Royal Chitwan National Park

Greetings from Kathmandu!

I arrived tonight from Royal Chitwan National Park, so I'll start with all my activities there.

I left Pokhara the morning of the 14th on a tourist bus for the Park. I splurged and booked the $70 safari package rather than the $55 one because it turns out the whole thing is arranged through the hotel, meaning all the meals, guides, and activities are either run directly by the hotel or booked by them, so I figured I would go for a mid level package rather than pure budget.

The bus arrived in the early afternoon and we all had lunch at the hotel. A Spanish couple, two Dutch brothers and an English woman were included in the group as well. From there we went on a little tour of the village (forgettable) and a walk through the jungle at dusk (more memorable). Walking along the street to the park I saw my first elephant here, which was a nice early surprise. It's warm at the park, but not excessively hot, so I'm happy with the weather.

At night we attended the Tharu Culture Programme, which was a series of traditional dances. They had some "stick dances", basically a bunch of guys sword fighting with bamboo, then a funeral dance performed by a man dressed as a woman, and then my personal favorite, the peacock dance. That was a guy in a peacock suit awkwardly "dancing" around, then giving a woman in the front row a rose. It was a crowd pleaser, to be sure.

The next day was more eventful: elephant-back safari, elephant bath, canoeing, jungle walk, and finally a visit to the elephant breeding center.

A safari on elephant back sounds like a good idea. Faithful readers may remember I declined to go on a camel safari in the desert of Rajasthan because I didn't want to ride the thing. An elephant seemed like a better bet, and I think it was, but it was still very uncomfortable. They seat you in a little wooden "cage" for lack of a better term, with three other people (a squeeze), and for nearly two hours the elephant lumbers along (video) as everyone looks for rhinos, tigers, deer, and whatever other animals there may be. Well, we saw evidence of a tiger and that was about it. Evidence of a tiger is in this case a tiger paw print and a half-eaten deer (I'll save you the picture of that). Rhinos are fairly common, but we were unlucky. By the end of the safari I was more than ready to be off the elephant, and I was a little disappointed.

Luckily, my disappointment was short-lived. We got back to the hotel and went a few minutes later to give the elephants a bath. They say to wear a swimsuit, but I didn't bring one, so when we got there I just stripped down and volunteered to give the elephant a bath. There were about 50 people watching from different groups, but I just walked on up and climbed on. Now saying I was giving the elephant a bath is a stretch; it was more like the elephant was giving me a shower. The handlers yell at the elephants in Nepali and then the elephants spray themselves and mostly the people on their back. After a few sprays they tell the elephant to lay down and the people are swept into the river. It was an absolute blast, and on a hot day it felt good to take a little swim (by the way special thanks to my Dutch friends for taking pictures).

After my bath, we went back to the hotel for lunch and a short rest. In the afternoon we left for canoeing. It was in the same river as the elephant bath, not far from the hotel. We rode in a traditional dugout canoe (and I wore the traditional hat as well - very stylist), looking for a couple different types of crocodiles as well as birds and other less exciting things (they also have a type of dolphin but it's extremely rare). This time we got a little lucky and spotted the Ghandrial crocodile, an endangered and thus quite rare fish eating crocodile. It has a very long, slim snout (I guess it's called a snout), with teeth sticking out every which way. It slid into the water shortly after we saw it, but I got a good look first. We went down the river for about an hour and got out for another jungle walk.

We walked through the elephant grass (tallest grass in the world, it was easily taller than me and in many places easily taller than large elephants) to the sal forest. We crossed a small stream on the way, and the English girl found a leech on her foot a little while later. I figured I would check myself while we were stopped and I found a little surprise. Actually make that four little surprises, as I found two leeches on my left foot, one on my right and one on my right leg. I pulled them all off, no harm done, but they were pretty gross little suckers. We continued through the jungle (video) to the elephant breeding center.

The breeding center is home to a very rare set of elephant baby twins (super cute), as well as a bunch of older elephants and babies. It was pretty cool, although they're all on pretty short chains so it's a little sad as some of them struggle to get free all the time. They babies aren't on chains, so I got a chance to pet a few of them (video) and the trot along happily between the adults.

After the breeding center we went back to the hotel. This morning I woke up early to go bird watching. I saw some birds, nothing too exciting, but it was another nice jungle walk. That was the end of the package, as they fed us and put us on a bus to Kathmandu. It was a lot of fun even if we didn't see all I hoped.

The bus ride was uneventful (luckily) and we arrived in Kathmandu at about 5. I found a hotel near the center of town and wandered around a little with dinner thrown in there as well. It's more like India, very busy, more polluted, and loud. There are a ton of tourists here, more than anywhere I've been yet. Tomorrow I plan to get out of town into the Kathmandu Valley, I'm not sure exactly where.