I woke up at 5.30am this morning to have a shower. It was cold but at least it was running clean, since being in the hotel this time the tap water has been coming out brown so we've been buying bottled water to wash! It was the first time I'd had a proper wash for a couple of days really, and upon scrubbing I came across a number of bruises that could only be from the previous bus ride! We were hoping that it would be nothing like it this time.
When Liam and I were ready we went to meet Surita, dropped our big rucksacks off at the hold and away we went to catch the tourist bus to Chitwan. Walking through Kathmandu at 6.30am is quite strange, it's quieter and looks really different.We got to the bus at about 6.45 and waited until just before 7.30 before it left. It was a lot more comfy than the public bus. Although my only gripe was that the guy in front of me reclined his chair all the way back the whole way even when he was leaning forward....so I was left with very little room. He knew it was making things difficult for me but didn't do anything about it... I've tried to not let it get to me, it's very trivial, it was still way better than the public bus, and any man with hair as long and shiny as his must have enough problems already without me holding a grudge!
About an hour or so in we stopped for a toilet break...not many people used it, I thought about trying to squeeze a pee out but the toilet was communal. All it was was a tin shack with a black plastic bag hanging over the 'door' with sort of...urinal type things in the floor down one side of the shack where you had to squat. No way was a using it when I wasn't desperate! So we just bought a snack, stretched and got back on. Our legs are just about recovering from the trek now so we could get on the bus in a small amount of pain but no problem!
Again we drove for another hour or so, both of us managed to have a small nap. We stopped for breakfast for about half an hour before setting off for the rest if the journey. We arrived in the Chitwan national park area and drove through lots of roads with farms and villages. It was really nice looking at all the activity out of the window. We got to the drop of point at 1.30pm. What a palaver.
As soon as the bus stopped we were met by dozens of men shouting through the windows holding leaflets for all of the hotels. " where are you going?" " have you sorted your stay out?" " what is your name?" .... We had been told we would be met at the other end by our guide calling our names. Nobody called our names. Several men came up to us asking our names but we just said that if they didn't know our names without us saying then they wernt the guys for us. We were met with all kinds of come backs and it was all a bit stressful! We got the Mobile out to find out what was going on and it was out of battery!!
After a stressful couple of minutes trying to find the charger surrounded by bustling Nepalese men we had to try and find somewhere with power. We found a shack thing that luckily had a slot so we managed to get the phone charged enough to use. In the mean time on of the men had followed us and was loitering around. He didn't know our names so we said he wasn't for us. He came back with ' sometimes they dont tell me' and ' I was supposed to meet 2 people off the bus and you're the only 2 left...are you Canadian?'. So we thought hang on....this might be him, let's see if he knows our company name. To which he said ' errr something travel"....hmmm something bit dodgy there we will just ignore him and be rude when ever he approaches again! This happened a few times during the course of trying to contact ehn.
Then we heard the man on his phone say our names...whoops, it was him all along. We felt a bit bad for being rude to him in the end, but it's better to be safe than sorry! We made our apologies then eventually got sorted and got onto a jeep to the hotel. Liam was inches from falling down off it when it started to move, the man on the jeep had to grab his arm to stop him going over!
The hotel is nice, it's called jungle world resort and it's very jungle-esque. We had a welcome fruit juice drink, shown to our room which has an en suite bathroom with western toilet and ac, and then talked briefly through our itinerary for the evening and tomorrow. It looks really good. We asked if we might get to see some rhinos here, we were told maybe...but there is a lot of land so not always possible.
We had an hour so we got some food which was more or less dal baht,chilled out a bit, then we met up with the guide to go on a 'village tour' and 'sunset view over the river'. In our group there is also an Indian guy who's English is technically very good but I'm so rubbish at understanding because of his accent! Liam doesn't seem to have much of an issue but he found it easier than me in India too. We went and had a little look at the nearby village, which was a standard Nepali settlement but the houses a little bit more higgledy than the others we've seen, proper mud huts that are rebuilt every year. We then wandered to the river to see the sunset which was pretty. We were told a rhino had been spotted so we walked towards the area and low and behold a rhino bathing in the river. We sat on the bank no more than 5 meters away from him and watched him for a good half an hour just lounging in the water. They're so weird looking! I loved it, Liam got lots of pictures. And then we couldn't believe our luck when a second one came out from the bush and was wandering around for a bit before joining the first in the river. It came so close that Liam was made to move back for safety, it was so exciting!
After about 45 minutes we made our way back to the hotel, past all the lovely stores and all of the mahouts on the elephants going home for the day. We found a big bottle of coke for cheap and also from the fridge,so we were even happier. The only downer was the fact our camera lense now has a scratch on it from the dust here and it shows up in some of the shots and it's always in the back of our minds. Especially on the way home as we weren't sure how the rhino pics would turn out.
We got back to the hotel with an hour to spare before heading back out again to see a small culture show of the local people. There were a lot of people there, mostly Chinese who were all really weird. They were wiping everything down with disinfectant before sitting on it and wearing those weird surgical masks. It was really cramped, if there's one thing ive learned about myself so far its that I really do have quite a big personal space bubble and it's constantly being intruded on by people here!
Anyway the show was great, there were people playing drums and other instruments, singing, groups of people dancing all the different local styles. There was a man who kept introducing each type of dance over a microphone, he was like a Nepalese big brother presenter it sounded so funny! We took lots of photos and videos of all the dances and had a really good time watching it all. It lasted about 40 minutes, afterwards we got a jeep back and ate a late supper. It consisted of sweet corn soup, cold spaghetti, cold rice, some chicken, cold potatoes in a cheese sauce and some vegetables. Followed by some very suspect looking chocolate gloop. Liam hardly ate any of it, the Indian guy ate all of it and I only left a small amount. The food wasnt bad but it wasn't good either, I'm looking forward to seeing what the breakfast is like in the morning.
I've just been peeling Liam's back from his sunburn from the trek, he's just about to do mine now then off to sleep! We are so exciting. 7am breakfast and full day of elephant safaris, jungle walks and canoe trips ahead tomorrow, we can't wait!
