Royal Chitwan National Park

Early morning, I started out from Kathmandu - the first hours being the same as to Pokhara. Only less traffic - in preparation of the elections the whole country was on strike and only vehicles with tourist permit were allowed to cross the country.

lunch stop

I got the last seat on the bus in the driver cabin and could rest my legs on the engine compartment.

street market

In the afternoon, the bus dropped me off in a town and some time later I was picked up from the jeep from the resort I booked. We roamed around a bit until we met another bus and picked up two more travelers from Canada. Then we started the drive to the Machan Wildlife Resort - Paradise View. The road led through small villages, fields and banana orchards.

bungalows in Machan Wildlife Resort

We relaxed in deck chairs and later in the evening listened to a lecture about the flora and fauna of the Royal Chitwan National Park. Some of the slides showed tigers that we hoped to see also in real life.

Early morning, we started on elephants in the dawn and rode around the park for 1-2 hours. We saw kingfisher and other birds, rhinos but no tigers.

mama and baby elephant

rhino couple

After a good breakfast, we learned more about the elephants of the resorts and also got the chance to climb again on the back of the big animals.

Namaste

Riding an elephant

We had lunch at the resort and then set off in a jeep for an excursion through the forest - we saw the left-handed pine that was tearing down trees and killing them.

left-handed pine

lake in the forest

termite hill

In the middle of the park, there was a crocodile farm that breeded gharials (very long jaws) and mugger crocodiles (broad snout, man-eater). We saw them in different age stages from hatchlings to adults.

gharials

Some hundred meters away, we boarded a canoe and were joking about seeing crocodiles and only some minutes later we saw the man-eating muggers lying on the shore and then slowly starting in the water.

a mugger sun-bathing

We continued in the canoe to the sunset with the Himalaya as a backdrop.

In the evening, we had a barbecue, sat around campfire and enjoyed a dance performance of the Tharu people from a nearby village.

Tharu dance

It was a great experience in the resort - only the tigers did not show up. After another night, I returned to Kathmandu by bus and took a taxi to the airport. From there I flew with SpiceJet to Delhi.