2 January 2009
It was still dark when we headed from the hotel through the back steets of Kantipath. We did realise that Kathmandu does have a garbage system other than burning it in smouldering piles, no idea where they take it, probably dump it in the river cnsidering all the rubbish in and around that.
We found our bus very easily and departed at 7am, even with people still trying to get on, not sure why they bother to get you to arrive at 06:30am.
The bus ride was the same way we also took to Besi Sahai/Pokhara and wasn’t too bad considering the state of the roads here in Nepal. At least this journey won’t involve walking up a mountain, although I did keep looking at the hills knowing I could climb them if I wanted too.
We had a breakfast at a sort of tourist spot but we just stretched our legs.
Finally arriving at what we thought was a pre-arranged spot, to find there was 9 of us and a little taxi with 3 seats, so we did a ferry system arriving at a hotel, which in no way resembled the inforamtion we had been given and wasn’t even in the National Park but inside the town. On further questioning of the receptionist, this place is the transit hotel where we have lunch before the final drive to Jungle Island Resort. Whew thought I would have to go balistic at this. So after a very ordinary lunch we boarded a smallish minibus which took us through some very rural areas where the housing was very similar t Jaisalmer – houses made of dung and polished so much you could eat off the floor.
The road soon turned into a dirt path and we finally got off at a sort of jetty where we were met by a wooden boat and ferried across the other side of the river. We disembarked and walked along a forest trail to a very basic lodge where they have power from a generator between 3:5pm and 9pm.
Our room is clean and simple, similar to the lodges on the trek. So we got organised and headed back to the meting place at 3:30pm for our elephant ride. We got on the elephant the easy way via a set of stairs into a Howdah and on the elephants back. There were 3 of us, I was wedged behind the driver and SB was on my left with a very hard wooden pole between his legsl.
We headed into the forest and almost immediately stumbled onto a Rhino which we followed for a while, before continuing along some other tracks seeing wild boars, deers and a hornbill. The ride was lumbering and you are so high it gives you a different perspective. After 1 1/2 hours we headed back to the lodge for some R&R as dinner wasn’t until 7pm. SB retired to the bar area and I stayed inside the room where it wasmarginally less freezing than outside, but only marginally. We joined a table containing mainly Americans for dinner, but they were probably the best travelled Americans we have ever met.
After dinner we retired as it was cold and I mean cold and we had a nature walk at 5:45am to get up for.