Happy Birthday to the Mrs!!!!

Today is my wife's birthday, and we had decided to come to the Chitwan National Park to celebrate. Today itself was going to feature elephants as much as possible, which it did. As well as a whole lot more we didn't bargain for! It has been the most incredible day, one we shall never forget.

It started early for breakfast and then a trip out to a community forest for an elephant ride. The area was beautiful, full of early morning mist, in the trees and over the river. We plodded off and were very soon answering the phone from Colombia, where Andrea's family were all there (to them the day before) to wish her a happy birthday. It was great. And then some deer sprinted past.

The walk was idyllic, the elephants just majestic. Out of the blue in the trees under some low branches our guide pointed out two rhinos.

Two rhinos!!!

Just sitting there, free as birds. Amazing. They weren't spooked at all by the big elephants around them, and we got a very good look at their bottoms as the elephants ripped the foliage away for us! It was amazing to see, and very unexpected.

We really enjoyed the ride, it was magical and a superb way to start the day. And then it got better!

After we got back to the hotel we walked down the river to the point where the elephants go for their daily bath. There you can get on the elephants, get in the river and help give them a scrub! It sounds like madness really, but we didn't think too much and the whole experience was magical, one of the greatest of my life. As you can see from the picture we also had an impromptu shower from our friend! (Thanks to Ram, our guide, for the taking it). The elephant was very calm and peaceful and felt safe, if very high up. At one point she rolled over and we fell off into the river. We could then touch her skin and feel her great warmth. Words can't do it justice, but we were beaming from ear to ear for a good few hours afterwards.

And then we had paneer curry for lunch,grumph!

Then it was off onto a boat to cruise down the river, it was clear and serene and we saw lots of birds and A BLODDY BIG CROCODILE!!! It looked very frightening, and we were meters away. Incredible.

Once the boat trip was over we had a walk in the park back up stream. The aim was to see some more wildlife, though after Ram's safety talk I was thinking that we didn't really want to see any! There are lots of animals in Chitwan that can do you some serious damage. For about an hour we didn't see much, then we saw some wild boar, which was cool. And then it happened. From out of the grass came A BLOODY BIG RHINO!! Really big, and very scary looking, just meters away and with no safety fence in-between us and it. A massive, wild rhino looking at us with a big horn pointing our way. This was amazing but something I didn't want to last for too long, on top of this we could here sounds of at least another two rhinos around us in the tall grass.

Time for a sharp exit! Adrenaline running. And then we saw some tiger footprints. A tiger was he last thing we wanted to see, and for a while I thought it was a real possibility (in reality it is very rare). You can run from a rhino and climb a tree (apparently) but a tiger? Forget it!

When we got back to the river in one piece I felt very relived and very lucky to have seen such a massie, beautiful animal in the wild. Though it is hard to believe it all happened.

To get back to some normality we went for a pizza, and very nice it was too,

Wow. What a day!