Chitwan National Park is approx 150 km from Kathmandu in the direction of the Indian border. The road that connects the two places is the main route for the large quantities of imports from India so it is constantly full of trucks loaded down with all sorts of goods. The road, if you can really call it that, hugs a cliff and twists and turns for a large part of the journey. If you haven’t seen the TV program “The Worlds Most Dangerous Roads” – it’s been featured on here and well worth a watch – two comedians (Greg Davies and Rhod Gilbert) drive it and it is both hilarious and scary! We took off at 7am to avoid some of the traffic out of the city and 7 hours later (yes 7!!!!!) we arrived at Chitwan. It’s difficult to explain how horrendous the “road” is.. bumpy, narrow, windy, dusty, rock slides are some of the words that come to my mind. Not only have you cars, bikes and trucks on the road but regularly there were people walking along the edge of the road, and to top all that the cars, going both ways are constantly passing each other … squeezing through the middle of the road.. going straight toward a car on the other side of the road.. INSANE!
So we eventually arrived safely at Chitwan and it was so beautiful and peaceful. The lodge at Tiger Tops is amazing. Considered the no.1 lodge in the area (thanks Mike D for the recommendation), the rooms are built of local materials and they have their own organic farm which supplies the kitchen. All meals are included and the food was really good (unfortunately I got “the illness” the night before arrival so I didn’t get to sample much of the food.. the toast on my last day was really good though!!). We had a rest after the hazardous journey and got ready for a sunrise “meet and greet” with some elephants the next morning.
Day 2 in Chitwan was all about the elephants. They take the welfare of the animals very seriously here so there were no elephant rides or the likes.. We got up early to see these working elephants carry grass that had been cut by their handlers and take it back to feed their friends!! When they’d gathered enough we headed to the water so they could get some water. It was magical being so close to them!
After lunch it was back to the elephants. This time we made cuchi sandwiches and fed them to 4 beautiful female elephants. They have quite an appetite and it was great fun feeding them. The youngest of them kept waving her trunk like she was dancing so I mimicked her and each time she’d do it again!
We finished the day with a trip to the river to see the sunset and of course to hang out with the elephants again. We did spot some rhino too!
The next day I unfortunately was too sick to go on the jungle walk but Suzanne did and she got to see some wild rhino:
Later that evening after a visit from the medic (who doubled as the barman), a good sleep, shower and a few hours snoozing by the pool I rallied for a short walk and go on the ox cart:
On our last morning we said a final goodbye to the elephants. Thankfully I was feeling a lot better and we were flying back to Kathmandu rather than driving..
odohertyelaine 