We rose early and packed up all our belongings at Hotel Shakti before having to meet Tek and Belinda downstairs to depart Kathmandu. Tek had kindly arranged for a rickshaw to take our backpacks (ours are 90L each and about 180cm long and weigh about 20kg) for the 10 minute walk to the bus depot to catch a modern airconditioned bus towards Chitwan National Park. There were hardly any locals using the bus, as the price of $15USD put it in the luxury travel bracket, by Nepal standards. Tek collected our tickets and after only about 10 minutes waiting in the cold weather (it was sunny and all of about 7 degrees) we boarded the bus.
The windy Prithvi Highway leads out of the Kathmandu Valley and up the nearby hillsides. The road is incredibly bad, with major potholes and hardly wide enough for one vehicle, let alone two. After passing many checkpoints and winding for about an hour, we started the descent into some of the most glorious gorges,I’ve ever seen. There was a gorgeous turquoise coloured river (Tek told me the name, but I can’t remember it) that we later discovered was brimming with trout, and a fly fisherman’s dream with beautiful little rapids everywhere. This is currently the dry season in Nepal and it wasn’t hard to tell, as there was a layer of white dust over the road, the trees and the houses besides the highway. Life here must be pretty tough, as everywhere we have been seems to be incredibly dusty. My constantly runny nose is testament to this!
As I said before, the road was in very poor condition and not very wide, so the 160km journey was going to take approximately 6 hours, with a lunch stop and a bus change. We drove through more gorges via the clifftop highway and saw scarily rickety suspension bridges linking villages across both sides of the river before arriving at a resort in the middle of nowhere, to change buses and enjoy a complimentary lunch. No it didn’t tell me how good I looked, it was part of the fee for the trip from Kathmandu to Chitwan NP. Dhal, rice, noodles and a chicken curry were all on the menu, buffet style. After my recent dependence on toilets, I figured I’d stick with the carbs and go rice and noodles – I am reluctant to go to round two with Giardia as it almost TKO’d me the first time around. Andrew, Belinda, Tek and I enjoyed our lunch overlooking the stunning river before a minibus came to collect those of us that were continuing on to Chitwan, and not Pokhara, as the rest of the bus seemed to be.
The journey took just under 2 hours, and after seeing a bus who had clearly broken an axle and veer off the cliff side of the highway, and perched precariously as well as a tip truck carrying rocks, fall into the embankment to the hill-side of the highway we arrived at the outskirts of Chitwan National Park.
Everyone gets off the bus’ at a centralised spot where a large number of jeeps are waiting to escort guests to their chosen resort. Thankfully ours was all prearranged as part of the Geckos tour, so we didn’t have to be hassled like the poor young couple who hadn’t prebooked and must have smelt like fresh meat to the starving touts, waiting to sell their respective resorts and no doubt earn a commission.
We all jumped into a jeep and drove about 10 minutes to our base for two nights, River View Jungle Camp, arriving about 1.30pm. Whilst the name implies we were camping, we have our own brick cabin with everything we could need, including the obligatory mosquito nets. We met our ‘neighbours’ who are an elderly couple from Canada, who are spending almost a month here and who come every year. The lovely lady even told me I had nice boobs, so I shouldn’t miss out getting wet playing with the elephants in the river, at 11am in the morning. I can’t see what my boobs have to do with that, but I’ll take a compliment whenever I can! I like chatting to Canadians because they make me laugh with how much they dislike the USA. I made mention to tell them that we were hoping to travel for 3 weeks in the States next year, and they quickly told us to change those plans and come to Canada of course.
After settling in and freshening up, we met up with Tek and the resort manager to talk about what our options were for the rest of the afternoon. We were all in agreeance to spend 650 rupees each (less than $10AUD each) and go to the Elephant Breeding Centre. After another quick trip in the jeep we arrived at a river bank and had to walk over a rickety bamboo bridge across the river (it felt a bit silly, seeing as the river was no more than about 15cm deep). We spotted some elephants coming back to the centre after they are let out to spend the day grazing, however we went on a bit of a bushwalk to a waterhole where there was a chance of seeing more wildlife. They were so cute, and looked like they had the potential to be incredibly cheeky! It’s very tempting to want to touch them, however there is a reason elephants are feared by locals, as they can be very temperamental and aggressive.
I went out whilst Andrew had a quick shower (dust removal) and looked left the cross the road to a shop to grab some orange juice, and had to give way to three large elephants being ridden by their mahouts, down the street. Always give way to elephants and remember their poo on the pavement is a bit of a speed bump – it will slow you down when you’re wearing thongs! We enjoyed a lovely group dinner (all four of us!) to welcome us on our first day in Chitwan National Park.
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