One Big Adventure

Our jungle experience started with a jeep ride where the heavens opened and the rain fell in buckets, needless to say we got soaked. Upon settling in at our guest house we were then issued with a warning from the owners that there was a wild elephant on the loose so be careful when walking around after dark. Our first day we had an afternoon canoe trip followed by a 2 hour jungle walk. Contrary to the lonely planet’s warning we didn’t see any tigers, which i have to say i was quite pleased about. We finished the day with the sunset (yes they’re back again) and happy hour cockails by the river…lush.

It was an early start the next morning with an elephant ride where we spotted some rino, deer and monkey’s. Then after breakfast we shared bathing time with the elephants in the river. This consisted of us getting squirted with water by the elephants and trying to stay on their backs while their handler gave them instructions to throw us off. Pete was far better at staying on than me but was fun none the less and we just kept getting back on for more. The afternoon was followed by a cycle ride through the villages to the elephant breeding center, Pete had a squeaky bike and I had a suicidal Chicken run in front of my bike. At the center we fed biscuits to the baby elephants who were so entertaining and unbelievable cute we could have watched them for hours.
Yes we brought a wooden elephant but what better place to get one than here. And no it wasn’t the biggest but it was definitely second in command. It was named ‘Kali’ by the guy who sold it to us and we’ve decided it must be at least 4-5kg but we will soon find out when we try to post it back to England

Pete Writes: After getting really excited about this part of our journey, it did not let me down. It is by far the best place that I have been so far.
The resort is literally a small village on the river opposite the Royal Chitwan Park. The village is really rustic with every hut having there own goat, buffalo, chickens and ducks. They all seem really happy and content with what they have, it shows that money is not everything
We stayed just off the main street, which was opposite the army camp. We even had our own solider in a turret overlooking our gateway (a nice bit of extra security).
The elephant bath time was really refreshing, although trying to play bucking bronco with a 2 ton Nellie was always going to be a losing battle

Whilst in the jungle on our elephant we began to trek the one horned rhino, slowly and quietly we fought our way through the dense jungle, then suddenly in an opening there were 2 grazing. We approached from behind, careful not to scare them. Then from our left there was another noise! Was it another rhino? Deer? Sloth bear? NO! It was a group of Chinese tourists on an elephant shouting “Hellooooww” at the top of there voice. (not quite the jungle experience we had in mind)
One thing that we both remembered from the elephant trek was when the keeper extracted a leech from its trunk. It emphasized the bond between them.
Each evening we headed down to the waterside to catch the sunset and sink a few cocktails. The view, combined with the sounds of the jungle definitely make Chitwan a magical place, and I feel very lucky to have experienced it.

Shame about the mozzies! But it would not be a jungle without the resident blood sucker… Although in our room they seemed to have a slight problem flying in a straight line.. I wonder why
We are now off to the mountains trekking, so we will not be in touch for 2 weeks.
Till then x

Page Gallery

Elephant Bathing Time Picture 1: The Elephant Squirted water on us

Elephant Bathing Time Picture 2: Chloe falling off the Elephant

Elephant Bathing Time Picture 3: Chloe in water – Pete feeling pleased with himself that he is still on the elephant

Elephant Bathing Time Picture 4: Elephant 1 – Chloe & Pete 0

A Canoe on the River at Sunset

Our Jungle Guides

Just setting off on our Elephant Sarfari, before we were joined by another couple, it was cosy but we got on well and ended up spending the day with them

A one day old baby goat

Chloe feeding the baby elephant

Bathing Rinos

Rino

Tags: Nepal

 Print This Post

« Kathmandu | Home | Trekking in the Annapurnas »

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 7:12 am and is filed under Nepal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.