28th May - 30th May - Chitwan National Park, Nepal
After a nightmare bus journey lasting 10 hours instead of 5 hours and almost losing our senses of humour we arrived at Sauraha just outside the Chitwan National Park - about 180km south east of Pokhara. Chitwan is a protected jungle area of almost 1000 square kms in southern Nepal and home to one horned rhinos, Bengal tigers, elephants, various forms of very scary snakes, crocodiles and loads of other impressive beasts.
Our hotel was a welcome sight after the horrendous journey where we had sat stationery for about 3 hours as they rebuilt the road around us - we'd rather have been on the 303 for the bank holiday weekend!
We watched the sun set over the river that formed the natural border between us and the jungle, had some refreshing beers and fell into bed quickly forgetting the bad journey. By 7am the next morning we were floating down the river in a dug out canoe looking out for crocodiles - quite a change from snow capped peaks!! After several false alarms of crocodile spottings (mostly by me!) we saw our first crocodile in the wild - about 2 metres and lounging on a small mud island looked pretty impressive. Luckily for us he was the non dangerous of the 2 types of crocodile in Chitwan - although this was little consolation when our guide told us that the dangerous ones (marsh muggers) are all under water because of the heat - that'll be under our canoe as well then!
After getting out of the canoes we had our first major close up with the jungle beasts - a huge one horned rhino who, until we arrived, was happily bathing in a mud pool. The guide recognised the rhino due to his broken ear and warned us that they had problems with him before - nice! The guide didn't have much english but the look on his face was enough! There are several human deaths a year from rhinos in Chitwan - in fact one of the guides lost a friend a couple of years ago.
Next was the elephant breeding area where met some of the females and their babies - 22 months of pregnancy is pretty impressive. Back in the river we got much closer to the elephants - helping with the washing we climbed on their backs, got sprayed and even got to watch their huge poohs float off down the river! It was an amazing experience to be on the back of one of these beasts about 3 or 4 metres in the air being covered in water as they spray themselves.
Later that day we met up with the elephants again - this time for a 2 hour ride into the jungle. Plodding through the bush and grass we came across about 9 other rhinos, some huge samal deer and loads of massive bug things! It was an amazing ride.
Our hotel was a welcome sight after the horrendous journey where we had sat stationery for about 3 hours as they rebuilt the road around us - we'd rather have been on the 303 for the bank holiday weekend!
We watched the sun set over the river that formed the natural border between us and the jungle, had some refreshing beers and fell into bed quickly forgetting the bad journey. By 7am the next morning we were floating down the river in a dug out canoe looking out for crocodiles - quite a change from snow capped peaks!! After several false alarms of crocodile spottings (mostly by me!) we saw our first crocodile in the wild - about 2 metres and lounging on a small mud island looked pretty impressive. Luckily for us he was the non dangerous of the 2 types of crocodile in Chitwan - although this was little consolation when our guide told us that the dangerous ones (marsh muggers) are all under water because of the heat - that'll be under our canoe as well then!
After getting out of the canoes we had our first major close up with the jungle beasts - a huge one horned rhino who, until we arrived, was happily bathing in a mud pool. The guide recognised the rhino due to his broken ear and warned us that they had problems with him before - nice! The guide didn't have much english but the look on his face was enough! There are several human deaths a year from rhinos in Chitwan - in fact one of the guides lost a friend a couple of years ago.
Next was the elephant breeding area where met some of the females and their babies - 22 months of pregnancy is pretty impressive. Back in the river we got much closer to the elephants - helping with the washing we climbed on their backs, got sprayed and even got to watch their huge poohs float off down the river! It was an amazing experience to be on the back of one of these beasts about 3 or 4 metres in the air being covered in water as they spray themselves.
Later that day we met up with the elephants again - this time for a 2 hour ride into the jungle. Plodding through the bush and grass we came across about 9 other rhinos, some huge samal deer and loads of massive bug things! It was an amazing ride.
posted by Polly and James at Monday, May 30, 2005
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