About 2 hours into the drive we came to a stop in the mountains, with cars stretched out in front of us on the road. We sat for awhile and then everyone around us started getting out and walking around, so I did the same.
It was really a beautiful area we were in, with a river running parallel to the road. It also started to rain.
Twice everyone ran to their cars and we would move up a few car lengths only to stop again. Our driver, Prakish, enjoyed the time to take multiple smoke breaks.
Finally, we slowly inched down the hill. It turned out there was a mudslide that had closed the road and now it was open with only 1 lane.
We moved pretty slowly for awhile, and I fell asleep. The whole journey ended up taking 9 hours to get to Chitwan, and then it took some time to find our hotel, Green Park Resort. It was not a resort, but did have the nicest room we stayed in Nepal.
We ate dinner at the hotel: Thali with Dahl and also chicken curry and played some banana grams.
I was really struggling with the travel and even though I slept most of the day in the car, I could barely keep my head up eating dinner, so it was another early night.
We got up early the next morning and in an attempt to have some energy during the day, I decided to take my malaria pill at night. I don't know if this was the difference, but this was the first day I felt good in Nepal, my energy was back!
We ate breakfast at the hotel as a stream of elephants went by: rush hour at Chitwan.
We were driven into the park and got on a elephant to explore the park. Chitwan has one horned rhinos, Bengal tigers, crocodiles, spotted deer and lots of birds. Nepal is very proud to report they lost no rhinos or tigers to poaching during the last two years.
We came across this rhino hanging out in the water hole and then he stood up as our elephant got closer. A beautiful creature and lived up to the rhinos' reputation of being shy animals.
We also saw several spotted dear, peacocks and our guide said he saw a bear, but we didn't see it.
After the elephant, we then road a canoe down the river. The humidity was really strong and the river gave just a little coolness.
We saw a few crocs, birds and one monkey. The monkey looked much healthier than the ones on the street in Kathmandu.
Overall, Chitwan was a nice stop - but we didn't see any tigers. We had some more curry for lunch before getting on the road for Bandipur.
This goat was very interested in my backpack.
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