Elephant polo, hunting camps and a farm village
Long before tourism, Meghauli was Tharu farm country on the edge of a forest used by Nepal's rulers for winter hunts. The grassland across the Rapti, still among the best rhino and tiger habitat in the park, was part of those hunting grounds. Once malaria was cleared in the 1950s and 1960s, hill families settled in and the village grew around paddy and mustard. Rhinos and tigers still use the same grassland today.
Meghauli became known worldwide for something unexpected: elephant polo. The game was first played on the meadows here, and the World Elephant Polo Association championships were held at Meghauli for many years. Teams from Europe and Asia arrived each winter to play a slow, careful match with long cane mallets, each player sitting behind a mahout who steered. It is one of the stranger chapters in Chitwan's long history with elephants and hunting.
Today Meghauli is part of Bharatpur Metropolitan City, yet it keeps its village shape. Tharu families run homestays, community forest groups manage the buffer zone, and a handful of lodges along the river employ local guides, drivers and cooks. Wildlife and farms sit side by side, sometimes uneasily, when rhinos raid the rice at night. Farmers build fences and keep watch from raised huts at night to protect their fields.
