Blogs from Chitwan, Nepal, Asia - page 13

We spent our last week in Nepal in Chitwan National Park, near the Indian border. We stayed at a nice hotel (with air conditioning! a real luxury, and a great relief in the hot, humid jungle). They arranged daily activities for us, including a cultural tour of the town, jungle walk, jeep safari, elephant-back safari, native dancing, and a bath with an elephant in the river. The jungle walk was interesting because our guide only had a stick as a weapon. In Kruger, guided walks always had two guards with big rifles. In Chitwan, they have rhinos, elephants, tigers, and sloth bears -- and it's generally harder to see what's surrounding you in the jungle. Luckily we made it safely through the walk! On the elephant-back safari, I got to "drive" the elephant for a little ... read more

Hi y'all, Sorry It's been all quiet on the Eastern Front, but I 've been holed up in a remote village in the middle of the middle of nowhere for the last few days. Now I've managed to find an internet cafe in the nearest town ( 2hr local bus ride - which is 200 people on and in a bus designed for about 50 people and 30 min walk!!) that has machines powered by hamsters!!! So that now I have pictures to post ( with my NEW digital camera) I cant do it! Anyway I have been at an orphanage in the south of Nepal ,and will be there until the 22nd May. I have been doing various things such as planting trees badly, doing washing - badly, and being ill - not too badly! ... read more

Arrived at Chitwan National Park on Saturday, a lovely place , and a whole world away from the chaos of Kathmandu. Didn't feel too good on Saturday evening, I think it was a case of severe man-flu ( or common cold) and as a consequence didn't feel too bright having to get up at 5.30 on Sunday to go canoeing!. The canoeing was great, apart from the torrential downpour that seemed to start as soon as I got in the canoe, and promptly stopped when I got out at the other end. After the canoeing we had a 3hr trek back through the grasslands to the lodge, which was fine, but the only wildlife we managed to see was a single wild chicken!! On Sunday afternoon, we got to ride around the National Park on the ... read more

So amazingly I am writing this relatively unscathed following quite the adventure on a 2 day Nepalese road trip to Royal Chitwan National Park. Picture this...Groat Road for 4 1/2 hours, on roads kinda like around Westmount in the spring only worse (i.e. potholes, huge holes in the road, parts of the road that are mostly boulders, parts of the road missing, you get the idea??), where there is a mountain on one side, and cliff on the other which sometimes had a barrier to prevent falling into the river or canyon, but mostly didn't. Then picture a place where by law you are supposed to drive on the left hand side of the road, but really it is however you can get there the fastest. Truly I am not even doing it justice. Oh, did ... read more

Well what an experience!!! We took 2 guides and went walking through the Chitwan national park, the advice when we got off the canoe and into the scrub land was this..... "If a rhino charges at you run in a zig zag and try find a tree to hide behind" "If you see a tiger which is rare (but one killed 3 cows nearby the other day) don’t run, face the tiger and don’t look away" "If you see a bear there’s no point climbing a tree they can climb too stand back to back to each other" "Walk flat footed as there are many poisonous snakes and if one bites you then it can be a problem" ok ....so I’m basically walking through the jungle and scrub shitting myself that a tiger is going to ... read more

Hello everybody!! Just to give you an update on my activities here in Nepal! Last weekend I went to 'Chitwan National Park'- a huge wildlife reserve. It's quite far away from where I live- about 7 hours, so the bus journey itself was like an adventure! When I arrived in Chitwan, I went to a resort called Rainbow Safari Resort- it was really nice, with little cottages with thatched roofs- no electricity, but then I think in Nepal thats a fairly normal thing!!! Anyway, the next day, we went on a canoe ride down the river Rapti, that runs through the park. It was very peaceful, as it was dawn, and we saw a gardial- a type of crocodile. We also saw many birds. It was nice to just be in nature, especially after being in ... read more

Chitwan National Park We were in for a long, dusty ride down from Pokhara to Chitwan National Park in the south but the changing scenary kept me entertained along the way. We also had a luxurious (in comparison to the minibus) coach to spread out in which made things a lot more comfortable. There were actually seat belts and even the chance to watch a DVD - strangley no-one was interested in watching the only choice - Cannonball Run! The driver was also a lot better and took great care to avoid any bumps and ruts in the road (not for our sake you understand - this coach was his pride and joy!). The scenary along the way started to change from mountains to hills to plains. We travelled for a long while by a huge ... read more

We'd celebrated our deliverance (again) heavily last night, combining beer with special lassi. Special lassi is just like any other lassi, a slightly sour yoghurt-based milkshake drink, but this had been pepped up with the very best marijuana which grows wild in the ditches and hedges around here. We'd been (good-naturedly) kicked out of the bar at some ungodly hour in near-hysterical laughter, and this morning our heads were aching badly. We walked into the village for breakfast, greeting all the villagers and the mahouts who were walking their elephants back from their morning baths. After a lot of strong coffee, we felt sufficiently human to do a bit of shopping, and then hit the internet cafe for a few hours so I could catch up on the blog. At 4pm we were back at Park ... read more