Nepal - Chitwan National Park

While JeeHeon was resting up at home in Korea (yeah, I'm still trying to figure out exactly how traveling in relative luxury in first world countries like Japan counts as "resting up at home"), I continued to travel through Nepal, this time down to Royal Chitwan National Park via another all-day bus ride. Chitwan is the oldest national park in Nepal, and is home to the elusive royal bengal tiger. The park is in southern nepal, basically right on the Indian border, so the landscape is dramaticaly different from the foothills and mountains that are the popular images of Nepal -- at Chitwan it's rolling plains, agriculture and some forest and jungle.

Elephant safaries, though incredibly uncomfortable, are the best way to see the park:

Me in a traditional dug-out canoe on the way to the park for a jungle walk (I was a little nervous after I jokingly asked my guide if his wooden walking stick was to beat back the tigers, and he matter of factly, without any hint of humor, replied "yes, it is"):

I was even more nervous after we came upon this tiger paw print as we were walking through the jungle, both of my guides concluded that it was from "this morning", and I'm thinking to myself "hmmmm, let's see, it's only 7:00 a.m. now, so if that's from this morning, are we talking about 10 minutes ago or what?" Luckily, that is the closest we came to the royal bengal tiger.

Other sightings included rhinos:

Lots of monkeys:

Nepali fisherman:

An elephant having a bath:

I have continued to enjoy Nepal's varied cuisine, in this case the exotic 'ol bacon and egg breakfast: