I sit here, in my hotel room, yawning after a long day of being a tourist. As I had a spare day between the clinic in Butwal and the next clinic I was given the opportunity to go to Chitwan to tour Nepal’s national park. Entering Chitwan I soon realised that I was in tourist-land… I actually found it odd to see so many western people in Nepal!
After the 5:50am start I headed down to the river, which is where we jumped in canoes and sat on hard wooden seats for 40minutes as we drifted down the river with our tour guide pointing out all the birds and crocodiles, as well as seeing the odd local down by the riverside.
After the canoe ride I embarked on a 2 hour trek through the rainforest back to Chitwan, It was a great trek where we saw loads of Monkeys, Elephants, Deer.. Rhino poop and Tiger Prints (the latter two were not so exciting!). The forest itself was very beautiful, not too dissimilar to the forests in the UK but with it’s own unique smells, insects, and plants.
This afternoon I found myself diving back into the forest, but this time slightly higher up as I was on the back of an elephant. The ride started off with us riding parallel to some Buddhist monks, which wasn’t something I expected to see! And then we ambled through the forest, sometimes finding our own route away from the main heard of elephants, and then sometimes joining back up with them as we marched through the forest clearings.
So the tourist side of my trip is now over, I thoroughly enjoyed it… but am very much looking forward to getting back into documenting the work of The Leprosy Mission, we are off to visit a self-help cooperative group tomorrow, so stay tuned!
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