Nepal - Chitwan National Park

After the trek, we stayed with the large group of people that we met. One girl, Alex, has been a volunteer teacher in this area for a few months and encouraged us all to come and stay with her. She lives in a hotel, so we got on a bus a few hours after landing in Kathmandu and headed to Chitwan National Park.

This are was beautiful and feels like an entirely different country from the mountains we were in for the last 2 weeks. As the bus was pulling into the lodge, we saw elephants wandering through the fields. The horizon looked like we were in Africa, not Nepal.

The next morning, we got up super early and went with our guide, Gopal. He took us on a canoe down a river, where were saw crocodiles, amazing birds, and water buffalo. We went swimming in the river and bathed with the elephants. That was one of the coolest things ever. The elephants would lie down in the water and we scrubbed them. I was able to climb onto the elephant by grabbing onto its ears and getting hoisted up by the trunk. Some of us would stand on an elephant and then it would sit down and throw us off. Pretty awesome.

We also went to an elephant breeding center. I was a little disturbed by it at first, because the elephants were chained to poles. But after talking to Alex about it more, I have an appreciation for it. The community that raises and takes care of the elephants are so respectful and caring for these animals, and having the breeding center keeps the elephant population healthy.

I also did and elephant safari. It sounds like fun, but it is very uncomfortable to sit in a box on an elephants back for 3 hours. But we saw rhinos and they are cute.

In a short time, we sure did see and do a lot in Chitwan. Tragedy struck the village when we were there though. Nepal is very poor, and in this region, people live in mud huts along the side of the roads and then tap into the electrical wires from there. One of the kids that she teaches got electrocuted by a wire in the house and suffered burns to over 70% of his body. He was rushed to the nearest hospital but he ended up dying shortly after. He was only 9 years old. Alex was really upset by the whole thing, understandably. In a small village like this one, everyone was affected.

The next morning, after some bird watching in the fog, we hopped on another bus to Pokhara. We had to say goodbye to everyone which is never fun. Kimi, Stewart and Peter were all staying in Chitwan with Alex, Aaron had to go back to the US because it was time to work again. Christofer was heading back to Kathmandu and then India. Dale, Denise, Elron and I headed to Pokhara together.