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Published: December 10th 2009
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Goodbye Pokhara
Tek came to see us off and bought us Nepali 'good travels' hats and shawls, bless him! After our trek, our guide Tek invited us to his house for dinner one evening, which was really sweet of him. He rents a room (tiny bedsit) from a family in Pokhara while his wife and baby daughter live in Chitwan in the family home. He cooked us Dal Bhat with 'interesting' chicken pieces and watched us while we ate (a Nepali custom) and ate his meal afterwards. Tek and Dee had a few cups of roxy (millet wine) before we all went into town to play some pool!
So after we'd spent a couple of lazy days in Pokhara putting back on the weight we'd lost, we decided it was time to move on. We didn't want to leave friendly and sleepy Pokhara as we loved it so much.....but onwards and upwards! We decided to go to the warm flat lands to the south of Nepal and visit the Chitwan National Park but we didn't want to take the regular bus.........we wanted to go by raft!
We booked a 2 days/one night rafting trip. We got a bus to the white water rafting start point and joined a big group of enthusiastic fellow travellers. The weather was sunny
Rafting
Raft chic but the water in the River Thulsuli was freezing. We had a safety briefing (basically, try not to drown if you topple out!) before we started out in search of white water rapids. We had awesome fun boating down the valley, hitting some huge waves (we nearly lost Dee and Ben a couple of time because they were at the front!) and stopped for a quick picnic on the riverbank. In the afternoon we stopped at a riverside beach, which was to be our camp for the night. Only 9 of us decided to camp the night (the others had the right idea it turned out!) and we did have a giggle playing cards and listening to guitar around the campfire. It was only when we retired for the night did we remember how cold and uncomfortable camping is (we normally camp with an airbed!!). It was ok though. We also didn't think through how cold it would be in the morning when we had to get our wet and cold rafting gear on....brrrrr!! The sun soon came out and we enjoyed another day of rafting through crazy rapids. We reached the end point and waited for the bus to
Chitwan. No bus arrived so 5 of us got into the cab of a passing truck and enjoyed the slow, bumpy and dusty journey, which should have taken 30 minutes but actually took 1.5 hours (that's Nepali time for you!).
We arrived in Chitwan and were picked up by our hotel jeep where we were driven to Sauraha, the village closest to the National Park. We'd booked a package tour with Rainbow Safari so all our activities and food were included. Chitwan National Park is a World Heritage Site and is famous for it's rare wild rhino and other wild game (bengal tigers, elephants, sloth bear and crocodile). Our hotel or ''lodge'' was nice and had a communal dining room so we made a few friends. The first day we went for an early morning canoe ride up the River and spotted loads of wild birds and a crocodile. Then we walked through the park's jungle forest and grassland in search of wild animals but all we saw was a monkey up a tree and a ''wild chicken'' (hmm, does this just mean an AWOL domestic chicken?!). During the walk, Holly reslised her T-shirt and trousers were covered in
Rafting
Truck to Chitwan blood. For a second she thought she'd been stabbed but on closer inspection realised she been got by a leech, which although totally gross isn't harmful. How it managed to get up her shirt we'll never know!
Next day we went to see the local working elephants having their daily bath in the river and were invited to join in. Holly was sick but Dee was up for it. He rode on the elephant bare back in the river while it attempted to squirt him off with water. When Dee fell off, the elephant helped him back on with his truck. Dee did help bath and scrub the elephant and fed her bananas! It was really cool. That afternoon we went on a jungle safari on elephant back. Four of us sat of the back of the elephant, which was 'driven' by the owner. We slowly plodded through the beautiful jungle, it was so peaceful, but what we had really come to see was rhino! The elephant drivers all have mobile phones and were phoning each other to say where the rhinos were. It suddenly wasn't that quiet anymore as we were joined by 15 other elephants and the
Rafting
Decorated truck cab drivers were all shouting to each other and getting quite excited. I'm surprised we found a rhino, it must have heard us all a mile off. It was a single young white rhino and he was beautiful. He was a bit shocked to see us all and it was kind of like hunting rhino but we got some pictures and let him go on his way. Despite this (and the big sticks the elephant drivers use!) we did love our elephant safari.
The following day Ben and Dee went on a 34km bike ride in search of the 20000 Lakes (names after their distance from the village, not because there are 20000 of them!) an Holly went horse riding. The hotel next to our was called Nirvana Horse Resort and the French owner kept the most beautiful horses (which makes a change from the sad and manky things we have seen in India and Nepal so far!). If anyone ever visits Chitwan I totally recommend this guesthouse, it looked so lovely!
After a relaxing couple of days in the warm sunshine spotting wild animals, we were ready to tackle Nepal's capital, Kathmandu........
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Chris
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I want a go on an elephant! I might go and see if they have them in town.