Posted by Catherine

We had a pleasant evening in our little cottage “Tara.” We were serenaded in the early evening by loud dance music from a wedding across the village from us.

Each cottage is named after the woman who owns it and this is a photo of Tara.

After breakfast we boarded the bus with a farewell from our hosts.

Well, most of us got on the bus. Four members of our tour found out last night that they had the wrong kind of visa for India and can only enter India through an airport. The four young men had to take a cab back to Kathmandu, overnight there, fly to New Delhi in the morning and then fly on to Varanasi to meet up with the tour. It was an unfortunate turn of events. The process of getting a visa for India is very confusing. Ours are affixed in our passports and are the right ones to enter into India by land.

We traveled through a more mountainous area again and stopped for an early lunch at a roadside restaurant frequented by truckers. Lots of local colour!

From there, the terrain flattened out again with farm lands interspersed with large factories for processing grain and brick making.

Around 1:00 p.m. we arrived at our first destination of Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha and a revered pilgrimage place for Buddhists from all over the world.

It is a massive complex (2 kms x 3 kms) of temples, gardens and parks. There were endless busloads of people coming and going. Two different groups of people wanted to have a photo with me!

I guess they don’t see too many tall women here. I felt like a famous person! No blending in with the locals here either!

We only had time to visit the Maya Devi Temple which marks the actual birthplace of the Buddha around 563 BC.

No photos are allowed inside, where it was fairly quiet and reverential. There were several ruins from the 2nd century and under some plexiglass a stone reputed to show the Buddha’s first step on the earth. People touched the surrounding stones with their hands and foreheads for a brief moment. It was powerful and poignant to be here and contemplate all the millions of people who have visited this sacred site over the centuries.

The outdoor courtyards were brilliant with prayer flags and the colourful clothing of the visitors.

We saw several large groups of pilgrims in various processions with drums and horns – very impressive.

After a brief rest, we found our shoes and made our way back to the bus. It was another hour of traveling to get to our hotel. After a lovely Indian meal, we enjoyed the first hot shower we’ve had in days. Early start tomorrow as we leave Nepal, cross into India and head for Varanasi, about 12 hours of traveling!

Namaste 🙏

Today there were two main activities: a mid morning guided walking tour of Barauli Village & then a 4 hour jeep safari tour in Chitwan National Park.

Our tours were led by a local young man named “Tek” (pronounced Tic like ticket)

As we walked through the local village we stopped numerous times to gain insight & understanding of how the Tharu people of Nepal live & work in the community.

Farming is the main occupation with multiple crops grown including rice, corn, cauliflower & mustard. Tourism is helping to diversify the economy but it is still common for young people in each family to go outside the country for jobs so they can earn more money to support their extended families.

Just before lunch Tek gave a slideshow presentation about the park to our group & then after lunch we all boarded a jeep & headed off to Chitwan National Park to see some sights & see some wildlife.

The park is a protected nature preserve with many species of trees, flowering plants, birds, deer, wild boars, cheetahs, tigers, rhinos & crocodiles.

The Narayani River flows through the park & there are essentially three main terrains: the river, the floodplain & flatlands adjacent to the river & the forest/jungle. We travelled through each of these areas & Tek was excellent at spotting & pointing out unique plants & wildlife to us.

During our tour we saw many different different types of birds including a wild peacock. We also saw some deer & a wild boar and several beautiful butterflies- black and orange striped, yellow and light blue. But the real highlight for everyone was the rhino we encountered!

As soon as Tek spotted it he instructed our diver to stop the jeep & turn off the engine. He told us all to be very quiet & then began to make a series of soft whistles to attract the rhino’s attention.

The rhino started flapping it’s ears, came out of the bushes & began walking slowly towards the jeep. Gulp, hope he’s not PO’d with us intruding on his “patch”.

I took a bunch of photos as it approached & then shot a video of the rest of the encounter. I will post the video on YouTube as soon as I get a strong enough wifi signal.

Once the rhino had decided that he had seen enough of us he wandered back into the jungle – plowing through thick brush that would have stopped our jeep in its tracks. Tek confirmed it was a male rhino, one of the 600 rhinos in the park, 20-25 years old and weighing 2-1/2 tons. Mr. Rhino was off to knock over some acacia trees to get more to eat from the upper branches that he couldn’t reach. Simply amazing! There are only 2,000 of these incredible creatures left in the wild.

We enjoyed the rest of the tour with stops along the river to view more birds including geese that were migrating from Siberia and the Indian pond heron. We stopped to take in some views of the sun as it was headed towards the horizon.

Certainly a day to remember!

Cheers!