It’s the first time in our month of travels that we’ve seen animals treated with such respect, not because of their size, it goes for all animals, they are loved and cared for by their owners. There are only domestic elephants in Chitwan but there is a breading centre not long started (in pics) which is successfully breading and introducing elephants back into the wild.

I think tomorrow we will go on a elephant safari ride for about 2 hrs, we are really excited.  Chitwan boasts an array of rare animals – The One Horned Indian Rhino, Indian Elephants, The Royal Bengal Tiger and Crocodile – but in this time of year it is difficult to see anything through the long grass, apparently.  More on this later.

Most of the tourists come here on a package deal through agencies from Katmandu or Pokhara and stay 2 nights with 3 days activities. Rather than sign up, we headed straight here and planned on bargaining with hard cash – it worked! 

We immediately fell in love with the place and set about finding some accommodation. We went to a few recommended by the Lonely Planet, and settled for Chitwan Tiger Camp because of its river view. The haggling was easy and we secured our accommodation for a mere 500 rupees (£3.50) per double room per night, a bargain.  To put this into perspective, we had budgeted £20 per night.

You will see from the pictures how peaceful this place is.  After the hustle and bustle of India, we needed to re-charge our batteries, and have decided to stay a at least a week.

UNESCO World Heritage Site #4