Chitwan- I really didn't like you 😞

The bus from Pokhara to Chitwan was only 2 hours late-so a success! I found Mat and Jesper were also on the same bus much to my surprise but they were going to a different hotel. I was brought to my hotel by a jeep, which I thought this was going to be a great hotel- how wrong was I!

Firstly, they said I hadn't booked a room with air-conditioning, I had to argue with them for 30 minutes and show them my booking before they "gave in" and gave me air con. Then there was no wi-fi, TV, wardrobe or in fact any of the amenities listed on booking.com in the room. To make matters worse I was told I could pay by credit card when in fact it was cash only. The manager was some sort of del boy and really annoyed me. The place just wasn't as advertised!

I then had to find a tour to go on to take me to the national park. This proved tougher than I thought because it was really expensive for one person and I needed to find a group to go with. Lucky for me I found a group of Russians who invited me to be part of their group for the day. After agreeing to meet the next day for the tour I went off to explore Chitwan, which was basically two streets of dusty roads, with the occasional elephant wandering around and some tourist shops and restaurants.

I found a lovely hotel to stay in for a couple of hours which had pretty good wi-fi!




Afterwords I went back to my hotel when I discovered I had a roommate. A gecko I named Caroline that made the most horrendous noises all night.

The next day I met up with my Russion friends and started our jungle adventure in a longboat sailing down the river. We had the most annoying tour guide on board, (he insisted on adding to the bird noises in the jungle with bird noises on his phone, constently talking when we were enjoying our peaceful nature boat tour and farting at every moment) and the Russions being Russion kept telling him to shut up. I did manage to see a chrocodile and loads of exotic birds.

We then left the annoying tour guide to meet up with our tour guide who marched us through the jungle for 4 hours on foot. It was sooo hot! But we did manage to see rhinos (one charged us and we had to run away). I got stung by a nettle and asked our tour guide where I could find a dochan leaf. His reply was "its better not to get stung". This was Chitwan all over!

We then went back and watch Anna (one of my new Russion friends) take a bath with an elephant. I could not believe how the elephants were being treated. One boy was hitting the elephant with a stick! These pour elephants were being made to carry humans around on their backs all day. Have them on their backs while being washed and forced to squirt humans with water and then back to being rides again. I felt so sorry for these elephants. I refused to have an elephant bath or ride them.

After lunch we were taken on a jeep safari with some more people. I made friends with a polish group on the tour, they were lovely and invited me out after.




On the safari I saw rhinos, anacondas, wild boar, deer, monkeys, wild pigs, tropical birds, crocodiles- but no tiger!

Although I did see an Indian elephant that is apparently very rare as they migrate from India to Nepal. Although this one was well known in the area. The locals call him Ranaldo as he likes to come to see the female elephants in the elephant house once a week and well you can imagine the rest...

After a very satisfying nature day I went for dinner with the Russians. Turns out Anna lives in Brisbane so I am going to go visit her on my way to Sydney. They then decided they were going to bed early as they had to go back to Kathmandu tomorrow and I joined my Polish friends in a Bar for the rest of the evening. The evening proved to be quite eventful as not only did we get to listen to some really good live music but a rhino escaped from the nature reserve and roamed the streets. We had to wait in the bar until the rhino passed.



Eventually I made my way back to my hotel only to find they had shut the gates and I had to climb over a fence. When asked about the curfew the next day the reply was " its 10pm and we only tell people about it if they ask". Unbelievable!!!

The Saturday was uneventful as I just wondered around Chitwan looking for an ATM to pay them with cash, none worked but eventually after the power cut was over I found one that worked. I then spent some more time at the hotel with the good wi fi and came back to my room to discover Caroline had brought some more visitors and spend the rest of the night listening to them squawk at each other.

I couldn't wait to leave Chitwan and was actually looking forward to getting back to my hotel in Kathmandu. However a 6 hour bus journey turned into an 11 hour bus journey from hell. They closed a road for 4 hours and then there was so much traffic. The air con didn't work very well, there were no toilets and I wasn't feeling well. Worst bus ride ever!!! The only thing that made up for it was a group of Chinese boys looked after me for the journey.

I really didn't like Chitwan, the tour was really disorganised, there was rubbish everywhere, the hotel was a disgrace, the people didn't seem to know what was going on and everything closes at 10pm. The only consolation was I did see some cool wildlife and met some lovely people. I'm not the biggest fan of Nepal but I'm glad I went although I don't think I'l go back in a hurry.