Going to Chitwan...

Family & Friends,

Since I am still behind in my blog, although I have been working diligently to update it (I hope you can tell!), I wanted to let you all know that I booked a three night/four day trip to Chitwan National Park today.

Chitwan is the oldest national park in Nepal and lies approximately five hours south of Kathmandu. The park primary is home to the Indian Elephant, One Horned Indian Rhino, Marsh Mugger, Gharial and many species of bird, but it also is home to the Bengali Tiger and leopard, as well as two varietals of monkey: the stocky rhesus macaque and the bandar.

I am going to be leaving on Tuesday morning and will be staying outside the park at Hotel Parkside on the first night so that I can visit the Elephant Breeding Center, which supplies most of the elephants to the hotels outside the park for their safaris, since most of the hotels inside the park have their own private elephants. This will give me a chance to see many elephants at once, and, most importantly to me, the chance to see baby elephants at play.

The second and third nights I will be staying inside the park at the Island Jungle Resort, which is located on a large island on the west end of Chitwan. Being inside the park has the advantage of, naturally, being surrounded by the jungle, but it also allows visitors to take more frequent elephant rides since they are owned by the resort.

I feel lucky to be able to partake in both programs, which I had to pay a little extra for, but I had the help of an excellent travel agency (the same one I used for my rafting trip), so I am sure I am good hands! It should be a great time, and I look forward to writing you all the details of it when I return.

Until then, I plan on using my day tomorrow to try to further update my blog. Again, I apologize for it taking so long. I know that you all are looking forward to seeing photos from Nepal, but I would like to take the time (and extra effort) to write it properly, rather than put together a collection of scrapes. I hope you understand and enjoy the stories on Europe in the interim, however.

I hope all is well in your individual lives and look forward to hearing from you all soon!

Love,
C.J.

P.S.- After Chitwan I plan on trekking the Annapurna Circuit, which goes over the Thorong La Pass, and Sanctuary, which ends at the Annapurna Base Camp and is completely surrounded by the Annapurna mountain range, starting around April 1. The trek should take approximately 30-days. As always, I will try my best to update my blog in the interim.