March 6, 2012 - Chitwan National Park

We got up before dawn this morning, again, to begin our journey to Chitwan National Park. I had arranged the trip through a your agency, and was told that we needed to be waiting for the bus at 6:30 in the morning. Therefore, we got up super early, grabbed a cab to Kathmandu, and arrived at our departure location at 6:31. Pretty good. However, when we got there, the office was still locked and boarded up and there was no one else there waiting. We were a bit confused, but j had confirmed with the travel agent the time and location for meeting, so I figured we just needed to wait for a bit. And wait we did. Someone finally showed up at around 6:45 to open the door to the office. He assured us that our bus would pick us up at 7:00 out front. Then he promtly left. Well, 7:00 came and went, as did 7:05 and 7:10. Luckily, the guy came back and knew what bus to look for and flag down. Finally, at around 7:15, our "tourist bus" finally arrived. The term "tourist bus" is used quite loosely in Nepal. It was definitely not what I expected. It was quite full and not that clean. But luckily we were able to secure seats. That was not the case for a few people we picked up later. They were forced to sit in the aisle on small stools. Talk about a fire hazard...

The road leading out of Kathmandu towards Chitwan is actually pretty new, but you would never know. It's a two-lane highway the entire way, and many parts are washed out, bringing the road down to one lane. It's no wonder it took us over seven hours to go the 140 kilometers from Kathmandu to Chitwan National Park. We also had a couple of interesting "toilet breaks" along the way, as well. Simply by stating the word "toilet" does not mean that an actual toilet will be present, but often something else entirely...

We made it to our initial destination, a hotel in the city of Chitwan, after traveling about six hours. The hotel is owned by the same company as the place we were ultimately headed to, Island Jungle Resort inside of Chitwan National Park. After a tasty meal and a real toilet break, we loaded on to yet another bus to take us the last hour or so in to the park. The bus only broke down once, requiring some of the passengers to push, but otherwise the trip was a success.

The resort is located on an island within the confluence of two rivers, so the bus dropped us off across the river and we hopped in boats to cross.

After crossing, we walked through the heat (it's much warmer here...) for about ten minutes to the resort. It is so peaceful here, with only the sounds of the river and birds chirping. Amazing.

After a brief orientation to the resort and a review of our itinerary for the day, we changed clothes and headed out on a jungle walk. Our guide first stopped to warn us what to do in case of encountering a "furious animal." The run-down is as follows:

Rhinoceros (frequently pronounced "rhinosaur" like a type of dinosaur by our guide): Find the tallest tree and climb up at least 6-7 feet. Make sure you accomplish all this as the rhino charges. If you can't climb a tree, stand behind the largest tree you can find and hope you confuse the rhino. If all this fails and you are forced to flee, run in a zig-zag pattern, as rhinos have poor peripheral vision.

Sloth bear: Despite the sound of their name, apparently these small bears are quite fast. And when they attack, they go for the eyes. Scary. If one should approach, you are to stay in a large group, stand tall, and make lots of noise to intimidate them. I wonder if screaming counts as lots of noise...

Tiger: Tigers are rarely seen by tourists in Chitwan, as they tend to stick to less traveled terrain. However, there is the possibility of a chance encounter. Our guides instructed us that, should we encounter a tiger, we should maintain eye contact to intimidate the animal. Furthermore, don't point, as your finger may be confused with a rifle and the tiger will attack. In case of a tiger attack, we are to hide in the bushes while the guides distract the tiger. We then reconvene on the path and head back to our meeting point. What they failed to tell us, however, is who is going to direct us back to our meeting point as the tiger is devouring our guides...

Thankfully, we did not have to take any of the above-mentioned advice to heart during our jungle walk this evening. It was very peaceful and pretty. And we did get to see some interesting sights, including lovebird ducks, monkeys, crocodile, peacock, rhino, and egrets.

And now we are going to fall asleep to the sound of the river trickling and the crickets chirping outside our window. Sweet dreams. Big plans for tomorrow...