Chitwan Jungle Lodge

Bird watching out by the croc pond

This view of the pond was like a Monet painting, absolutely beautiful in the morning light!

Sun set on the Elephant Safari

Chitwan National Park covers an impressive 932sq km.  A further 499 sq km is set aside as the Parsa Wildlife Reserve, it is one of the biggest tourist draws in Nepal.  The reserve protects Sal forests, water marshes and rippling elephant grassland, we were told that we had an excellent chance of spotting one horned rhinos, deer, monkeys, various snakes and 450 species of birds, and if your very lucky you may see leopards, tigers, sloth bears and wild elephants.  We arrived late as we overshot our meeting point by about an hour, Trev will describe the ride into the park, over 7km of offroad, some extreme through sand, muddy rivers and one very large river over 2' deep.

Yep They had something better than a ladder

We found out about Chitwan Park from the internet and decided that an elephant safari was a must while in Nepal, so we booked to go for two nights and 3 days.  After we arrived we had some lunch, unpacked and got settled into our cabin, then off on a Elephant Safari from 4:30pm to dusk, it was lovely, so peaceful, our elephant was a small one so Trev and I got to go on it alone, the other people in the group had 4 per elephant, 2 other elephants went out at the same time as us.  Our trainer was really good and he took us off in our own direction, breaking trail and crashing thru the elephant grasses, he was the first to spot the rhino.  It was fine being on the elephant what was scary was that they had a fire burning in the forest and it was like 2' from our elephant, he didnt like it very much and sped up, neither did I, so I can understand why, it was hot!  Of course the 4 x 4 ride in and then the elephant ride was a bit rocky for the recent back injury but just pop some tylenol and off i go, it was great fun.

We saw a cool Python that had divowered a deer and would then sit there for up to 2 months until it was digested, a rhino hiding in the reeds, some deer, of course elephants and lots of birds, as the sun went down it was so peaceful, good fun.

A great place to stay in the Park

The staff at the park were great, they kept us entertained with Tiger documentaries, a naturlist talk about the animals and plants in the park, nature walks, bird watching, elephant bathing, popcorn, beer, great food and the cottages were totally adequate with hot water and kerosene lamps, we had to contend with power outages as you know by now power in Nepal is out for over 1/4 of the day.  There were lots of guests there from all over, lots from Canada and of course they were all so surprised about our trip but also Trev getting thru the rivers etc.  We were told to move the bike under the covered area in case the "wild elephants" came into the compound that night and took a liking to the bike and wrecked it!!  Yes apparently 3 weeks ago they came into the compound and wrecked one of the cuppolas, broke into the storage shed and took off with some rice and cookies, funny!  They also told us that when the female elephants are in heat, the wild elephants know and come and "service" the female elephants and then take off again, that would be scary especially since the female elies are chained up.

Everybody was in bed well before
 last call

Out on the Landrover Safari in search of tigers.

Early morning mist on the river

Sun Rise and already up again