Jungle Safari Nepal

Nepal is truly a land of extremes. We went from trekking the world’s highest pass to trekking in the jungle at near sea level. Our weather went from multiple clothing layers for keeping warm to baking in hot, humid weather and wearing layers just to keep the sun off.

We arrived at Sauraha where our host Martina and Polo, the riding dog, picked us up and gave us a ride to our home stay in town.

The home stay is in a rural area where the neighbors, have among many cattle, baby goats. The neighbors were very welcoming and let us play with the baby goats.

A nice home made dinner that Ali prepared at our home stay Boomerang Base Camp.

The next day we headed off into the jungle in Chitwan National Park. Chitwan National Park is located in the south of Nepal near the border with India in the Terai lowlands. The park facilities are very basic and trekking guides are mandatory.  A good idea when there are tigers, bears and other predators just trying to eat you for a snack or elephants, rhinos and other prey ready to trample you as they prevent becoming a snack.

We spotted many birds including eagles, king fishers and many others. Bird watchers would truly love this place.

A giant stork with an unlucky snail in its beak.

This is what the jungle jeep trails look like. Chitwan is a wide open space and animals could be anywhere, so lots of walking was involved.

We spotted wild Rhesus monkeys.

And we found Bambi as well.

We spotted wild buffalo roaming in the tall grasses.

At the end of our first day we even saw wild gharials. Lucky for us they only eat fish! Unlucky for us we saw no rhinos our first day.

So we had to head back the next day. Working elephants are used in the jungle on a regular basis.

Our second day of rhino hunting proved more successful. This one was munching away on the flower bed!

  

Here are our brave guides equipped with sticks to keep us safe from rhinos and tigers. As our guides showed us fresh tiger scratch marks, had us smell tiger pee, which they use to mark their territory, showed us trees clawed by bears, tree trunks rubbed away by itchy rhinos, and even trees trampled over by elephants we were glad we had them there to help us.

On the evening round we got a chance to get up close to a rhino. We had to be very quiet and stay still. They are very interesting animals to watch; the rhinos watch us just like we watch them. This fellow was passing the hottest part of the day in the creek taking a dip.

As we were leaving the park we got rewarded with the flower munching rhino posing for us again. This time it was standing up.

After walking walking 13 miles (21 km) in stifling heat and high humidity we were exhausted, but very happy to have seen so many wonderful animals in their natural habitat and very glad not to have become part of the food chain.