On my last morning near Chitwan National Park, my hotel arranged for me to get up extra early for an early morning cruise in a dugout canoe along a crocodile infested river. How charming! Actually, it was incredibly beautiful and we did pass about 5-6 crocodiles along the way, lurking just below the water or sunning themselves along the banks. Yes they we dangerous, but no, no tourists have ever been bitten by them. We also saw quite a few deer down along the river for an early morning drink. It wasn’t hard work. We just had to sit there while a man with a pole, Venice style, guiding our boat down the properly flowing river channels. Afterwards we ended up at an elephant breeding center, much like a crocodile breeding center we visited a day earlier as part of our jeep safari. <\/p>\n
I enjoyed my stay neat Chitwan, and I appreciated the red carpet treatment I received from all the staff at my desperate hotel, but I was looking forward to getting away from all the attention. I was also getting sick of being overstuffed with food three times a day that you felt must be consumed so as not to insult your hosts. They seemed to be serving me the same thing every day in slightly different variations. I had chicken for every meal (except breakfast) and suspect they bought one for me and carved a little bit off for every meal to mix in with the same ingredients in different ways. The meals also seemed to get a little more westernized as we went when chips were thrown in, which was not their forte and not what I wanted. <\/p>\n
I also grew a bit wary of being attacked my mosquitoes in the middle of the night. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out they they were getting in my room, but they were constantly buzzing my ears to keep me away. It is malaria country, I was told back in Perth by my travel doctor, so I have been taking my expensive medication – but there are also other nasty illnesses that come from mosquitoes that I would rather not have anything to do with. I put up a mosquito net one night, but it wasn’t quite set up correctly without a hook in the ceiling and a bed that was too big for it, so I couldn’t be bothered messing around with it the second night. <\/p>\n
Speaking of food, there is one particular Nepali delicacy that I have grown fond: Masala Tea. It is a blend of tea, cinnamon, and a few other spices (coriander?) blended with milk and sugar. I’ll have to figure out how they make it.<\/p>\n
After my crocodile canoeing, my driver dutifully showed up to take me on another wild drive to my next destination. This time to the central Nepali city of Pokhara. Pokhara is a backpackers haven and gateway to countless outdoor adventures in the middle of the country – including my trek along part of the Annapurna Circuit. It was a crazy drive that my driver seemed a bit more aggressive with than the drive he did for me a few days ago. It was probably my fault for pushing back our departure time so I could go canoeing in the morning. I think it messed up his plans to get back to Kathmandu before dark. <\/p>\n
Fortunately, when I arrived safe and sound in Pokhara at the sister guesthouse of my Kathmandu stay, I was giving their very best room up on the top floor with spectacular views out over the city and lake district with huge mountains looming up in the background. It is probably the highest hotel in town, so it looks down on everything else. Hopefully they will have a similar room waiting for me when I get back from my hike!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On my last morning near Chitwan National Park, my hotel arranged for me to get up extra early for an early morning cruise in a dugout canoe along a crocodile infested river. How charming! Actually, it was incredibly beautiful and we did pass about 5-6 crocodiles along the way, lurking just below the water or… Continue reading Canoeing with Crocodiles<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[48,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nepal","category-pokhara","without-featured-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sHuW-8g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}