Trip to Chitwan

August 6, 2006

Hey everyone! It seems like a lifetime since I have wrote one of these blogs. I really have to be in the mood it seems! Well – I will update you on what has been going on!! Last weekend (July 28- 30) Neer, Jeanine, Gasing, Kayun, and I went to Chitwan for the weekend. It is a national park and a jungle full of crazy animals that you don’t normally see! It is a 6 hour drive from Kathmandu valley. So, we began our trip very early last Friday morning. About half way to Chitwan we stopped at a place where we were booked to go white water rafting. It was probably the most exciting thing I have done in quite a long time! It was so fun!! This time of year rafting is not recommended because of the level of the water. I’m not sure what the means exactly but that’s what I was told. So, Neer told us that we couldn’t go rafting at all during our stay in Nepal but being myself I kept on until he checked it out said we could go! Everyone loved it! And it cost like $20 CAD to raft for 3 hrs! The waves were huge. It was so exciting for me! Aha. When rafting was over we drove the rest of the way to Chitwan half wet and completely dirty! The resort was really nice where we were stayed. Where ever we go we are always blown away with the resort. I think there is a close correlation there with the amount of money we pay though!!! Haha. Hotels are so cheap here. It’d ridiculous! It was so hot there. The entire weekend was close to 40 degrees – much hotter and sunnier than Kathmandu. It was pretty hard to sleep in the heat. The first night we went for a walk with our guide through a village. He told us about the history a little and brought us to a museum and we walked through a home in which a family of 30 people live in. It was a small mud hut. You wouldn’t believe it if you saw it! The grandmother was in her 80’s and out doing strenuous work around the house! It is phenomenal what hard workers Nepali’s are. We had a guide the entire weekend and they had all 3 days totally planed out for us! Whenever we had spare time we would nap! They literally had every waking moment planed! It was great though! They treated us really well. There were only 2 other tourists staying in the hotel besides us. This time of year tourism is down in Nepal. So, Saturday morning we had to be ready for 6:15am. We made our way down to the lake and piled into a crazy canoe that fit about 15 people. There were other tourists there as well. The canoe was made out of one huge tree trunk that takes about 50 days to complete. The sun was already blazing hot! There were wild crocodiles in the river but I figured we would not see one – I thought it would be a rare occurrence. Boy, was I wrong about that! We saw 3 crocodiles in total and I thought I was going to die. At one point there was a crocodile coming right for our canoe as we were also heading towards it! I couldn’t quite understand why the canoe continued to go towards the crocodile! Before I knew it – it was right next to us. I could have literally touched it! I was truly scared for my life! I didn’t say a word – I thought it was game over! All I knew about crocodiles is that they eat people! And it didn’t help that the tour guides were whispering to each other! I was a wreck but it ended quite quickly. After it was over it was really exciting to have seen a wild crocodile so close! That morning we were on our way to see the elephant-breeding center. Elephants are now my favorite animals! They were so cute. I was feeding cookies to the baby elephants, which were still as tall as me! After that we went bathing with an elephant, which I wasn’t too excited about. However, it turned out that we had to be literally kicked out of the lack. We had so much fun! I held on to the ears of the elephant and climbed up it’s trunk onto it’s back! And then it splashed tons of water on me with his trunk – so fun. Then he rolled over and threw me into the river – yes the same river the crocodiles are in! I don’t understand that part still but for some strange reason I was not nervous at all. To tell you the truth the crocodiles did not cross my mind! Strange. So that was fun. Then after lunch we went on an elephant safari ride. All four of us were in a little square wooded box that was strapped onto the top of an elephant. The box was not even one metre squared! To this day I do not know how we got through 2 full hours stuck in that box riding through the jungle. It was fun but a tad bit uncomfortable! We saw rhinos which was cool while we remained nice and safe way up high on the elephant’s back! It was fun. That night after supper we all passed out! Literally! We had an early rise again Sunday – 5:45am. We went bird watching, which I don’t think one of us was interested in! I think we were all too tired to care! It didn’t last too long though. Then we headed back to the resort fro breakfast and to head back to Kathmandu. I was so tired during the whole ride back but I could not shut my eyes for even 5 seconds! The view was incredible. I kept thinking about how lucky I was to be there. I didn’t want to miss a thing. I feel so lucky to be here. Every bit of this journey has already been beyond amazing and I still have a month to go!