How to make the "Crouching Tiger" board.

Draw a large square and divide into 4x4 boxes.


Add two lines in an "X".

Draw four more lines connecting the middle points together.

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2003-10-06 - Pokhara (Day 173)

The national game of Nepal is something unlike any game I have seen. Sitting in my favorite restaurant, I first saw the waiters and cook playing on a board hand drawn on a piece of paper with chunk of carrots and potato representing the pieces of goats and tigers. After several days the pieces had turned green from the mold and became soft but the staff still with few customers were playing away. Today was spent in several games of this fun and challenging game. As it is easy to make your own board, I'll list the rules here if you wanted to make your own board and pieces and try a game.

"Crouching Tiger" [Bagha Chal]- The National Game of Nepal.



Two players compete on a board with 4 tigers (one player) and 20 tigers (other player). The tiger wins the game by eating 5 goats. The goats win by blocking the tigers and leaving them unable to move. The game is an offensive for the tigers and a defensive encirclement for the goats.

Rules:
1. Sides are chosen by one player concealing one of each of the pieces in each hand and the other player choosing a hand and thus the side of the hidden piece.
2. Play starts with the four tigers occupying the four corners of the square board.
3. Moves between tigers and goats are alternated.
4. The goats are the first to move with the player placing a goat on any unoccupied square.
5. The tigers are free to move around the board one square at a time.
6. The goats cannot move until all the goats have been placed on the board.
7. In one move a tiger can move one square along any of the marked lines or he may jump over a goat following a straight line if the next square along the straight line is empty. The goat is then removed from the board.
8. The goats defend themselves by giving no open point on which to land when trying to jump over a goat.
9. If the tigers take 5 goats they win the game.
10. If the goats encircle the tigers so that no movement by any tiger is possible, the goats win the game.
11. A goat may not move back and forth between the same two squares more then three times.


The game requires strategy and even when all appears lost, sudden surprise upsets are common. The board is very easy to draw and anything can be used to represent the pieces as my waiters showed. It is a perfect game for travel or trekking as it is simple to learn, can be made anywhere and use anything for pieces.

Parts that I ordered from Kathmandu for "The Mule" have arrived and even though it is a simple procedure of changing only a couple of parts, it still takes 3 hours to get everything finished. Sometimes I really miss Japanese bikes which seem to never need to be repaired compared to this finicky and very demanding Enfield.

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