After a lot of caffeine last night my mind wanted to rest but my body wouldn’t let it, or my body wanted rest but my brain wouldn’t switch off. Either way, I didn’t get much sleep, but who needs sleep anyway?! Especially when it’s time to get up and go on a safari! 😁
It was so misty and cold when we got on the bus to the riverside, we distracted ourselves with animal impressions. We have mastered the Rhino.
We got to the riverside and had to clamber into a long canoe to take us across the crocodile infested water to the other bank. We had to squat in a line, it was pretty inelegant and I didn’t feel very secure as it rocked from side to side. Luckily I hadn’t got in the last boat as Keshab was stood at one end of it, purposefully rocking it and shouting “Don’t worry crocodile curry” then laughing!
We had a short walk to the jeeps and all piled in. There were 3 jeeps altogether and us UK girls were in the middle one. We followed a track through areas of tall grass and huge trees. It had rained the night before and some parts were quite slippy. We experienced our first stuck jeep early on in the journey. It required most of the guys to hop off and push to get it out of the mud, then the same with the other 2 jeeps that followed.
Not long after the mist lifted and we saw lots of spotted deer
The ongoing saga of our vehicles getting stuck in the mud continued….all day. Luckily there was plenty of wildlife to see, check out these ferocious tigers
😉
After getting stuck in the mud multiple times our hard staring finally paid off and we saw all the real wildlife! A bright blue beautiful kingfisher, a pretty male peacock and some macaques. Whenever we passed a lake or river we would see loads of marsh mugger crocodiles. But we were all desperately looking for tigers, leopards and rhinos. Finally luck came our way and one of the guides tapped on the back of their jeep telling it to stop, he pointed to some tall grass….and we could see some twitchy grey ears, a rhino! The first jeep tried to slowly approach it to get a better look. The rhino got scared and trotted off into the bushes, we got a brief glimpse of his horn and his bottom as he turned away.
I know this does not sound too exciting, but I loved it!!! I was so happy we got to see one and see how big they are. All day we could see their trails in the tall grass where they had been stomping, and big piles of poop where they have there own bathroom area, then we actually saw one 😍
The sun was really beating down by midday, it was so much fun stood on the back of the jeep, flying through the jungle getting thrown around. It was nearly lunch time as we drove through another tall grass area, the first jeep hurried ahead and our guide tapped the jeep causing it to halt. Another rhino was stood, hiding in the grass.
This is my picture the rhino, I could see it pretty well on the jeep I’m just a terrible photographer 😬
After all this excitement we drove to a river side for lunch. We had fried rice with curried vegetables and a tomato paneer cheese thing, which was delicious.
We tried to skim some stones, but were terrible, but it was rumoured Keshab was amazing so we called him down. He confidently told us he is “fucking awesome” at skimming stones, and went ahead to prove himself right. He never quite got it to the other side of the river though. Then he called us all back to the buses and decided to tell us a ‘non-veg joke’ which we’ve heard are pretty funny.
Well we were all laughing by the end of the ten minute story, but probably for many different reasons. Even after a few magic cokes Keshab couldn’t quite say some words, he hilariously danced around the subject, which was quite difficult considering the content of his joke. Some people looked amused, others less so. Then it was time to go back through the jungle for several more hours.
We chatted with our guide, he’s worked the job for 20 years and knows the jungle extremely well after spending days walking tourists through it or going on the jeep. He had encountered tigers before and he had even had to use a stick on a sloth bear that had gotten a bit aggressive with him on occasion. He was so knowledgeable and had a lot of respect for the environment and the animals within it.
After a quick stop off at a crocodile conservation centre we finally made it back to the river near our hotel. On one side of us the sun was setting and on the other was a snow topped mountain range. A perfect end to a wonderful day.
Life is good 🐒🐘🐗🐊🐾🌿☀️
Nicola and Nepal 