Well here I am and am not in the monastery as planned. We did go to Kopan monastery and it is truly beautiful with amazing views etc. We checked in and eveything then went to the introductory talk. Well there was a lot more meditation on the course than we had expected and the last 3 days were to be spent in silence meditating, that was the bit that we thought " nah", at the end of the day I didn't come away with Soph not to talk to her and I know that we would of found it near impossible not to have a sneaky chat and probably ruin it for others who were there to do that kind of stuff so we upped and left within 2 hours of getting there but que sera sera. We both know that we want to learn about Buddhism and can do it loads cheaper by chatting to Supermonk etc. in McLeod Ganj so that is what we gonna do.
So we are now in Chitwan a nature reserve and this morning we went on an elephant ride. Was absolutely fab. We started out at 6.30 this morning with Nelly and did a jungle safari. As we were riding along we saw a peacock and then our guide stopped the elephant and was saying to me " can you see, can you see" looking through some shrubs and low and behold it was a fucking chicken!! Didn't really come all the way to Nepal to see chickens but I made out I was really excited anyway as didn't want to dissapoint him as he was very excited about it. As our ride went on we saw some deer ( again not that excited by them ) but then as we carried on we came across a mother and calf rhino!!!!! wow wow wow, will put some photoes up tomorrow, it was amazing she was just lying in some water with the calf resting on top of her. It was amazing how close we got. Elephants are definately the way to go. As we continued our journey we saw about another 6 adult rhinos and another calf with her mum. Our elephant was gorgeous, 35 years old, and they have the same master (mahoot ) all their lives and it appears that they have a very strong bond and she totally listens to what he says, is very cool.
This afternoon we went on a jeep safari and to be honest after the elephant safari it was like watching paint dry. We drove around with not very good views around as the grass was high and it was hot so I knew that most animals would be shading themselves. At one point I was asleep as we were driving around. For the first 2 hours the highlight was wait for it a fucking chicken!!!! Anyway we carried on and managed to see 2 more rhino which was kinda cool but after the morning was feeling a bit rhinoed out ( what am I like must have A.D.D ) As we were driving home our jeep stopped and we picked up some poor Nepalese guy who works in the park who had been attacked by a sloth bear. The poor guy looked very weak and a bit traumatised I think, it had attacked his arm, probably with his claws . As we were driving back our guides stopped the jeep for us to look at an eagle but we were like, it doesn't matter about the animals just get this guy to a hospital. Anyway our guide assured us he would get to a hospital and we left him at the pick up point.
Last night at our guest house we met a local man who had scars where he had been attacked by a baby rhino that had charged him knocked his tooth out and left a big scar on his arm. Makes me realise that we really are the small fry when we come to these parks. Tomorrow we are off to Pokarra to do a bit of trekking, but to be honest the amount of days we wanna do are getting shorter day by day so will probably end up doing a 4 day somewhere. So until then adios xoxoxoxo
