Nagarkot
Woke up at 4.30 am preparing myself prior to viewing the sunrise from my hotel balcony. Not much of a balcony actually as it is actually an open space which is perfect for the viewing of the sun that will rise behind the Himalaya range.
The beautiful sun peeking out from the Himalaya.
Chitwan National Park, Sauraha
After the sunrise and breakfast, I was driven to Chitwan National Park which takes 5 hours or so. The distance of Chitwan from Nagarkot is probably only 60 kilometres, however due to the nature of the area (mountaneous range) and the condition of the roads (bumpy and winding) it takes triple the amount of time if we are travelling on a freeway. In any manner I get to enjoy the local scenery and it seems like everywhere you go you are followed by the mountains.
A little bit about Chitwan Narional Park now; it is only one of the two places in the world where you can find the one horn rhinocerous. One horn rhinocerous has since extint in any other countries due to massive poaching by irresponsible individuals (this is caused by the demand for the horn by the Chinese who believed that the horn if ground into a powder form can be used to treat many kinds of sickness and diseases), as such a horn alone from the animal can fetch the price of up to US20,000 and this is excluding other parts of the rhinocerous.
After arriving at Chitwan, the next activity on the itinerary is canoe ride. Yup it was at 3 in the afternoon and the sun was shining brightly above my head. Not very pleasant but went with it nevertheless. The canoe seemed dangerous enough however the depth of the river did not look too scary. Off I went. The canoe ride took about 35 minutes and along the journey I saw many types of birds which I do not know the name but I do know the peacock and kingfishers. There were crocodiles along the banks of the river sunbathing and my guide told me that the crocodile is fierce and dangeroud if it has short snout and the tame one is the long mouth crocodile. Not very comforting as I only saw short mouth crocodiles in the river.
The starting point of my canoe ride.
The canoes
The short snout crocodile sunbathing on the river bank
The canoe ride came to a hault near the elephant breeding centre. Here you can purchase elephant paper made from elephant dung. Ha ha, I did not purchase it of course. At the elephant breeding centre, elephants are fed, bathed and taken care of by the caretaker. The prupose of the elephant breeding centre is to breed captive elephants with wild elephants. The captive female elephants are kept chained to the cemented ground and the wild elephants will usually come from the open jungle at the back of the breeding centre to mate with the females. The female elephants are pregnant for 22 months!!!! Most of the elephants once reaching the maturity age are used as transport by the jungle ranger to guard the National Park against illegal poaching activities.
Elephant Skull
Caretaker tending to the elephants by rubbing soaked herbs on the elephant skin
Baby elephant approximately 7 months old
Ta ta.
