Unforgettable Nepal
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2008
1
23
25
Trip End
Apr 16, 2008
Kathmandu,
Nepal
Sunday, March 30, 2008
On arrival in Kathmandu we took a taxi to our hotel, on the way we witnessed an accident as the guy in front of us ran into the car in front of him. A few words were exchanged and everyone drove away. Kathmandu is craziness times two. The traffic congestion, the people congestion, the vendors trying to hawk everything you can think of. We booked a day trip to go white water rafting and it was a lot of fun. The launching place was 3 - 1/2 drive away through mountain roads on a rickety old bus. We rafted for about 3 hours, had a shore lunch and the bus ride home was 6 hours because there is only 1 road into Kathmandu from this area and everyone was on it I'm sure
Mom and Baby Rhinos
.The next day we took another bus to Chitwan National Park in the south of Nepal, near the India border. We stayed at Maruni Sanctuary Lodge which is right in the park. Since it is a nature reserve we were there to see wild animals in their natural habitat. However, we first visited the elephant breeding centre to view the new baby elephant that was born about 5 weeks prior to our arrival. It was so cute!
The next morning we went trekking through the jungle with our guide Chuda in search of Tigers, Sloth Bears and Rhinos. We saw 2 kind of crocodiles, the Gharial - a fish eater that can grow up to 7 meters long and the Mash-mugger - a carnivore (man-eater) that can grow up to 4 meters long. No tigers or bears, but we did find a rhino and followed it to a watering hole where we watched him for awhile. When we got back to the river area there were elephants there with their Mahouts (elephant trainer/driver), so we got in the river with them and helped bathe them - or should I say they gave us a wash! We played with them for a while and had lots of fun.
That afternoon we went for and elephant trek through the jungle looking for more animals, this time we saw 10 rhinos in different places including a baby about 3-1/2 months old
Mount Everest and the Himalayas
. We also saw many deer hiding in the jungle. Still no Tigers and bears though. Oh well we got shut out, but thats okay. The next morning we went on a walk with Chuda to Harnahari, a local village and got lots of pictures of them going about their daily lives. The Tharu people were originally from India, but left many years ago as they are Hindu and most of the Northern Indian people are Muslim so they were always fighting. They came to Nepal and were nomadic until others also came and started farming. The Tharu learned from the other farmers and ended up staying here. A few of the homes we saw had Bio-gas systems where they collect the waste from humans and animals and capture the methane gas that is produced - which is what they use for cooking. Since most still cook with wood fire inside of the home this is a big improvement.We decided to fly back to Kathmandu as the bus ride there was supposed to be 5 hours and ended up being about 7 we couldn't even think about the ride going back. A half hour flight or 8 to 9 hours on the bus - it was an easy choice.
We flew from Kathmandu to Bangkok, again over the Himalayas, but this time it was cloudy and hazy so not so spectacular as the first time. Maybe we just got lucky the first time. When we got to Bangkok we had a 6 hour layover until flying to Krabi, and when we went to check in they informed us that we had been upgraded to Business class and that we could use the Thai Silk Lounge area. That was a bonus as we had Internet for a bit, food and comfortable seating areas.
See you next in Thailand.
