Meghauli Airport

Entrance to Megauli Community Forest.

Sorry for the pictures being out of sync.

View of an open area from the tower. No wildlife today.

Airport Road with runway to the left. Prakesh's shop is just beyond the water buffalo on the right.

Family maize factory out back. That is a lot of corn.

Windsock on Megauli Airport

Prakesh standing in front of Megauli Tower.

SAT is a day off in Nepal so I headed out to find Meghauli Airport, which is on the South side of our Training Zone, 27 km from Bharatpur Airport. We see it all the time from the air, now the challenge was to find it on the ground. We do not have permission to land there.

This grass runway airport is associated with the Meghauli Community Forest (kind of a game preserve) and is used in season to fly tourists in to see the wildlife and back out. The roads were really bad in places so it was slow going. It took almost 2 hours to cover that 27 km.

Upon arriving, I met a young fellow named Prakesh, whose family owns the shop (restaurant), next to the runway, pictured above. The normal salutation of "Where are you from?" would spur me to move on quickly because that would likely be the only English words the person would know. However, I decided to give Prakesh a chance and it paid off big. His English was quite good and he was very bright. He offered to show me the viewing tower in the forest. So, off we went, crossing the grass strip and on into the forest to the tower. The wildlife was shy to day so the rhinos did not appear.

He invited me into his shop to meet the family. They were very engaging and fun to speak with.

An elephant, with his trainer, walking by. No telephoto lens here. I could reach out and touch him.

Prakesh, L with his two sisters and brother on the R and a neighbor, in the one table shop.

So, this turned out, unexpectedly, to be one of those good days.