Cave Men

Mulu National Park, Malaysian Borneo (map)

In this blog: DIY rafting, the sight of three million bats, and the world's biggest cave passage

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It's funny how with nothing but a stretch of water and our imagination, four grown men can de-evolve into a bunch of teenagers.

This was in Mulu National Park, where still with Rene, Max and Tof I was experiencing the wonders of it's caves and jungle. Our hostel was close to a waist deep river, and after our intermediate caving session we went for a bathe to relax. The current was strong enough to take us downstream without being dangerous, and after a while Max came up with the idea of floating down to the park office, a quarter of a mile away. So we did. We soon found the water was too shallow really, and bashed ourselves constantly on submerged stones and logs, with a constant shrill of painful encounters echoing from all directions. 

Me, Tof, Rene and Max with 'the banana boat', in
front of the hostel, with Mt Mulu behind. Good times.

The water deepened and a couple of us clung onto some vines hanging down from a tree into the water, floating on the spot for a while. Tof spotted a huge piece of bamboo stuck in the river bank and yanked it out, and before we knew it to the tune of hysterical laughter, the 'banana boat' was born - a natural version of those inflatable things people ride behind speed boats at package holiday beach resorts. There was just enough boyancy in the bamboo that we were all able to claim a spot, straddling this piece of wood like you would on a greasy pole. For ten minutes of so we managed to float downstream, once again getting caught on the odd rock or tree before we reached the jetty, where we lifted it out and walking barefoot along the road, carried it back to the hostel much to the amusement of all the locals. We even stepped it up another gear the following day, cutting the bamboo into sections and lashing it together with some rope we found to form a raft. There was great anticipation when it launched, only to find it was barely capable of taking one of us. Oh well.

It was so much fun, so carefree and spontaneous, one of the benefits of being with a group and a great memory of this trip.

Deer Cave

Whilst Mulu National Park was all about adventure activities for us - our German/ Canadian/ Belgium/ British bunch of lads - it would be rude to visit without seeing it's main attraction - Deer Cave - the largest cave passage in the world.

Deer cave - the largest cave passage in the world

We wandered along wooden boardwalks through the thick jungle of the park, and after leaving the wooded area to see the rocky cave entrance my jaw dropped and seemed to stay dropped. It was truly awesome, the scale of what I saw beyond what my mind could comprehend, a bit like a natural Wembley Stadium inside except bigger and more impressive. We went inside along the nicely laid out paths, stopping for a bit of explanation along the way by the guide, who also showed us some fireflies. On the cave roof we could vaguely make out a large dark area which turned out to be large groups of bats huddled together, this explained the carpet of dry poo all around the cave floor, and the near overwhelming smell of ammonia in the air which was pretty unpleasant. A spot of a Tiger Balm around our nasal passages did the trick.

Neither words nor photos can do Deer Cave justice, it's one of those places when you just have to be there to be able to experience it.

Bat Exodus

A few hundred metres from the cave entrance was a viewing platform set up by the park where people congregate around 4.30pm every day. The reason? To watch the daily exodus of around three million bats leaving the cave to search for a spot of dinner.

We took our spot and waited patiently, before relatively small groups of bats started leaving. A Chinese-Australian girl held her shutter down constantly, taking hundreds if not thousands of shots to everyone's amusement. Gradually the groups started getting larger and more regular, until finally we saw one constant stream of bats exiting, looking like a stream of chimney smoke except morphing and moving in a wave-like pattern. Occasionally a separate group with leave the pack, spiralling off to one side in a circular motion like a spaceship. A mile or so from the cave, the stream dispersed into smaller packs, as the bats go off in different directions looking for fruit or insects, depending on what type of bat they are. 

It was an incredible sight that wowed everyone there for good reason, and only added to the experience of visiting Deer Cave. Quite some day at the office.

Bad exodus - we watched about 3 -4 million bats leave, on
their nightly hunt for food. An incredible sight.

Big Nose Monkey

Baku National Park, Malaysian Borneo (map)

In this blog: a gentle jungle walk, rare monkeys and a whole load of insects.

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Proboscis monkey heading out for lunch

Borneo is known for it's jungles - one of the big draws for visiting - and the small National Park of Baku seemed like a nice gentle introduction to the wilderness, so since Christian, the German traveller I'd met in Kuching was heading there I thought I'd tag along. 

Despite it still being on the main island, there's only one way to enter Baku and that's by boat - a pleasant half hour journey up a river estuary then along the coast, a fun start. Being just an hour from the capital of Kuching the park is quite popular with tourists and therefore reasonably commercialised which kills the adventure a little - the paths even have distance markers every hundred metres - but it wasn't enough to ruin it. Christian and I set out straight away, walking a four mile loop through the trees, my first experience of proper tropical jungle. We crossed a wooden bridge with wild bearded pigs rummaging in the mudflats below, as well as a plethora of brightly coloured odd-looking mud crabs. The path through the jungle was well kept and very clear, but the vegetation dense, lush and exotic. The whole time I was spotting new and interesting things which were larger, more colourful, or more weirdly shaped than anything I'd seen before. It was however pretty humid though, which made it much harder work than normal over such a small distance.

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Back at the park centre we sat down for a drink and a rest. Christian opened a can of Sprite and took a sip, and we watched a rehesus monkey rummaging around in the grass outside. It looked our way then away again, slowly walked towards the cafe, climbed a wall, and before we knew it grabbed the can of drink and quickly scurried away, leaving Christian a little dumbfounded and heading back to the fridge. The jungle in Baku is also home to the Proboscis monkey - found only in Borneo and very unique with it's big nose. We were fortunate enough at dusk to see them hanging out in the trees nearby, picking leaves and buds, swinging between trees and just hanging out, unphased by all the camera lenses around. Fantastic.

We went on an organised night walk that evening along wooden boardwalks, hoping to see a few animals, but were largely disappointed on that front instead coming across heaps of creepy crawlies - stick insects, millipedes, frogs, and some pretty large spiders. Seeing a circada hatching, leaving it's old skin on a tree before flying away was particularly good.

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We went on an other jungle walk the following day, ending up at a small beach where we discovered we could climb the climb a little way up the cliffs and jump back into the deep water below; great fun. After a couple of hours of turning red, forgetting I was so close to the equator where the sun is strongest, I left Christian dozing in the shade and headed off alone a couple of miles further into the park, passing spiky-limbed palms, roots everywhere, peeling bark trees, before reaching a waterfall after an hour or so. The water below was a deep shade of black, surrounded by mossy rocks and even lusher vegetation than before. It was absolutely beautiful, reminding me of the movie Avatar, and a perfect place for a quick swim to cool down.

Some other folks we'd met at the hostel in Kuching showed up that night which was nice, though tainted by an rather odd short bald guy from Israel. This guy was something else, from the off argumentative, rude, annoying, arrogant, butting in constantly and very pedantic - it was hard to get rid of him. It was a shame as travellers I've met on this trip have been nice, but later all these character traits made sense. He was a lawyer. Still, it didn't ruin the experience, and Baku was the perfect introduction to wild Borneo.

Bearded wildboar

At Baku lookout

Proboscis monkey with its big ol' nose

Loop walk with Christian 

One of the best I've ever seen.

Night walk - huge spider

Night walk - tree frog

Hidden beach

Pool below the waterfalls

Bamboo Safari

Kumily, India (map)

In this blog: a great bus ride, a bad cycle, and a walk in the park - safari park.

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Fighting monkeys

The answers rang off like an episode of Family Fortunes; with everyone answering with total conviction as if I was asking them the colour of the sky. There was no doubt in their voices, but total disparity between their answers. The question, a simple 'What time is the bus to a Kumily?':

Hotel manager: '2.20pm, but be there at 2'

Shopkeeper nearby: '2.20pm'

Rickshaw driver: '3.00pm'

Man waiting at bus stand: '3.20pm'

Another rickshaw driver: '3.30pm'

The bus driver himself: '3.45pm'

Total confusion as ever but fortunately waiting around for an hour or so wasn't a problem - you can only smile. To be fair, public transport in India generally isn't as bad as it may sound - it runs regularly and often leaves on time, despite the ever varying quality of buses, roads and driving. 

Leaving the tea town of Munnar, I took the local bus on the four hour journey south - the fare as ever, unimaginably cheap at just 87p (87 rupees). I sat next to a guy in his mid-twenties who couldn't speak English, but who upon seeing my camera whipped out his phone and proudly showed me grainy and blurry videos of landscapes that he'd filmed on his tiny phone, bless him. Later after a break a pleasant old guy, also with no English, offered me his seat by the window then some of his peanuts. The driver and conductor were also both very friendly and helpful guys, even saying hello out of the blue the next day when I passed them on the street. There's kindness on every journey in India. But the journey itself; well what can I say, except that it was one of the most beautiful I've ever been on. Winding for an hour or so through tea plantations in the mountains, with rocky summits above, then going along a high ridgeline where you could see over miles of rolling hills and forest, before dropping into valleys, passing through cardamon plantations and small villages. A lovely afternoon, made all the better by the  windowless buses they have in Kerala (except for the windscreen, that would be a bit suicidal). 

We arrived in the dark at Kumily, a small town on the edge of Periyar National Park. The town itself is nothing to write home about - for the most part a typically noisy, dirty and delapated Indian town, but the park itself is one of the biggest parks in the country and professionally run for once. After two other safaris elsewhere in India I thought I'd do the hatrick - following one in a jeep, and one on a bus, this time it was both on foot and floating about on a bamboo raft.

Ride to Nowhere

Kumily was said to be a nice area for a cycle, so the next day naturally I grasped the opportunity and hired a ride for the day, since it was too late to arrange any activities in the park that day. As with most bikes I've hired in India the first one was terrible, so much so that with the forks wobbling violently and brakes barely working, I took it back and got a refund before it killed me, finding something else mildly better nearby. Finding a map was equally difficult - nothing was sold, and the printer in the Internet cafe wasn't working, so I ended up taking a photo of the map on screen using my tablet, before eventually I was on the road.

Logging truck

I set off on an aimless cruise about, first reaching a pair of official looking gates, getting refused entry by the guard as it turned out to be a tribal settlement. I instead went down a dirt track to the side, eventually getting back on another road. The houses nor fences didn't seem the usual style and there were few cars or bikes around. I then had a suspicion I'd inadvertently gone into the settlement, but wasn't sure. I decided to keep going anyway, passing fairly simple concrete houses, fences made from woven branches, and some simple mud huts. After ten minutes or so I started passing people, getting more looks than usual before passing a building which clearly said 'tribal school' outside, confirming my thoughts. The people looked and dressed the same as any typical Indian, so I guess these had been re-homed from the national park voluntarily or otherwise, and adapted to modern life somewhat. I found my way out the other end  without any security dramas and continued on.

Normal when I cycle, an obvious loop presents itself but this time nothing seemed to flow. The turnings I needed to be able to make a loop didn't seem to exist, and after heading downhill a few miles I u-turned back to the start, before going up a steep hill a few miles, again finding no junctions and turning back the same way. The scenery was nice though, passing one spice garden after the next, a tea growing area, and a coffee plantation, before reaching a village in the hills where kids shouted and waved at me, with one group of young boys even trying to block the road to make me stop and talk. Despite being in the hills of the Western Ghat mountains where it's generally cooler, it was still darn hot so drained of energy, frustrated with the single-gear bike, and for once a bit bored, I headed back after a couple of hours and barely fifteen miles, instead going for a little stroll in the woods and reading a book instead. I'm not sure where anyone got the idea Kumily is good for cycling.

Periyar National Park

After a disappointing safari a couple of weeks before, I thought I'd have one last stab at seeing the wildlife of India. I set off on a nice dawn stroll, heading a couple of miles along the road into the national park towards the visitors centre, seeing just a small herd of wild Indian Bison on the way, in some open grassland. At the park centre our group met - an Indian couple, a lawyer from California, and a Korean girl; all nice people. Along with two guides and an armed guard in case of elephant attacks, we headed off into the forest. As dangerous as that sounds, the guard said he'd not had to fired a warning shot once in over ten years! For the first couple of hours the scenery changed immensely, going from evergreen forest, to teak plantation, to denser forest, to open grassland. Visitor numbers are tightly controlled in the park and in fact we were one of just a couple of groups that day, making it feel very natural. 

Malabar squirrel

The sound of crickets permeated the air throughout the day, but in one section they were overwhelmingly loud, to the point they almost hurt your ears; a football stadium of insects upset that we'd strayed onto their turf. The guides stopped and picked out various things along the way - termites decimating a branch, ants scrambling up a tree en-masse, a wild chicken rummaging in the undergrowth (they can fly properly you know), and niligiri langurs (monkeys) lazing in the trees. The guide held out his hand to us, indicating to stop, pointing high up in the trees to a Malabar squirrel - indigenous to the region and one of the worlds biggest, with a large bushy tail and a multi-coloured quilt of a coat. Quite a sight.

Rafting time

We stopped for the packed breakfast they'd issued (bread, bread, bread), before reaching the lake and starting the main part of the trip - bamboo rafting. The raft was fantastic - a home made beast made from huge pieces of bamboo tied together, with seats fashioned from smaller sections. The guides sat at the back doing most of the paddling, though we were handed a hand carved paddle each and encouraged to do our bit. The lake itself was built by the British in 1895 to supply water to towns in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, and at this time of year the water level is pretty low, meaning you should easily be able to spot wild animals coming out of the forest to drink. Unfortunately we didn't. Despite being able to see miles of shoreline, all we managed to see was a couple of wildboar grazing. Oh well, nothing is guaranteed on a safari and that's half the excitement. All very relaxing though, slowly floating around in the sun.

We stopped for another hike in the forest. The guides pointed out a few trees, including the banyan - a parasite that climbs other trees, kills them and becomes the main tree itself. We saw huge climbers, the sort that Tarzan would swing on, some 8" or so in diameter, a curryleaf bush - a key part of Indian cooking, and a wild chilli bush - even spicier than the domestic chilli, as I found out after eating one. Tingly tongue would be an understatement. The guide scraped off some tree bark and held it to our noses - cinnamon it turned out, and picked a fruit from a bush which we tried - guava fruit. A little further on, excitingly a mongoose ran into site for a few seconds, but disappeared before we could really get a good glimpse. We returned to the shore where we left the boat, and the guys unfolded a big tarpaulin for us to lunch on. A snake wriggled it's way out, and headed towards the lake! It was only a small one, maybe an inch in diameter and a metre long, and was apparently a water snake, which would have climbed on board as we rafted. Reassuring! 

Indian elephant,and
sambar deer

Disappointingly we rafted back exactly the same way as before, but did manage to spot a white necked stork, egrets, some little cormorants, and a fish eagle - I write these names in ignorance, just reciting the guides' expert knowledge. Beautiful birds though. After another walk for an hour or so, we were back at the visitors centre. Despite being packed with noisy tourists, ironically we saw the most wildlife of all (secretly fed by staff for the benefit of tourists I wondered) - a pack of sambar deer, and a mother and baby wild elephant, grazing on the other side of the river - finally! Our group dispersed, and I started wandering back to the village, spotting some monkeys hanging out on a building site. I sat down and watched them for twenty minutes or so - lazing, fighting, hanging from trees, stealing crisps from passing children. Prime time entertainment. 

On the way back an Indian woman in her mid-twenties, walking along with her children, started talking to me. She was very friendly and chatty, and her husband and friends soon joined them - a group of sixteen of them on holiday together, having taken a thirty-eight hour train journey to get there! I got invited to have a tea with them, before finding the cafe was closed and saying goodbye. My point here is that it was the first time in over four months an Indian woman had initiated a proper conversation with me, after talking to hundreds of Indian men. It always appears to me to be be shyness, a lack of confidence, or domination by husbands. Or maybe I should start washing my clothes more often.

Niligiri langur (monkey)

Empty 'shells' of dead crickets

Raaaaaa! Bison skull

Our snake friend

Egrits and cormorants

South Indian 'thali' lunch - 45p for all this!

Sari Safari

Corbett National Park, India

On safari? In India? When I first found last year such a thing was possible, it was straight on my mental to-do list, and this week I was finally able to don my binoculars, pith hat and khaki clothes and get among the tigers. If only I did actually had such an outfit to wear.

So back in Rishikesh having come back from the volunteering project the night before, the day was all nicely planned out. Catch up on writing for a couple of hours then leave by lunchtime for the next stop - Corbett National Park. But it was one of those days where extra things came up and everything took longer than planned, and at 6pm I still hadn't left, so it was another night there and a vow to leave first thing in the morning. 

It took the whole next day to get to Ramnagar, starting with a walk to the rickshaw stand followed by some tense negotiations, a rickshaw ride across town, a local bus an hour or so to Haridwar, then another rough and ready local bus for the five hour journey to Ramnagar. You know how TV is a more sped up and exciting version of real life? Well this journey actually felt like watching an exciting live travel programme - it was action packed the whole way, with something happening all the time. If I was reviewing it the only thing I'd criticise was it's lack of plot! First off - I've seen plenty of drivers on the wrong side of the road this past few weeks, but shortly into the journey as we drove along a stretch of quietish and slow dual carriageway, where there's just dirt between the roads, a guy in a jeep swung over the bit in the middle and drove towards the oncoming traffic just because the surface was better. Whilst everyone beeped as normal, they just causally slowing and dodging round him. Next - I've not talked much about smells in India, but on a daily basis you encounter a few, mostly bad ones. From the smoke of someone burning rubbish in the street, to a heavily polluted stream, to dirty exhaust fumes. In this case when stopping at a pretty rough and ready roadside cafe, the horrible stench of stale urine. Some of the toilets you come across are classed as 'deluxe' toilets (which are normal by western standards), but some are pretty darn horrible like these. Though I must say nothing I've found yet has been as filthy as the toilets at Glastonbury Festival! 

We continued on, and realising this is my first taste of rural India outside the Himalayas, passed a lot of fields full of sugarcane along the way, with many heavily overloaded tractors full of harvest crops pulling onto the road from small fields. In a village we passed a guy on a bike selling sweets to kids through the school gates, a pile of rubbish by the roadside being picked through by pigs, dogs and people, and soon after, a dead cow missing all it's skin and being ravaged by dogs. We passed lots of small but neatly laid out fields of vegetables, and carefully stacked discs of animal manure being dried to use as fuel for heating. Men in their boxer shorts were lathered up and washing in a lake, a number of brick factories had chimneys smoking away, and a bunch of young kids seemed to be having fun splashing about in some mud pools in a field. The only 'normal' things amongst all these colourful goings on were the petrol stations. Over the day I must have seen nearly ten cricket games of cricket being played by young lads, wherever they could find a bit of free space - as I've said before Indians love cricket. At one point a lashed up cable that crossed above the road was hanging a bit low, and caught the bus roof which drove on regardless and ripped it in half. An entertaining journey for sure, and a fascinating insight into rural India. 

I arrived in the typical Indian town of Ramnagar, a jump off point for Corbett National Park, and after looking at a few ropey rooms in different places, found one on the Main Street that would just about do the job. It was that noisy that it seemed like I was camping on the road, and turned out not to have hot water included, but was clean and would do for the night. The following morning I went to the National Park reception when it opened at ten, and encountered some of the most confusing and frustrating Indian organisation yet. The place was supposed to open at 10am but with a big quest formed outside they turned up about half an hour late. Inside, no-one came to the particular counter I needed for nearly an hour, I was then told I should have booked online (nothing about that on the website) and they said they were counting to see if there was a quote of permits available for the day. I asked again shortly after and they said come back at midday. I returned then, and thankfully they had a cancellation so I could visit, but I had to organise my own jeep myself. Rather than than just give me a single charge as you'd sensibly expect, I was then led through how I needed to pay an entry fee for myself, an entry fee fee for the driver, an entry fee for the jeep itself, then a fee to hire a park guide, a dorm bed, a housekeeping charge, parking for the jeep, and finally the hire of the jeep. All explained in the most confusing way, involving going forward and back between a number of different people, some official and some trying to make some money as a driver, and with it never clear which is which. Four hours later after cutting through all the crap, many groans and reluctantly paying for a jeep and driver to myself as I was unable to share, we were on our way to the jungle. How difficult could they make something so simple?

 

Heading into the park

My jeep driver Puran was a very friendly 43 year old local guy with pretty basic English, but a warm heart and keen eye for wildlife. He chatted away and after ten miles up the road towards the park asked if I fancied driving. Errrr... Sure! So for the first time in five months I was behind the wheel on a rural Indian road, which felt a bit strange, a bit fun, and probably a bit illegal. A few miles later when we got to the gate of the park, the guards were shouting all sorts of things at us in Hindi - turns out they definately didn't want me driving in the park! The entrance gateway was huge and imposing, and passing through it felt like we were entering Jurassic Park, though hopefully without Jeff Goldblum or the man-eating dinosaurs. After signing in and paying up, we ventured down the narrow dirt track into the heart of Corbett National Park, heading ten miles or so to Dhilaka. The jungle was dense on both sides, and we went through the rocky bed of one dried out river bed after the next, passing tens of termite mounds both sides. Puran had a very keen eye for spotting things, and the first was some sambar deer - a stocky breed with a dark grey coat, then some jungle fowl - a brightly colored type of wild chicken. We went down some little side roads a few times to the main river that runs through the park, and Puran eyed many large fish then a couple of fairly massive turtles just under the surface of the water. 

 

Termite mounds

At dusk we arrived at Dhikala - a purpose built village of concrete buildings surrounded by an electric fence to keep the wildlife out. Except the monkeys who always found a way in. It was a pretty quiet evening hanging out in the restaurant bar chatting to a group of Indian tourists who approached me, consisting a friendly but arrogant head of a town council, and couple of blokes in their twenties who were on their twenty-sixth visit to the park! As ever, everyone I met was fascinated by meeting a foreigner, interested in my trip, and remembered my name straight away. They love foreigners.

At the crack of dawn the next day, I was sat ready for a different sort of safari - high up on the back of an elephant. This was the first time I've ridden on one, and I felt so small in the presence of this mighty and powerful, yet calm animal. With four of us on board, we set off following a procession of four other elephants out into the long wild grasslands around the camp, hoping in particular to spot a tiger of which there were a hundred and sixty odd running wild around Corbett. After half an hour or so our luck came in and after hearing the call of deer running away, we spotted for a fleeting moment the sight of a tiger flashing past a gap, slowly stalking it's prey. It was over way too fast. We tried to find it again with no avail, and now away from the rest of the elephants, went off into the nearby jungle to see what we could see. Another half an hour or so later we turned onto another track and there were sudden whispers amongst the guys - there on the path about two hundred metres in front of us it was; a female Bengal tiger, walking slowly along the track looking around the meat kitchen for breakfast. We followed her for around two minutes, trying not to disturb her by keeping a distance and staying quiet, before finally she strolled off into the dense undergrowth. It turns out we were the only ones that day to really see a tiger properly and I was the only one to get some photos, so I went away feeling pretty chuffed.

 Early morning at Corbett

 

Feel the power!

Not exactly worthy of a photo award, but there she is, the Bengal Tiger we saw

After breckfast back at the camp I met up with Puran, who drove us further into the grasslands in the jeep to see what else we could spot. Having a jeep to myself felt unnecessarily lavish, and was a bit on the costly side but due to the crazy way the park works, the only way I could do it and enjoyable nonetheless. By this time of day, the tigers seemed to have gone off for a doze as they do when it warms up, but we still managed to see a really good variety of other animals and birds that I'd not seen before. storks, egrets, and laughing thrushes. White breasted and common kingfishers. A number of hawk eagles, fish eagles and a mongoose. We went down to the muddy area around a lake, and found a pair of mugger crocodiles resting in the mud, waiting to pounce, then on the way back to the camp; two adult and a baby wild elephants. What a morning!

 

Puran taking us through the grasslands area 

After lunch it was time to start heading out of the park and Puran slowly drove along, stopping every so often to see if he could spot anything before continuing on. The wildlife became more sparse, seeing only the footprints of first a tiger, then a black bear (who hunt by night). Nearly out,the final sightings were a tawny fish owl and later a brown faced owl, sat motionless but ready for action in a tree. At dusk it was sadly over and we were back at Ramnagar, ready for me to catch a train later that night. 

I'm by no means knowledgable nor fanatical on wildlife generally, but I loved the process of tracking down and identifying all these often exotic creatures as most people would. A brilliant experience and worth all the hassle.

 

Mugger crocodile

 Samber deer

 Fresh tiger footprint on the track

 Spotted deer - the most common animal in the park

 Wild elephants

 Stork