Chitwan National Park- rafting, rhinos, and elephants, Oh My!

Last weekend I had a 3 day weekend off work and went to Chitwan National Park which is in south central Nepal about 4 hours by bus from Katmandu or Pokhara. A few of the UK med students and I bought a travel package which included a rafting trip, stay at a hotel, canoe trip, jungle walk, and elephant ride along with meals. Chitwan is one of the hottest places I have ever been and most buses and several hotels do not have air conditioner. The temp was around 102-105 F everyday with no breeze and would drop to the mid 90s at night. Houston gets to a similar heat in the summer, but the humidity here makes it feel like a sauna and no AC and no breeze makes it smothering. All and all it was an amazing trip that I would recommend to everyone, but bc of the heat, it isn't one I would do again without AC in my hotel room at night.

Chitwan is the green blotch in south Nepal here. 

The welcome sign by the river

We did river rafting on the Trisuli river that runs alongside the main road from Katmandu to Pokhara. I'm not exactly sure of the class of rapids, but the largest one or two where about 5ft tall from trough to crest, and about 3 of us fell into the river at various times. The river water temp is much cooler than the air temp bc it is all snow melt water from the mountains. We are getting into the Monsoon season and not all rafting companies run during the Monsoon. Our guide let us all jump out of the boat and float around for a bit in between the rapids.

Prep area for rafting groups

Listening to the guide's instructions and getting distracted. 

Our boat crew

Selfie on the cable suspension bridge at the end of the 2hour rafting trip. 

A view of the river from the bridge. 

When you finally get to Chitwan, a few of the strange things you will notice are the large number of police/army guys standing or sitting around a various check sights, and the random elephant traffic on the small local roads. The police are in heavy force to help protect the park and discourage poachers which have become a large threat in the past several yrs with government corruption. Many of the locals have "pet" elephants that they travel around town on. I'm not sure what besides rides and carrying heavy loads they use them for, but they typically keep them in their yards under a covered area. The evening of the first day, we settled into our hotel and then went to a local nightly cultural show preformed by the townspeople.

local traffic 

Traffic jam ahead

Watching the sunset. The main part of the protected park is across the river. 

Tribal Dance with sticks. 

ooooooo fire!

The next morning started with a canoe trip. Before we even got started, we saw a wild elephant wandering around the river bank on the other side. While canoeing, we saw several birds and the two kinds of crocodiles they have here. The locals say the one w the long snout is vegetarian but Google says it eats fish and small children (just kidding). Gharials

curious wild elephant headed toward us

dug out canoes

sardine pack. i'm in the back

it was really difficult to take photos without shifting your body weight which would shift the entire canoe dangerously to one side. 

pic from google. This is the Gharials  crocodile which eats fish. 

pic from google. This is the Mugger croc which is larger and eats small animals and game. It is slightly more aggressive according to locals. 

After the Canoe trip, we went on a "jungle  walk" and saw some amazing one horned rhinoceros which was by far my favorite thing after rafting!! We also saw some deer, wild monkeys, and termite mounds.

baby rhino!!

Rhinos!!

Rhinos!!

Visit to the elephant breeding center. 

A nursing elephant. 

Then we went swimming/bathing with the elephants which was awesome. And later we went on an elephant ride. The awesome thing about being on and elephant besides the fact that you're on a FREAKING elephant, is that the wild animals are not afraid of the elephants and they do not run away as you approach, so you can get really close.

Bathing with elephants

Elephant ride

Another awesome Rhino

Rhino butt

My friends disembarking their elephant. We feed them some bananas as treats after the ride.

 Since the world cup is going on right now and soccer (aka football to the rest of the world) we walked into town one night to watch the Swiss game at a bar. On the way back , the locals would stop us and warn us several times to watch out for the wild elephants that sometimes wander into town. Apparently they can be aggressive at times and cause some damage. Though none of the people could tell us what exactly we should do if we ran into one. I should also mention that Chitwan national park is also famous for its wild Tigers, but they are extremely rare to see.

We spent our third day traveling back by bus to Pokhara. The long travel buses all drop off and pick up from the Tourist Bus Park, which is near the airport in the south part of town.

Tourist Bus Park, Pokhara