Blogs from Chitwan, Nepal, Asia - page 2

Our trip to Chitwan started with a morning flight to the village of Bharaptur from the same small airport that we used for the Himalayan flight. The drive to the Temple Tiger Green Jungle Resort was picturesque through small villages and rice fields. The resort is next to the banks of the Narayani River and Chitwan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Chitwan National Park, established in 1973, is the first national park in Nepal. Originally the hunting grounds of the ruling class, the area is home to the One-horned rhinoceros which were close to extinction by the end of the 1960s with only 95 remaining, and 70% of the jungle having been cleared. The population has now recovered, as well as that of Bengal Tigers, although not without some cost to humans. In order ... read more

Chitwan, Nepal Ouch. Gulp. Hold on. Incredibly bumpy and dusty roads with a sore tummy and lack of food. Thank goodness that the air cooling system worked on this bus. The 6.5 hour bus ride felt like an eternity considering the 87 km distance to get from Pokhara to Chitwan. The roads are that bad. We arrived at the Chitwan bus depot to find a driver from our booked hotel, Chitwan Village Resort, waiting for us. The hotel staff were friendly and warm. The room was nice, spacious, with the most amazing hot water access. The grounds were immaculate and manicured with flowers and bushes. We only had a couple of days here, so we inquired about different jungle/animal sight seeing tours. The hotel at first provided exorbitant prices, but after we shopped around the town ... read more

Arranged excursion to Chitwan through Arun at Simrik Hotel in Pokhara. Highly recommend his service. Four days, three nights all inclusive. I'm posting only photos I took with my cell phone unless I get a chance to use Neil's laptop. He has a good camera with a telephoto lense. ... read more

A jeep picked us up at 7.00am and we headed down to the river to catch a canoe over to the park. We held a Chinese parliament last night about whether we should do a jeep safari or canyoning and the safari got the majority vote. The jeep was open sided and open topped which meant that we could stand up if we wanted a leg stretch and hang onto the handrails. Initially the landscape is grasses which grow to considerable heights. As the land rises and the ground gets drier it gave way to Sal forest. We saw lots of different deer, wild boar, large monitor lizards, birds of many colours and had a close encounter with a very warty Rhino. We didn't see a tiger, although we saw many fresh footprints and our guide ... read more

Up and out again for 7.00. The Marmite that Tom brought out was finished off today and the Heinz ketchup bottle has less than one squeeze left...Ed is very much looking forward to home cooked food and Cas is going to introduce new dishes to expand the repertoire. We took a five minute walk with our guide Bishnu to take a a canoe down river. The canoe was cut from a single, long tree and hollowed out. It was a great piece of carving and it's flat bottom meant that it could float in very little water. It was a bit scary coming face to face with Marsh Mugger crocodiles who hide expertly amongst the lilies and mid-stream weed clumps, eyes ever watchful for a tasty morsel... Bright blue kingfishers whizzed up and down the river ... read more