Chitwan National Park!!!

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Chitwan national park was awesome!! We stayed in paradise, in a place called Sapana Village Lodge. The staff could not have been nicer, the food was fantastic (I had steak both nights, and pancakes for breakfast, I couldn't resist, so any good I did from trekking has long gone lol) and the activities at Sapana were really good. When we arrived at the lodge, we freshened up, had lunch, and then the manager came and worked out an individual itinerary for us, so that we could do all the activities we wanted to do while we were there. He was so accommodating.



Our first activity started that afternoon with a village walk around Sapana, we had a guide who went with us and talked us through the things we saw, it was really interesting and I loved being back in a local village and interacting with the children again (which was my favourite part of India). After the village walk we went to a local cultural show where the locals performed some of their traditional dances. This was so entertaining, I was so glad we got there early because the place was packed and we got great seats. At the end of the show you can go up on stage and try their local dance with them, (at this point you realise it's not as easy as they make it look).



The next day we got up early to go for an elephant ride through the jungle. I had never been on an elephant before so it was nice to have the opportunity, but to be honest it was pretty uncomfortable being squished on to the cart on top of the elephant, and we didn't see any animals on the ride apart from deer. After the ride I was posing for a photo with the elephant and she tried to stroke my face with her trunk and got me covered in mud.... the photo ended up pretty funny (I will upload as soon as I find a computer).



Later on we got to bath the elephant, Dad tried to chicken out and said he was going to stay on the river bank and take the photos, but the guide and I didn't let him get away with it that easily, the guide said he would take the photos and dad had no excuse not to get wet lol. So we climbed on top of the elephant and rode her (without the cart this time, which was loads more fun) in to the river. Then the elephant rolled over, so we fell in, and then we washed her. This was so much fun, the elephant was squirting water everywhere with her trunk. At one point dad nearly drowned me in a foot of water because he thought the elephant was going to roll on me and squash me so he pushed me out the way and I went under water and swallowed some of the river water lol. There is a video of us riding the elephant into the river, which a guest at the hotel took on her iPad and kindly sent me, she's taking it from the deck of the lodge so it's quite far away and so you can't see much, but as I can't upload our photos right now, I will upload this (Travelblog won't let me upload videos at the moment so I will put it on Facebook).



After the bath we had lunch and then went for our canoe/jungle trek. We had been warned that at this time of year you were likely to get leeches on the jungle walk and a jeep safari might be better, but we had also been told that you had a better chance of seeing the animals on the walk... so we opted for the walk. We started off canoeing down the river which was good fun, we saw loads of different birds and monkeys, and we also saw crocodiles! After our canoe trip we started walking into the jungle, we came across tiger tracks and rhino poo quite early on, and before we knew it, we saw the rhinos!! They hadn't been spotted yet that day, and they are really rare, so we were very lucky! After seeing the rhinos we continued to follow the tiger tracks and a little further into the jungle the guide held out his hand to signal us to stop. He said the deer were making their danger noise that they make when large cats are around, then a few minutes later deer darted past us, and when we looked to the other side of us, the bushes rustled, and something disappeared off in the other direction. None of us could make out what it was unfortunately, but the guide said he was pretty positive it was a tiger!!!!! Now I have no idea if it was or not, I will let you make up your own minds, but either way it was an amazing experience and just to have had a chance to see rhinos made my day!



Today we travelled in luxury, because we got a taxi all the way back from Chitwan to Kathmandu, instead of the tourist bus. To be in an air conditioned car was so nice, and we got to stop for photos whenever we wanted which was great. Along the way we saw a couple of lorries damaged because of the road, and I got a snap of this one lorry with its wheel hanging of the edge of the cliff!!! Everybody was fine thank goodness but it was dangerously close to going over the edge completely, how the driver managed to stop it where it was, I have no idea.



We have an early start tomorrow as we are going on a flight to see Everest! Fingers crossed the weather is nice! Miss you all xxx

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