Chitwan National Park

Day 19
After spending the day in a bus from Pokhara to Chitwan, I was finally here. This legendary place that I had heard so much about. I had my first meal of the day in the hotel bar at around 14:00. I got a "jungle trekkers lunch" that consisted of Fried rice, two boiled eggs, black tea, orange juice and fresh fruits. After I was finished eating, I went to the reception to get the arrangements for tomorrow done. I will go walk in the jungle for 3-5 hours and have lunch, after that I'll take part in a jeep safari for 5 hours.

I almost forgot the time, until a guide came knocking on my door at 15:30. The hotel I'm staying at gives all of its guests a free, short walk in the Park outskirts. I grabbed my camera and jacket, and we headed out.

Three minutes after we left the hotel, I saw the first elephant of my life. They are so common here that people use them as working animals. This one was carrying a bunch of straw, used to build

roofs, and apparently it was a "private elephant". The guide told us that they are not allowed in the park because they are trained and owned by locals. After another two minutes or so, the guide stopped us and pointed to a tree. This was the first time I saw a Toucan. We kept walking and after reaching the park, he told us about the crocodiles in the river below. They can become over 5 meters long, and when they crossed the river and climbed up the bank towards us, he told us it was time to leave. While we walked further into the park, "Assis" told us about the many birds in the park, we saw deer, peacocks and more toucans. We ran into another group and they where all super excited. Assis told us to run after him, as one of the other guides told him there was a rhino up ahead. I ran after him and started my camera. It is a thrilling thing to stand 30 meters away from a wild rhino. When the rhino walked towards us, the guides told us to calmly back. They don't see very well but they hear and smell a lot, that means you calmly walk away, even if the rhino is looking at you and walking towards you. It was hard for me to back away, because I have never seen something like this. I stuck around as long as I could but in the end, had to walk away because the rhino got a bit too close.

Two wild dogs followed us all the way to the area where the government elephants lived. These where huge male elephants, trained since childhood to be used for hunting, patrols and over all work in the park. They seemed to treat them well, but they did not have a very big area to move around in, they get to walk in the park all day with their drivers though. After visiting the elephants we walked back home. Never would I have guessed to see so many new animals in one day, I'm so happy I decided to go here!

I'm looking forward til tomorrow, and also, the dinner I'm about to eat.

Day 20
We headed down to the river at 06:30. The park starts at the other side and you had to go over by small wooden boats. I had two guides with me, they told me about the different kinds of animals to watch out for and what to do if we encountered them. We started walking through the part of the park that was made up from rain forest. Five minutes into the trek and we already spotted fresh tiger foot prints. I put my hand next to one of them and the guides laughed, "this is a big ass cat brother". The guides told me that we had a very big chance of finding tigers, and I was more excited than I used to be for christmas as a four year old. During our walk the guides stopped many times, to show me different plants and birds, we had berries and vegetables to eat as we walked through the forest. Among other things, the park had wild peacocks. During night they all took shelter in the trees and in morning they where screaming whenever we got close. We eventually arrived at a tree house where we had a short break. The guides told me about a killer elephant named "Ronaldo". We never saw him but apparently he had been in that area the day before.

After the break we walked into the grasslands. This was the most dangerous part of the trek because the grass was 6 meters tall and could hide any of the animals in the park, including wild elephants. We walked silently through the grass, and the guides

payed attention to the slightest sound. After some time we managed to reach the lake and we spotted tons of deer, and crocodiles. The crocodiles where over 5 meters long and where really fat. On the way back we didn't see that many animals but I was happy anyway, the nature there was so beautiful in itself that it was okay to not see any tigers, and I also had the entire rest of the day to see them.

I had fried rice, fruits, two eggs and some pineapple for lunch. And at 12:40 it was time for the jeep safari. We had the same starting point as the walk but we headed to the last type of vegetation called; Shal forest. This area had an increased chance of bear sightings and we where also promised to see tons of crocodiles and deer. 40 minutes into the ride, a wild rhino appeared. This one was absolutely huge. It was eating right next to the road, looking at us like we where not even there.

We saw some lizards hanging out in the trees, and after about 2 hours we came to an area where the nepalese government had established a breeding program for an endangered type of crocodile. We stayed here for a 20 minute break and slowly started moving back through another area of the park.

As the sun fell below the horizon, we went back to the starting area, and across the river full of crocodiles. Even if we didn't see any bears or tigers, I was very happy with the day over all, I saw many new things anyway, and had new types of berries and fruit as well.