Batons for the Beasts? A Nepalese Safari in Chitwan National Park (Part One)
THE ride to Chitwan from Kathmandu, only eighty kilometres (fifty miles), took five and a half hours along almost-impassable roads, mainly used by slow-moving fuel tankers.
At the risk of sounding controversial, the sooner the Chinese build some more railways in Nepal — and maybe some pipelines too — the better.
The current plan is to build a railway across the Himalayas from Lhasa to Kathmandu, thereby spreading Chinese domination southwards to another capital city in true nineteenth-century fashion, and to extend it further to join up with the Indian railways.
Frankly, this can’t happen soon enough
There are still almost no railways on the ground in Nepal, only a lot of bad roads. The fact that getting a proper railway line from Tibet through to India seems like such a great leap forwards shows just how underdeveloped Nepal still is.
So, hurry there to sample the rustic charm, bad roads and all, before Nepal, too, feels the full force of the Industrial Revolution!
