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Our activities start early in Chitwan as the days can get very hot. We all met in the restaurant at 6.30 and we were in the jeep by 7.00 and heading to the river which marks the boundary between the park and the buffer zone where local people live and farm. We gingerly climbed in a long narrow canoe and were punted across with a very long bamboo pole. We tried not to think about the crocodiles that we'd seen in this river yesterday.
We had three guides as we have young children, so this creates more protection as a group. Vishnu briefed us about being quiet and keeping together and then what to do in the event of a rhino charge or a bear attack.
The trail entered the forest and the noise shot up from both the insects and the birds, including one who's call sounds like 'one more bottle'. It was very humid and it wasn't long before our T shirts and trousers were soaked through.
The forest gave way to open grassland which was starting to get quite tall in places. We spotted our first black rhino who was cooling off in the river. Given that the
bank was 15 ft up we were able to amazingly close without any danger.
We followed a raised dyke through the grasslands until we came to a earth mound that gave us great views of a herd of rhinos bathing in a small lake. The guides passed around binoculars and we got great views of their armour plating. We saw ten rhinos during our first 2 hours which is brilliant when compared to the one that Al and I saw during two full days of jungle trekking.
We took a break in an elevated widen hide where Cas and I retold the story of sleeping out in a hide on our honeymoon with a couple lions close by who made a roaring racket all night long.
Thunder rumbled over the plain in long, continuous bursts and a small drizzle began to fall, this kept some of the heat down. We were grateful as it reached 44 degrees C here not long ago.
We followed more dykes and our first sign of a tiger was the smell. Our guide pointed out the smell of a rotten carcass, which is apparently what tigers smell like. As we moved past the smell we
were 100 yds further on when he called a halt. In the grasses on the other side of the dyke waterway we heard loud purring, some roars and grunts - a Royal Bengal Tiger was on the move.
Everyone was tired after our 4 hour walk so we voted to leave the Elephant bathing until tomorrow and instead we went for a meal in Chitwan. Instead, it was pool, sleep and chill out time for the rest of the afternoon.
We finished our meal about 7.40 and spent half an hour in the pool. It was dark and the water was cooling. Just as we were getting out, the kids practiced a four tier human tower; Hat on the roof, then Ed, then Tom and Bob was the ground floor. They managed to stay up for a few seconds and we were impressed as only the day before they Ed and Hat collapsed the moment Tom lifted them out the water.
We sat out on our two adjacent balconies and we chatted and watched the geckos eat insects on the walls. Cas and I also polished off my little hip flask of Amaretto. Well, it would be daft carrying it
around the world and not drinking it.
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