Chitwan National Park.

At Lumbini there were the cutest little lizards running around, if they knew you had seen them they would run and hide behind pictures etc and you would just see there little faces peeking out now and again.   Can you spot one just above the picture? 

After a lovely night in Lumbini we headed for Chitwan National Park. All the tour group were looking forward to this as  we were going on a jeep safari. On the way we stopped off at a roadside cafe, it looked really dodgy, not the type of place I would normally consider going in, but our tour guide took us and we trusted his judgement and well we were in the middle of nowhere, what else 

were we to do. As we walked in the door, I thought my sister, Denise would not be happy about this! 

Anyway we sat down at a big rustic looking table, as I glanced around I realised we were sat beside a double bed, so they obviously slept in that area at night. Open plan you might say! Some people left so they decided to move our group to another table with a scenic view, if we looked one way we could see over a valley into woodland and if we faced the wall we could see lots of ants trying to manoeuvre a dead stick insect which was huge in comparison to them into a very small opening. It wasn't happening but quite interesting to watch, they persevered.

After our meal which was from a very limited menu, most of us had veg thali a traditional Nepalese dish, as we avoided the meat version, we headed back to the bus. The dishes we had just used were being washed by a young boy at a well outside, he was using a cloth to wipe them down. The bus driver asked for the cloth, the boy gave it to him, the driver wiped his shoes with the cloth then gave 

it back and the boy continued to use it to wash the dishes. Yum! 

The well which was used for the dishes, these are common and are dotted outside houses, you sometimes see people sat in the platform area having a bath/wash. 

The road to Chitwan was beautiful, everything seemed so green and lush compared to India and I even saw a herd of cows in a field which had a stream and they were sheltering from the sun under trees. Looked blissful and I thought to myself how lucky those cows were. 

A man and small child walking in a rice paddy.

After another long journey we ended up at our lodge, which again was lovely. We had a nice room
and strangely very good wifi, seeing as we were in the middle of nowhere! Some of the big hotels in
the cities struggled to have good wifi and here we were out in the sticks with a good reception. I
know it probably doesn't work that way , but about computers,I know nothing!

Early the next morning we headed out on a jeep safari. We were in the leading jeep to start of with which was lucky as we saw a huge crocodile on the road, which crawled in front of us and slithered down into the river. We also saw lots of deer, three different types and more crocodiles in a lake area. There was also one monkey up a tree. Although the safari was good, I would have liked more
information from the guides about what we were seeing, we weren't told what type of deer or crocodile etc.
 

Later in the morning we got the chance to wash an elephant. I thought we would have an elephant in the water and be given brushes etc to wash it down. When we got to the river, I found it didn't quite work that way, me and Anne from the group climbed on its back and then it promptly washed us. I wondered why I was told to take my glasses off! I was lucky in that I got to go back on the elephant with David. I was super clean by the end of it! As a group we had a wee swim in the river, the current was really strong. David and Max , who is also in the tour group enjoyed just being carried along by 

it. I really struggled with the current and found it hard to keep my feet, at one point I had to be grabbed by two of the group as I started to head downstream. 

By the end we were all soaking but had a brilliant time and the elephant when she was lying in the water really seemed to be enjoying it too.