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| Elephant bath time - All my photos |
There are three interesting experiences I had at Chitwan. My main focus on visiting Chitwan was to look for wild Tigers. After a very interesting trip the previous day, which was really great and yielded some very nice Asian rhino photos, this day's activity was around the lodge, an elephant ride to look for rhino and Tigers and a late afternoon boat ride and walk in the reserve.
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| On the river | | |
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| Dirty great Marsh Mugger |
So let's start with the late afternoon boat trip and walk. We had about an hour on the river in a small wooded boat. The river marks the boundary between the national park and the village. Along the river, we passed a few really large marsh muggers, or what we call crocodiles. After a nice boat ride we stopped on the reserve side of the river and started to walk in a bit. Like most of the reserves in Asia, there is an area of duel use - i.e a full on nature reserve, but locals can go into the reserve to collect wood and grass. So, the part of reserve had a lot of " human" paths.
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| Local collecting material in the National Park. |
Apparently, these paths have become a favoured tiger hunting ground. There are a few "man eaters" in the region! We came to a beautiful lake. Apparently a well used water hole for both Tigers and rhinos. So we sit and waited. When I look again, my local guide and tour guide had disappeared. Ok, no sweat. I have been in the bush before. This was late afternoon, and it was starting to get later and later, and still no guides. I was thinking by the time we hit the paths back, we would be in prime tiger hunting time. I was seriously keen to see a tiger, but was not too keen to see one in the half light while walking in the bush on the tiger's favourite human hunting ground!
Eventually the guides arrived and we started walking back in the last light of the day. Suddenly, we heard the sound of people screaming and making a lot of noise. The guides started to walk a lot faster. The noise grew louder and louder, and the guides started to run. They start running so I started to run! No communication from the guides. Guess they were as scared as me!
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| Lake were I waited for tigers and Rhinos |
Eventually, we come to a clearing and the elephant centre. Turns out that one of the tame female elephants was in season and a big wild bull elephant had come to investigate. So I did not end up as tiger poop! Quite an adrenaline rush. Bumping into a wild bull elephant in the half light could have had the same ending as bumping into a tiger!
The morning started off with an elephant ride into the reserve to look for rhino and Tigers. Got some good photos, so I will do a separate post on the elephant ride into the reserve.
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| The Marsh muggers were not very far away |
After the early morning elephant rides, they ( the elephants) go to the river for a bath. The elephants just love the water. Tourists could also swim with the elephants. Some people were swimming with the elephants. This was before my boat ride where I saw the huge mash muggers not more than 500 meters from where the elephant bathing site was. Not sure that the people in the water knew that there are some pretty big flat dogs ( crocodiles) in the water. Maybe the elephants in the water keep the crocs away? People would climb onto the elephants and the elephants would spray them with water. Both elephants and people seemed to love it. Made for some really good photos.
Chitwan is a really good wildlife destination. Very thick bush, so it would need quite a bit of luck to see a tiger, but well worth the effort. I would definitely go there again.
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| One of the locals |
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