Days 219 – 220: Chitwan National Park
We asked our trekking agency, Wind Horse Adventures, to book us a one-way bus ticket to Chitwan. All the tourist buses leave at the same time and the same place, so it wasn’t too difficult to find the right one. Unfortunately for us, the Greenline Bus – the nicest tourist bus which costs twice the price of all the others at USD$20pp – was already sold out for today. Our bus – “Rainbow Tours” – was more of a local bus as we were on the only Western tourists on board. Despite being the first ones, the bus manager wouldn’t let us pick our seats – he seemed to have some odd control issue with where people sat, as he carefully navigated each new rider around the bus in an order that only made sense in his head. We double checked our tickets to see if we had assigned seating, which might make sense of his directions. Yes and no – yes, our ticket had specific seats indicated, but the manager told us to sit two rows behind our assigned seats. Weirdo.
Waking up the hotel staff for our breakfast before walking over to the “bus depot” – a huge line of tourist buses parked along Kanti Path street (kinda reminds us of 8th Ave in NYC)
We are the first ones on the bus! But our solitude doesn’t last long, nor do we even get to select our seats! As a result, a woman and her *two* kids share the seat behind us. We whipped out the masks as the children were coughing all over the place. Lindsay was able to sleep most of the ride, but poor Igor had to endure the ankle-bitters jumping around and banging his seat for 6 hours – he even lost his temper and told them to sit down…twice!
As we were closing in on the town of Sauraha, which is just outside the park entrance, Igor started reading reviews about how to catch a taxi from the bus stop. Apparently, a lot of really aggressive hotel hawkers will bombard travelers with offers to take them to a hotel that give them kickbacks – even if they specially ask to go to a different location! Igor didn’t want to deal with the hassle, so he convinced Lindsay to hop off the bus *an hour early* and WALK the rest of the way!
“It’s only an hour!” Igor assured her. Oh, except the bridge that Google Maps showed him *wasn’t there anymore*. He tried to convince Lindsay that they could take a short cut by taking off our shoes and wading across the river, but she thought that was a stupid idea, not least because we had all our bags with us. Long story short, we were walking *with all our luggage* for over *two hours* in the HOT SUN before we finally arrived at the Green Park Chitwan. When we finally arrived in the hotel lobby, dripping with sweat, and red-faced, the hotel manager looked at us and said, “You know, we would have picked you up from the bus for free – all you had to do us email us when you were coming!”
“Isn’t this a nice walk? I feel like we get to see the *real* Nepal this way.” – Igor trying to convince Lindsay that a 2+ hr walk is a good idea
We passed many fields where the locals were drying out and stacking hay – not sure why they need so much as they don’t really have a “winter” in this topical area
Local farm animals along the road – an inquisitive goat and some doomed chickens…
Finally – the sign for our hotel! We certainly didn’t feel like walking anywhere else for dinner, so we ate at the hotel restaurant, which had a *delicious* Indian food buffet! Our room was beautiful and comfy, although Lindsay did have to chase down a chirping gecko before we were able to fall asleep
Since we were short on time, we decided to just book our activities in the park directly through the hotel. We definitely wanted to do a 4×4 safari drive – we tried to book a shared vehicle for the morning (in our experience in Africa, wild animals tend to be most active first thing in the morning, and sleepy in the afternoon), but no one else had signed up, so we fell back on a canoe ride + jungle walk instead. During our canoe ride, we learned there are two species of crocodiles in the river – *really* glad we didn’t wade across the other day!!! While we were lucky enough to spot a pair of Asian Rhinos from the water, our 2hr jungle walk was almost devoid of wildlife except for one lone Barking Deer (those guys well-named – they are *loud*!) and a ton of leeches.
Elephants with riders slowly pass by in the early morning haze. Unfortunately, there are so many complaints about animal abuse with elephant rides in Nepal that we decided to skip the activity altogether
About a dozen of us are crammed into a thin, dug-out canoe for a ride down the river
Kingfishers!
Crocs!
Rhinos?!? Wow, we didn’t really expect to see any of the rare, one-horned Asian Rhinos, but we luck out and come across a mama and baby napping by the riverbank
Ugh, a leech! We collect about half a dozen on our pants during our walk through the forest
Spotting a Bengal Tiger is a long shot (besides, Lindsay doesn’t think it’s terribly safe to find one on foot with only sticks for self-defense!), but our guides give the search a noble effort and find a recent paw print on the sandy trail – looks like we missed Kitty by a few hours!
Two options for getting back across the river at the end of our walk: wading with the crocs or sitting back-to-knee with a dozen tourists in a canoe. We learned a healthy respect for crocs in Australia, so we picked the crammed canoe
We had barely an hour to rest at the hotel before our afternoon safari drive left at 12:30PM. We were surprised it left so early, as it was scheduled to return after 5:30PM. Turns out, the tour includes a ridiculously long wait at the park ticket counter (not for nuthin’, but the guide could have bought our tickets before picking us up from the hotel). When we finally crossed the river into the park and borded the open-top safari vehicle, it was already mid-afternoon and (as we originally predicted) all the wildlife was nowhere to be seen. Aside from a handful of Spotted Deer and a 30min visit to the Garial Crocodile Breeding Center, we didn’t see any animals until around 4:30PM when we FINALLY found a lone rhino. Africa does it betta.
Chitwan National Park – a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Driving through the dense (but empty) jungle, vainly looking for tigers…rhinos…deer…anything at this point
Gharial Crocodile Breeding Center – where apparently the crocs aren’t that dangerous, so no one bothers the fix the broken enclosures
Ýou taking a picture of me? Denied!
Such skinny jaws!
Half a dozen safari vehicles all parked around one rhino…having Africa flashbacks…
Just hanging out in the pond, eating grass #omnomnom
A gorgeous view of the Himalayas in the distance, and returning from the park at sunset