Royal Chitwan National Park, April 13th

What a day, what a day, still hard to describe all we did and saw in one 16 hour period. We began by taking a dugout canoe downriver with our guide Kumar in the early morning. We passed people fishing, and saw some birds and long snouted crocs lazing in the mud. We landed on a sand bank and before setting on in to the bush on foot Kumar gave us a little pep talk. You see rhino and he charge, climb little tree, no little tree, run around big tree, round and round, no tree anywhere, run very fast, throw your clothes and bag. You see sloth bear, every one get together, make very big, much noise, scare bear, he keep coming, i hit him on head with stick. I was liking him more and more by the minute. "You see tiger, you freeze, maybe make eye contact and back away slow, you see tiger with baby, close eyes, say namaste and start to run, nothing you can do". great. Here we go in to the tall grass where you can't see more than 15-20 ft and their are all sorts of great predators around. We stalked for a while wandering around looking at birds, when kumar's eyes popped out and made some danger motions. There in the trail in front of us was a big rhino catching a snooze. We backed off and came around for another look, only about 25 ft away, but he woke up and shook his head and we lit out quick. Kumar said, "that one chase me twice all ready". Back at the river we had a lovely refreshing drink at a cafe and then the elephant washing rodeo started. The elephant guides bring their charges down to the water(about3-5ft deep) and then get you to climb on their backs and then they go beserko and try and chuck you off. You can't imagine how much fun this is. Again and again suzie and i climbed on and held on for dear life as they bucked and plunged. I have to say we did quite good compared to many others. We stayed in the water for over an hour just loving to be so near such wonderful animals. If you ever get the chance wild bucking elephant rodeo riding in water is well worth the $3 tip you pay the driver. As if this day couldn't get better, we set off in the late afternoon on elephant back for a couple hour tour through the forest. We were in a little wooden howdah(saddle) with two others, actually really comfy. We're all talking in the first few minutes saying , we probably won't see any rhinos but this is fun anyways. We come around a tree and there is a mom and her baby right in front of our elephant. Mass panic in our howdah as everyone tries to take a pic at once and after a few secs they disappear in to the brush. We think that was awesome but wish it could've lasted. A few seconds later we come out in a field and there are 7 rhinos grazing along with another baby, absolutely amazing. We saw 6 more in the next hour, they were bathing in a mud hole and returned to the riverside amazed at all we had done and seen in one day. Chitwan you done us right.