Chitwan National Park and Kathmandu

Hey Guys!

Mike and I left Kolkatta on August 1st on a train that was scheduled to take 16 hours to get to the border of Nepal at a town called Raxaul which is a major trade route between India and Nepal. Considering none of the previous trains that we took have been on time it turned into just under 20 hours. We were both so tired from taking extra afternoon shifts in volunteering the week before that we were both banking on sleeping for most of the trip as it was an overnight-er. Well as with all traveling you need to be a little flexible, especially in India. About halfway though the night I was woken up by a horde of Indians wearing orange piling on our car in the aisles, between beds and putting down mats wherever then could. They were all wearing orange because that is the apparel of the Hindu pilgrims in the festival of Puja which is around this time of year. This had never happened before so Mike and I think that it was an overflow of people who didn't have any room in the third class seating and had to make do and find other places to stay on the train. There were so many people flooding the train at once that one man opened up the window above my bunk and hoped in through the window over my legs. Mike even ended up sleeping with another Indian for much of the rest of the train ride! As I was lying down in my bed one Indian sat right down near my feet. I knew where this was going, so I made sure and not budge an inch. That lasted for about 5 hours, two of which were spent with me trying to hold back the urge to pee. I knew that the second I got up it would be a free for all for my bed. Sure enough, I got back and three orange, puja-clad Indians were in my seat. By that time the man sleeping in the same bunk as Mike had left, so I went to the upper bunk to chill with him.

We finally made it to Raxaul and walked for about twenty minutes to the border and almost passed into Nepal without getting the official exit stamp on the Indian side of the border. The office wasn't well marked, there was a TON of traffic and there was nothing stopping us from crossing over easily. We finally found this little dusty office near the border, got the stamp, made it through and went to the Nepali border stop on the other side of the bridge in Birganj, Nepal. From there we boarded the first of many Nepali buses through the mountains. It left at 2:30pm and we made it into Tandi Bazaar at 6:30 which is a little over 3 miles outside of Sauraha, Nepal, on the edge of the Chitwan National Park. We found a little budget place there, Chitwan Rest House and stayed in little mud huts which actually happened to be very nice! The staff was amazing and hung out with us for a few hours under a little straw hut while we ate some amazing spicy Nepali curry and made plans to wake up early the next morning to go on a two day jungle walk. We had read up on the rhinos, tigers and sloth bears many times to know how to react if we came upon one that seemed aggressive. We set out a little after 8am and had to cross a river to get into the park. Sure enough, even before we got in the boat, our guides, Poohban and Pasun pointed out a crocodile poking its eyes and snout just above the water in a marsh. Alright, here we go! The guides were very experienced and had years of experience between the two of them so I wasn't worried. We walked through a heavily forested area of the jungle for a while followed by large expanses of 8-13 foot tall grasslands. Every few hours we would come across a lookout tower in the grassy areas where we saw many different species of birds, monkeys, deer and other animals and various crazy looking insects including a bright yellow and green caterpillar which the guides said was in the most poisonous one in all of the forest. Luckily their easy to spot! That night we made into a place just outside of the park as you can't stay inside the national park at night. The place we stayed at was another mud hut, but was just built 6 months ago. It was just about as nice as you could think of a mud hut. Mud walls, floors, and a mud bathroom, equipped with a squatty potty.

We ended up having another amazing Nepali dinner and sharing much of our food with our guides. Nepali people are also very into their homemade wines so we sampled the local white wine selection...ok actually more than sampled. Nepalis don't drink socially, they drink to get drunk. So about halfway through our first few "wine glasses" aka Moonshine, our guides also gave us their portion. Needless to say we were well under our way after about an hour and a half. We ended up sitting around chatting with the guides and the family of the owner of the mud huts until late into the night. We would have felt horrible the next morning if it weren't for a massive amount of food that they served us at 10pm. We ordered chicken beforehand. It wasn't much but seeing as they didn't bring us anymore food, we thought that was our dinner. I don't think I've ever eaten so much rice in my life! We ended up drinking a TON of water afterward, then headed off to bed.

The second day of the jungle walk turned out to be much like the previous day until later on in the afternoon when our guides decided to get off the trail for a little break. We hung out for a while in our tree stand for a few minutes when I spotted a wild elephant! As we took pictures the guides seemed to be discussing something intensely in Nepali which we couldn't pick up on at first. Even through the elephant was a long way off, Poohban was very adamant about leaving. We found out later on that it was for a good reason. He knew that elephant well as it had recently trampled someone a few weeks earlier. If we had not stopped at this tree stand when we did, within the next 3-5 minutes we would have been dangerously close to the elephant! So that was a bit intense. We walked for a ways afterward and finally crossed the river to make it back to Sauraha to finish up the journey. Couldn't have crossed at a better time as there were two rhinos waiting for us on the other side of the river! We were looking for them for 2 days without finding any. Ironically we finally had to leave the park to find them.

We stayed that night in the Chitwan Rest House and got up early the next morning for an elephant ride through the jungle. It was nice to simply ride and not walk for a while. The animals were much friendlier as well and we got within a few feet of various types of deer and wild boars.

After the elephant ride we took a five hour bus ride to Kathmandu and are currently staying at the Kathmandu Guest House which has been amazing. It has HOT water! That was the first hot shower we've had in over a month. Beautiful. Today we went around Kathmandu and made plans for our 7 day trek in the Langtang region of Nepal which will start tomorrow morning with a bus ride we have to be ready for at 6:20am!

Sorry for the grammatical errors/if anything is a bit confusing. I haven't had much time to type tonight as we've had errands to run and are meeting a few Spaniards for dinner that we volunteered with in Kolkatta. They also just happen to be in Kathmandu!

Enjoy and God Bless,
Kyle