Introduction to Wildlife at Royal Chitwan National Park

May 26

The one-horned rhino – Identity of Royal Chitwan National Park

Nepal is a land of wonder. East, west, north or south everywhere we go around this country we will find many things to be amazed of. Either it is by its natural beauty or festival and culture of each ethnic groups. Nepal has flat sea level lands to high mountains of Himalaya Range. Extreme hot weather to chilling cold temperature. I am in a mission to visit at least some of the most amazing places in Nepal and luckily this time I got an opportunity to visit one of the best natural place in Nepal, the “Royal Chitwan National Park”. The park where endangered wildlife like Tiger, the Asian one-horned Rhino and Ghariyal crocodile are conserved.

I had heard a lot about Sauraha, which is a famous tourist destination to get inside the Jungle of Chitwan to see and experience the wildlife. But this time I went to a different location calm from city crowd, borderline of jungle and still a typical Tharu village called Jagatpur. This place is getting popular with external tourist as more and more resort are providing first class service to it’s customers. Me and my Friend Mr. Samir Pradhananga were lucky to get a complementary stay at the “Tigerland Safari Resort” at Jagatpur. This place is almost 23 Km away from Bharatpur. We were pleased with the hospitality from the staff of the resort.

The amazing part of this trip was, when we went on for an elephant ride. Just 10 minute walk away from the resort we saw two rhinos roaming around the high grassland. We were even lucky to see the hard life of local villagers who are dependent on these jungle for their firewood and grass for their cattle. And the interesting part was the path way of these villagers and the wild rhino is the same and they did cross their path while we were riding on the elephant. The other interesting thing to do here is canoeing on the Rapti river which has clear water where we can see fish and the endangered Ghariyal crocodile swimming. We can see beautiful birds on the banks of the river while deer playing on the grass near these banks.

We also had a short visit to Ghariyal conservation and breeding center to see the process how these endangered species is fighting for its existence. We were lucky enough to sneak into a den of a man eater tiger which had been captured by the rangers of the jungle and kept it in a safe place. We were happy to see a tiger there as we did not spot any tiger roaming around in the jungle. Jeep safari was the most interesting and fun part of the trip as we went deep inside the jungle in search of wild animals. We loved seeing many deer crossing our pathway and looking at us with their innocent look, honey lover beer running away from us was interesting to see as it reminded me of some pictures from the story books from primary school. Rhinos were everywhere as we saw a couple rhino with it’s baby in a lake. The serene sound of birds gave us soothed mind and gave us a break from Kathmandu’s pollution.

Overall, we enjoyed our trip with our favorite hobby of photography. Capturing the wildlife with our camera was really amazing as we could zoom and see them up-close. I would like to thank Mr. Sharad Shrestha dai, Mr. Resham Gurung and all the staff from resort who made our this trip possible and pleasant.

Jungle Safari on Elephant