Nepal - Chitawan - Day 2

This day was the busiest of our tour of Chitawan, by design. We had breakfast early and joined another couple and Babu in the foyer to drive around to the canoe trek starting point. The morning’s activities were to involve a float down the River Rapti on the canoe spotting wildlife. Then docking on the river bank and walking up to a crocodile breeding centre and then home.

Some of the local residences near our resort

The landscape behind the resort – farm paddocks (rice paddies, currently sown for corn) with Nariyana town in the distance

Floating down the river on the canoe in the jungle quiet and the cool air on the water was really pleasant. The jungle landscape on the side opposite the resort – within the Chitawan National Park – was wild and beautiful. We saw a rhino as we were boarding the canoe and it was only really moments before we started seeing wildlife on the river bank (on the resort side, surprisingly to me) – a couple of Marsh Mugger crocodiles, a couple of Gardial crocodiles in the river, several different birds, and then Babu pointed out the Rhinoceros standing up the bank in the long grass. As we floated by he (Babu said it was male because of the three holes on its neckline) turned to watch us. Great photo opportunity though challenging for my phone’s camera to deal with the distance.

The Marsh Mugger has a rounded snout (like Australian salties) and is so named because it lives in the marsh lands and mugs its prey. We also saw both spotted deer and hog deer. All of those sightings were on the non-National Park side. On the National Park side we saw a mongoose (briefly) and a peacock and some Rhesus Macaque monkeys at a distance. For a 40min canoe ride, it was pretty loaded with wildlife spotting. We definitely got the sense that we were on the edge of the jungle.

A rhino breakfasting across the river at the canoe launch site	The Chitawan National Park from the canoe
One Marsh Mugger crocodile in the wild	Another Marsh Mugger crocodile in the wild
A pair of Gardial crocodiles in the river	Another Gardial crocodile in the river
First sighting of the rhino on the bank in the grass - can you see him?	The rhino looking directly at us. Babu said that they have very poor eyesight, but acute hearing and smell
Floating past the rhino	Still going past the rhino

The walk up to the Crocodile Breeding Centre was through the Riverine Forest at the edge of the Chitawan National Park. This jungle/forest is very different to any I’ve been in before and occasional looks like open Australian bush but never for very long.

The Crocodile centre was immersed in the forest. It involves a series of pens in which the crocodile eggs are laid and then the crocodile hatchlings all live until they are about 5-6 years old. The pens have sandy banks and concrete ponds in which the crocs can bask, swim, and feed on the dead fish provided by centre. (All the crocodiles are Gardial, which is a fish-eating crocodile). When they are old enough to be released are moved into Elephant Grass pens in the river. There they learn to hunt live fish that creep through the woven pens. Eventually, the pens disintegrate and the crocodiles are back in the wild.

The entry to the Gardial Regeneration Breeding Center	Baby crocodiles in their pens. Easy photography subjects as they are motionless.
Crocodiles about 3 years old, basking	A big, old male in the water and a female on the bank

After surveying the various crocodiles in their pens – which was remarkably easy as they were just lying there, motionless, the entire time we were there – we walked back to the canoe. We crossed the river to be collected by the resort jeep and driven back to the resort.

After our lunch, we met with the couple who had been on the canoe trek with us and Babu and climbed aboard the jeep again for the afternoon’s jeep safari. This turned into a five hour jeep ride around the Chitawan National Park jungle and grasslands looking for wildlife. The first few hours of the safari passed without much in the way of wildlife at all, in the baking sun, on a rough, un-made track, bouncing up and down in the jeep. (Definitely a theme of my Chitawan excursion – being bounced around in slow-moving vehicles). However, after the halfway point, as the heat was coming out of the day and the sun was lowering in the sky, the wildlife started to make appearances. On the safari we saw more deer of both types, peacocks in increasing numbers as the day wore on, Langur Monkeys, Rhesus Macque monkeys, and notably (domesticated) Asian Elephant.

What the jungle looked like from the jeep	What the grasslands looked like from the jeep
The Rapti River, West of our resort	The Rapti River, West of our resort
Langkur Monkeys	Langkur Monkeys

The close up experience with the elephant was really lovely. I’ve never been really close to an elephant before and certainly never touched one. The old female we first saw was very patient with us. We then went to interact with another female being ridden back from the river by her handler. There was a baby too, but we were not allowed to interact with it, understandably. The young female was also patient with the tourists buzzing around. She had a trick that we were shown where she would pick up a note from the ground with her trunk and hand the money to her rider. A very clever tips collection approach.

The older elephant, already housed for the night	With the handler present, Ayreen touches the elephant
The younger adult elephant waits to be greeted	The baby elephant heads for home (no interaction allowed)
Ayreen touches another elephant	The younger adult elephant

The other must-do thing that we (Ayreen particularly) wanted to see was a peacock dancing for its peahen. Even though we were seeing peacocks everywhere by the end of the safari, we hadn’t seen that. However, we were blessed when we were leaving the coffee stop that we had near Lami Lake to see a peacock with the full display being shone around the lake like a searchlight. And it was working, we saw several peahens pay him some interest, though it didn’t look like any of them stayed around for the after party.

A Spotted Deer buck on the road. I’m not sure how he manuevers those antlers in the jungle	A large peacock in the jungle (centre-left)
A herd of Spotted Deer on the grasslands	Lami Lake from the spotter’s tower (coffee stop)
Peacock in full display (centre)	Peacock in full display (reverse face)

Babu extended the jeep safari for us by visiting another lake in the national park where he believed we’d see bears. Our jeep friends had been on the safari the night before and had seen the bears at this lake, so hopes were high. Unfortunately, we travelled quite a way to get to the lake and no bears were found.

Finally, we were driven back to the resort just as the sun was setting (but we’d already done that!) and had enough time to freshen up before having dinner and retiring for the evening.