Elephant Bathing

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We have just spent the most amazing 3 days in Chitwan National Park. We travelled here with 5 others who we met in a bar in Pokhara and decided to come along with us - Shane, Anne, Simona, Leigh and Ben. We have done loads of activities organized by our guesthouse including a jungle walk, canoeing, an elephant safari, elephant bathing and a cultural dancing show on our second night. By the far the most amazing experience was riding their elephants bareback down the road to the river and bathing with them. They are so gentle and friendly and by the end of it we were all playing around with them, standing on their backs, being thrown off and getting back on again. If you just hold onto their ears and stand on their trunks they lift you straight up. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

We also went on an elephant safari through the park. I was hoping to see a tiger but sadly we didn’t get to see one but we did spot crocodiles, rhinos and loads of peacocks and deer. In the evenings we drank rum around a campfire.

We had so much fun we stayed an extra day yesterday to just chill out in the town and spend an extra day together. We found a restaurant by the lake for lunch and it was so nice we ended up spending the whole day and night there until 1am. We spent all day playing cards and badminton on their lawn or chilling in their hammocks reading a book. Leigh attempted to teach Dee and I volleyball in preparation for the beaches in Goa and Thailand but we were both pretty rubbish! It was actually a really nice day too so I may have even caught some sun. Then when it got dark we sat round the fire drinking cocktails all night and had more food. I was really quite sad to leave everyone this morning but unfortunately we had to move on. All this fresh air has definitely done me good though and my lungs have finally recovered from all the pollution and dust in India.

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