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Published: April 2nd 2011
Chicken, geese, goats, cats, dogs, cows, buffalo, lizards, spiders, miniature frogs, monkeys, spotted deer, sambar deer, rhinos, elephants and crocodiles - welcome to Chitwan National Park where we have truly been immersed into the Nepali "wildlife" and encountered each and everyone of the animals listed above.....
We arrived in a tropical downpour after a surprisingly short and relatively comfy (i.e. we could fit our apparently gigantic legs into the seat) bus ride and and made our way through the backstreets of Sauraha to our little guest house. Cute at first with its clucking chickens and organic vegetable garden, not so much so after being reassured that the big spiders in the thatched roof were not poisonous, seeing the mosquito infested pit of a toilet and waking up to realise that we had shared our hut with at least one very large rat who ate our sealed up trekking bars!
Feeling rather brave, we decided to stick it out (though spending as little time as possible inside said hut) and booked ourselves an elephant safari ride. "A thrilling rather than comfortable ride" quotes the Lonely Planet and right they are! An hour and a half of heavy lollopping squeezed into
a small wooden cage on top of the elephant and we were rather glad to be back on firm land! It was nonetheless a rather humbling experience to trek through the dense jungle at dawn keeping our eyes peeled for any animal activity!
Later on, after a well-deserved breakfast, we headed back down to the Rapti River and watched the elephants being bathed whilst paddling in the shallow waters ourselves. We even got sprayed by the playful beasts!
We have certainly been at one with nature the last few days though both of us would rather man and nature remain two slightly more separate entities...
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Tom Elliott
non-member comment
Animals?
Katrina, I would never in a million years expect you to go out of your way to get near to animals! The traveling experience seems to be getting the better of you.... Glad to hear/read you are still having fun, enjoying your posts!