Nepal: Chitwan National Park (Sauraha)

Another very early start today and straight out for an elephant safari. We had enjoyed the elephant washing the previous day but the elephant riding turned out to be very uncomfortable. A wooden crate is strapped onto the top of the elephant, the mahout sits in front of this on the elephants neck and four people sit in each corner of the crate with their legs sticking out on either side of a post.

We were rocked back and forth and banged up and down against the crate while being dragged straight through trees for a couple of hours. We all wanted it to end as soon as possible but I think it is probably a very good way to see wildlife. We saw deer, wild boar and eagles. Other groups saw a rhino. The animals were less afraid of us on the elephant and we were safe from anything that wanted to charge us.

We weren't entirely sure that we were safe from our elephant though. She was smaller than most of the others and seemed to be a bit of a temperamental teenager. She tripped over a tree at one point and had a bit of a temper tantrum after presumably hurting herself. She started growling and vibrating and then grabbed and smashed up a tree branch before calming down again. She also frequently disagreed with her mahout as to which directed she should take. We saw the elephant we had been washing the day before and it was massive in comparison.

After the elephant ride we were driven back for breakfast before being taken to our bus. The journey went fine until we reached the outskirts of Kathmandu and our bus came to a unexpected and unexplained halt. We eventually found out that there was a teacher and student strike that was going to last for another 2 hours. We were told that it would take more than an hour to walk into town. We were travelling light so that wasn't a problem. We grabbed our stuff and set off through miles of traffic jams. It probably took less than an hour to get back into town where we stopped for ice cream.