Elephants, Tigers and Rhinos....Oh My!

After finishing up our Nepal rafting trip we hopped into a beat up old truck and headed towards Chitwan National Park for some elephant safaris. It was a very bumpy and dusty road, I'm pretty sure the truck lacked any kind of suspension. After 2.5 hrs (about 1 hr longer then necessary because our driver had no idea where to go), we arrived at Tigerland Safari Resort. We picked this place because they offered private bungalows and planned everything out for you each day, I was sick of planning.

At dinner that night we were given our first itinerary....Elephant Safari, Elephant Briefing, Lunch, Visit the Croc Breeding Center and a Jeep Safari/boat ride. A very full day, but I was excited to ride elephants first thing. The next morning we loaded up on the elephants (4 people to a small box on top) and off we went. I'm not sure what I expected riding an elephant to be like, but it wasn't comfortable at all. We were sitting sideways, being jolted with every step, and constantly felt like the box was going to slide off.....but it was still amazing. The morning was very foggy, and we couldn't even see the grasslands 50 yrds in front of us, which made for some of my favorite pics of the trip. As our 2 hr ride continued the fog lifted and we were able to spot a couple deer, peacocks and monkeys. We even saw some fresh tiger tracks which were following baby rhino tracks, but had no luck spotting either. We returned to camp where we attended an info session on the elephants and we got to feed one “cookies” and take a picture with it. The croc breeding center was interesting, they were breeding Gharial crocs which have really long narrow snouts. They had them from babies to adults. Then it was off on the jeep safari. We didn't see much on the jeep safari, but as we exited the park to head for our boat ride we noticed a rhino in the field right next to the boats. We parked the jeeps and walked towards the rhino (smart right?!?). I'm pretty sure the German guy with us wanted to pet it, as he kept going much closer then the guard wanted. At one point the rhino turned and growled....it made for some great pics, and I was confident we could outrun the German so all was good. We then headed to out boats for a great sunset cruise down the river. Our second day included a village tour in the morning and then an afternoon elephant ride. The afternoon ride was awesome. We saw 2 different moms with baby rhinos (one was only a couple months old). It was much less nerve racking chasing rhinos via elephant.

Since most people only stay 1 or 2 nights, and we stayed 4 they offered to take us on a private jungle hike with a picnic lunch the next day. They said it would be lots of walking, but since we just finished 485 miles a couple months ago, I was confident we could manage. The next morning we headed out with a guide from the lodge and a tracker from the park. They both carried bamboo sticks for protection, not sure how much they would help fight a rhino or tiger but oh well. First we learned the rules....1 if we see a rhino hide behind a tree, if there are no trees drop something on the ground and hope the rhino gets distracted so you can find a tree, rule 2 if we see a tiger take lots of pictures because there are no safety rules for tigers, if they want to eat you they will (but apparently humans don't taste very good). After our safety briefing I began to wonder just how good of an idea this was. We spent the next 2 hrs quietly walking, we saw hogs, deer, 2 sets of tiger tracks, fresh tiger dung and blood spots we assumed came from a Leopard eating in the tree above us. We had been walking on the road so we had a little visibility, but right after the blood spots our guide decided to go bush whacking through 8 ft tall grasslands, visibility equals ZERO! I jumped at every little noise, almost ran face first into a bunch of giant spiders and was very happy when we made it back to the road. We ate our lunch at an oxbow lake where rhinos typically hang out, but they must have all been on vacation because we didn't see anything. After lunch we continued walking and found fresh rhino dung, shortly after we heard crashing through the woods just to our left. I jumped and my heart rate hit at least 200. Our guide ran into the forest and informed us it was a giant herd of water buffalo, but we didn't actually get to see them. The rest of the walk I was really on edge and jumpy but all we saw was a huge heard of deer and some monkeys. As we made our way back to camp we walked past a guard post and they said a rhino had just passed by 2 minutes before. So what do we do? Start running to find the rhino of course!! Now keep in mind that both sides of the trail were 8-10 ft tall grass so we couldn't see anything, and there were no trees to hide behind. Just when we thought we had lost the rhinos we saw the grass rustling...oh boy there goes my heart again. Our guides ran ahead and then we play red light green light, stop go, stop go....at one point he counted on his hands to 3, meaning there were 3 rhinos about 20 feet from us. SCARY! Our second guide then told us to follow him and we took off running, this time past the rhinos towards trees. We never did see the rhinos, and I was ok with that. About 5 minutes later I hear a crash in the grass next to me, and quickly jump behind the little bamboo stick, it was just a hog and everyone laughed at me, but they all jumped too, I was just faster. We finally finished the walk around 5 PM. It was hot and sticky. I was ready to be done walking through the tall grass that was hiding giant animals.

 We had a great time at Tigerland and would definitely recommend it. The next morning we caught a 25 minutes flight (as supposed to a 12 hr drive) back to Kathmandu just in time for our flight to Bangkok. Nepal was amazing but after a month I was ready to leave. It was so dusty I now understand why all the Asians where those masks around. I had a cough I couldn't kick and was ready to not be sick. I'm sure the beach will cure everything!!

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