chitwan countryside

I just made my fourth trip down to Chitwan for a few days, staying at our favourite spot, Sapana Village Lodge. There’s lots of things I like about Sapana, but one of its greatest attractions is how it makes me comfortable with hot water showers, comfy chairs and places to relax, but doesn’t cut me off from local life. From a comfortable reading spot, I can watch everyday life going past me on the river. Locals are washing clothes, fishing, or just using the river to get around. Abundant bird life hovers overhead. Majestic cranes, ibis, storks, hornbills, sunbirds, night jars, and the beautiful asian paradise flycatcher are all here, swooping down to the water to drink. (We come to Chitwan to see the amazing elephants and rhinos, but for sheer variety and volume, you really can’t beat the birds.) I find it so relaxing. I love the wild life and the river. They keep me coming back for more.

This was our first visit during the rainy season, and the river was very swollen. Recent flooding had washed away the small bamboo bridge that was here before.

The swollen water raced by. It wasn’t very deep, but it was fast, rushing reeds and branches away in its current.

One of many white ibises that stopped by for a visit.

He caught something. I didn’t see what it was.

Back from his early morning chore of collecting feed for the other elephants. What tusks!

Mom and baby are still fine since our last visit and still loving their daily baths!

A another little photo journal tale of a walk away from traffic and congestion in the rural countryside:

In Chitwan, bikes move everything…from people to produce to cement bags..

They are THE mode of transport, and I loved that we could just stroll and be part of daily life without feeling out of place or being run over.

After the rain from the night before, the sky was clear enough to see the nearby hills. I’ve seen photos of a sky so clear that you can see beyond the hills all the way to the Himalayas in the North. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see it with my own eyes…but this was very pretty anyway.

This rice field had a head start before the monsoon, so the crop is well underway due to community irrigation ditches. The next day we came back to find the ditch dry, so they have a system of diverting the water too.

This looked like hard wark! The farmer was working at preparing the soil. His patch somehow was still unplanted in a sea of growing rice. He was still ploughing when we returned an hour later.

Here’s another field on catch up mode. I’m not sure what she was doing. Planting baby rice, perhaps?

This is the community hall of a home stay project. The “Welcome” sign was everywhere. An organization had funded a community effort to offer home stay lodging to foreigners and visiting Nepalis. It seemed very clean and organized. I hope it does well for them…I’ve no idea how much they charge but its probably a very affordable way to stay and a good source of income for locals.