Travelling through Nepal on the back of the “Virgin of the Skies”
We worked our way through the mystical Nepalese lowlands bordering the Himalayan on the back of our elephant, whom the locals deify and affectionately call Ganesh.
Bawan Kumari translates “Virgin of the Skies” and is the name of our female elephant which took us through many many gates of a culture yet unknown to us.
Nepal presented itself as a country where Hinduism and Buddhism may exist peacefully in parallel, where Gods are worshiped, and where shamans still dance. To be able to sink into its depths enchanted us, and made a juvenile dream come true.
Already during our elephant expedition I made it a habit to take down our immense, as well as informative and exciting travel experiences. Since we are permanently en route, though, our already cram-full treasury box of experiences is filled daily with new stories, and I do not expect to find the time to go through my notes and publish them here or in a book in the near future.
However, I definitely intend to write down our sometimes funny, yet sometimes also extremely dangerous experiences with our headstrong and conceited cow elephant Bawan Kumari.
Nepal 1996/Automn
Tanja and Denis Katzer were the first Europeans ever to travel all the way through the Kingdom of Nepal on the back of an elephant. They experienced an expedition that did not only allow them to get acquainted to a different culture, but also made them become familiar with the sensibility and precariousness of one of the largest mammals on earth.