Out of Nepal

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Between Nepal's trekking capital, Pokhara, and it's actual capital, Kathmandu, sits the small town of Bandipur. With it's winding, slate paved streets that wrap around a high ridge and cheery people who greeted us with smiles and “Namaste”, Bandipur was the most welcoming and relaxing place we had been to so far.

We filled our days with long hikes over hills and through fields, always ending at a spectacular view point for sunset. The bad weather from Pokhara was lifting but the mountain vistas were still haunted by cloud. Once the sun had set the towns lack of electricity meant that windows and doorways were full of dancing candlelight and the small shrines were ringed with flickering oil lamps.

To end our time in Bandipur we had a thrilling ride down to the highway to catch our bus to Kathmandu. We raced around hairpin bends whist sitting on the roof of an overcrowded pickup truck.

Kathmandu was a busy polluted place but every corner seems to hold an ancient shrine or temple and old wooden buildings threaten to collapse into the traffic choked streets. We spent days just walking around the chaotic back streets and finding hidden courtyards. Although, no matter where we walked to we always ended up at the Unesco World Heritage site of Dubar Square, which contains the old royal palace and is dominated by terraced platforms of multi roofed temples.

Visits to nearby towns surrounding Kathmandu offered even more Unesco World Heritage sites. Patan had it's own Dubar square which was virtually deserted when compared to Kathmandu's. While Bhakatapur was like a living museum. A whole town full of ornate temples that seemed to but used as much today as they ever were.

Our friend Woody, from Mumbai, was also in Kathmandu and we spent a wonderful evening with him and a local family he know. Tracy was dressed up in a siree and we all got to try Nepalese wine. It was a pity we were unable to join them all for their Divali celebrations but we had already booked our bus ticket out of Kathmandu to Chitwan National Park.

Chitwan is a hot and humid National Park with dense grassland, areas of close forest and many rivers criss-crossing its 932 square kilometers. After spending a day settling into our jungle hut and Tracy cooling down with a genuine elephant shower, we awoke for an early morning canoe ride and jungle walk.

Drifting silently down the river as the morning mist hung over the water was a magical way to start what was to be a very memorable day. Crocodiles basked in the weak morning sun and kingfishers dived for fish from the high muddy banks. Once we reached our landing point our guide gave us a brief talk on what to do if any wildlife attacks, which was basically climb a big tree very quickly.

The first few hours were not particularly eventful. We some monkeys. Then our guide spotted rhinoceros tracks and quietly lead us along a trail and through some bushes where a huge old rhinoceros was peacefully eating its breakfast. We had walked around so we were up wind of the animal and were able to get incredibly close before it's ears pricked up and it became aware of something in the bushes. We watched the magnificent creature for almost ten minutes.

Our guide pointed out the tracks of a deer with tiger pug marks along side and after following the tracks for a hundred meters or so, we came to the point where the tiger had caught up to the deer, attacked and killed it's prey.

As the afternoon wore the heat and humidity increased so the shade of the forest was a welcome change from the grasslands overhead sun. It seems we weren't the only ones looking for a cool escape. While we walked through an especially thick area two big black shapes reared up, gave off deep, booming growls and then ran off into the undergrowth. As they turned to run we caught a glimpse of their long white snouts that identified them as slough bears, the parks most unpredictable, and so most dangerous animal.

The next days elephant safari delivered much less impressive animals, only a wild boar and a few deer, but the chance to ride on an elephant through tall grasses was a fun, if uncomfortable experience.

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Photos

Watching a rhino through bushes
No zoom!