 °C
Hello you,
Hope you are ready for the next installment, I can give you a couple of minutes to get the cup of tea and biscuits.......
For one reason or another I had thought about what sort of creatures I would encounter in the jungle eg tigers, elephants, monkies, spiders (although I had manged to convince myself that India has no spiders), ants, centipdes (they really hurt when they bite you!) but not once did it cross my mind that there would be rats, yes rats.
We were staying at one APC (anti poaching camp) and it was the worst one to date, but you know us, as long as we could get washed in a stream and get our clothes to dry we don't moan too much. We had done all those things and had just finished eating tea, when our ranger, who to start with was not going to stay with us as he said there was no threat from elephants. Pipes up and says that elephants are near by and we have to start two fires. Now the rest of us had not heard a thing, so questioned this man further, and apparentley he could smell them! and the reason for the fire was because elephants don't like the smell of smoke.
We duly started the fire and everyone agreed on doing a two hour fire / elephant watch through the night. However, the ranger decided that he was going to bed and than he would smell them if they got closer. Now I think he was just pulling our leg and am a little cheesed off that we are having to stay up and he is all tucked up sleeping. That is until I go into the building to wake the next team up and see 5 very large rats wondering around as if they own the place.
I then had to try and get some sleep on the floor, whilst knowing these ruddy things are moving around. Evry single noise had me sitting up right shining my head torch. The worst moment was when I had just shut my eyes and felt one run across my face and onto someone else. No more sleep was had that night!!!!!!!!!
I don't understand if the ruddy ranger could smell elephants he could not smell the rats. Needless to say we didn't hear or see any elephants that night or any other night.
Take care and Love you
H & Tx
