Original article on www.vagabondjourney.com
For Valentine’s Day this year, I had a date with the wild beasts of Chitwan National Park, in Nepal. We set out early in the morning, amidst the fog, all packed up inside a narrow canoe with barely 2 inches of draft, getting wet once in a while when the small boat goes through some rapids. On the river banks, we see several species of birds feeding, hunting, flying around or just chillin': cuckoos, kingfishers, flycatchers, geese, wild chickens, and many others I just can’t recall, limited I am in avian terminology.
But as interesting as bird watching is, I am more into large land animals, and the prospect of seeing some of those bad boys in their natural habitat is what made me detour to this national park, founded 40 years ago and getting the UNESCO World Heritage Site status about ten years later. It is located in the southern half of Nepal, culturally and geographically way more similar to parts of India than the insanely rugged north of the country. So no mountains, prayer flags and snow-capped peaks here, but rather jungles, grasslands, and big scary beasts, roaming around freely. Sounds fun.
