Chitwan National Park

It is hard to believe that Chitwan and Kathmandu are in the same country, here it is quiet, beautiful and relaxing compared to the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu.  We got here by bus which took about 6 hours through mountain roads.  The hostel is lovely; only the river separates it from the National Park and each night we watch a gorgeous sunset over the river.

On our first day we walked through farm villages to find the Elephant Breeding Centre; the elephants soon returned from a days work in the jungle carrying bamboo and grass leaves for their tea.  We particularly fell in love with a mischievous younger elephant, who I named Mildred, who liked to whip around her grass prior to eating it!  Very cute.

Our second day we wandered down to the river to find the elephant starting their bathtime!  It was an Indian man was first to ‘help’ and he was allowed on top of the elephant and got given a shower from the elephant’s trunk.  When his turn was finished the trainer pointed at Chris and said ‘you next?’ but before Chris could fully contemplate this, my shoes and socks were off, the camera was throw to Chris and I was in the water J This was one of the best experiences ever, being allowed to be so close to an elephant, climb on its back in a river and be soaked by it showering you was AMAZING!!  Best £1 I’ve ever, ever spent!

Day 3 was jeep safari.  A whole day in the National Park which was amazing to see, so vast and the scenery constantly changed.  It was a good day with lots of deer and monkeys spotted, a few rhino, wild boar, peacocks, crocodiles and tucans...the elusive tiger nowhere to be seen though!  A day in a jeep leaves you a little saddle sore I must say!  And our fellow passengers made interesting company...we suspect were eco-warrior lesbians!  It was a good day and we got a brief canoe ride to pass over the river from the National Park back to our resort.

Today, our final day in Chitwan, it was Chris’ time for a bath!  So off we went to find some elephants.  Now when we go horse trekking Chris always gets the laziest, sleepiest horse; today we found out that this pattern is not exclusive to horses!  Chris’ elephant was much happier being lay down and scrubbed in the river than doing the hard work of showering Chris!!  In the afternoon we did Elephant Safari on Gertie.  This was brilliant.  We saw more animals on elephant back for 2 hours than we did all day in a jeep!  At one point we were so close to a Rhino if I had straightened my leg out I could have touched it!!

Chitwan has been brilliant!  But tomorrow we move on to Pokhara – another long bus journey beckons!  We’re hoping this is where we will start our trek to the mountains, but we’re still waiting for my cold to clear as I can’t go up to high altitude with snot!  Will post again soon & more Chitwan photos to follow.

Lots of love K&C

Thoughts on Kathmandu

We’re having an amazing time in Kathmandu. It’s so different from anywhere that we’ve been before. Certainly it was intimidating when we first arrived because of the sheer volume of traffic and people on the streets. Everyone wants to be a guide for you / drive you somewhere or sell you tiger balm, daggers, hash, singing bowls etc. However there are also really friendly people who do just want to say hello!

Thamel, where we’re staying seems like a very touristy place but it’s come to feel like home in Kathmandu. It’s certainly as busy as the rest of the city but it’s got an underlying friendliness to it. We know what to expect and it does seem to have everything you could want (a lot of it fake), all in the millions of stalls selling the same items! It does lack electricity for the majority of the time. It seems power cuts are extremely common across Kathmandu and I think we’re lucky if we get about 8 hours within a day, hence why only 12 photos managed to get uploaded the other night. We can’t tell when the power cuts will begin and end during a day so at times Thamel is bursting with music and lights and then it all goes dark and if it’s night time we get out the head torches.

Today we’re taking it easy as Kat has a cold at the moment but hopefully some tiger balm will help! It’s nice to have the time to be able to have a day off from sightseeing!

The sights we have seen are fantastic and at least one building in every street has real character but for the most part they just haven’t been well preserved which is a shame. We’ve seen numerous Stupas (some giant!) which are pretty shrines with Budda eyes, golden tops and lots of multi-coloured prayer flags streaming down around them. We’ve been to Durbar Square which features traditional pagodas, buildings and is home to their living goddess and yesterday we went to the Bagmati river where they cremate their dead (nicer than it sounds!) it’s a Hindu hotspot for their religion. We have also seen lots of monkeys, cows, goats and pigeons (they’re everywhere at holy sites).

We’ll be travelling to Chitwan National Park in the next few days where we will hopefully see more wildlife and go on an Elephant safari! We’ll update again while we’re there if we can get internet and hopefully tonight we’ll upload some more photos to Flickr if the slow internet and power cuts allow!

Love C&K

Arrival to Kathmandu.

So we made it with our bizarre route of cheap flights!  There were a few worrying moments like when we were left in Instanbul’s transfer lounge, they took our passports and all the staff disappeared!  Over an hour later to my relief she returned with our passports and boarding card!  And then there was running through Sanjah airport as we arrived 50min delayed with only a 45min connection, with a man on a walkie talkie telling them to wait for the ‘kathmandu five’ and finally on arrival at Kathmandu there was a worrying 20mins where Chris’ bag was nowhere in sight – but it was finally found, hurrah!

Kathmandu is like nowhere I’ve ever seen before – haggling for a taxi as soon as we started to leave the airport, cars everywhere, bikes everywhere and pedestrians for good measure!  The rules of the road seem to be beep your horn and hope for the best!  Our hotel is basic but seems nice enough (there is a distinct lack of toilet paper but we do have very slow free wifi!).  We have only briefly ventured out into Thamel, backpacker capital of Kathmandu, but we’ve had some very nice dumplings for 50p and got some water for the room.  We’re planning a walking tour tomorrow to Durbar Square for our first look at some temples.

We will keep you posted on how we get on in Kathmandu!

Love K&C

Tomorrow!!!

So we finally set off tomorrow to begin our big adventure and it seems like it's come around fast. I updated the travel plans page earlier to show the countries we're visiting and some rough dates so you can get an idea of our timeline. Below is the map surrounded by our farewell cards :)

Bags are all packed now and this is what we'll be living out of for the next year or so. Seems to mostly be lotions and potions that take up all the space, very few clothes and no shoes but the ones on our feet! Kat's bag has been changed since the photo to become more streamlined however the camera's packed now so this will have to do as evidence...

Will update again sometime after we arrive in Kathmandu. 

Excited!!!