Introduction

Hot, sub tropical green and teeming with wild life whether it’s in the lush forests, crawling ants, sauntering rhinos or the river side makeshift beer stalls in Sauraha, the Terai takes you over in Nepal’s best known game park.

For some years now Chitwan has been a must-do in Nepal. This park is an awesome experience; if you skip it you’d have missed something.

Sitting at the Indo-Nepal border, Chitwan, Nepal’s oldest wildlife sanctuary spreads out over 932 sq km of dense vegetation. As a Natural World Heritage Site, Chitwan has successfully combined its twin agendas of protection of wildlife and the promotion of it through eco-tourism. It’s a given thing that you’ll see wild animals here, maybe not the Royal Bengal Tiger, but almost surely the lovely ponderous one-horned rhino, and most surely graceful grazing deer.

Chitwan is a typical subtropical jungle teeming with one-horned rhinoceros, deer, leopard, sloth bear, bison, monkeys, the Royal Bengal Tiger and a variety of bird and bug life. There are about 107 tigers in Chitwan, concentrated in the northern side of the park. The rhinos, langurs and deer are easiest to spot since the park is almost bursting with them. The count from a survey conducted in 1995 brought forth the estimate that there are 470 mammalian species, more than 500 bird species, 9 species of amphibians, 150 species of butterflies and 47 species of reptiles in Chitwan.

The morning jungle walk is particularly rewarding, since in the relative cool the animals are yet to recede into the thickly forested depths of the Park. Elephant safaris in the evenings pay off similarly, since the animals come around to the river that borders the forest. A guide must accompany jungle walkers because there is a real threat of rhino charges. Jeeps can take you further into the forest than anything else but have to keep to the road. Canoe-rides expose you to the river fauna: amphibians like crocodiles (‘gharial’) and the 126 species of fish.

Other excursions include a two-day guided jungle walk to Kasara, which is the Park’s headquarter and the site for the Gharial Conservation Project. Some tours specialize in bird watching. The bicycle trip to Bis Hajaar Taal (‘Twenty Thousand Lakes’) yields sightings of gharials, rhinos and much bird life. Also worth a trip is the Elephant Breeding Centre not far from Sauraha.

How do I get there?

By Air
There is a small landing strip in the town of Bharatpur, near Narayanghat, which functions as the "airport" for Chitwan. A 30-minute drive from there to Chitwan along the Mahendra Rajmarg highway takes you to the small town of Tardi Bazaar which leads in to Sauraha and the national park. Domestic airlines and charter planes fly here from Kathmandu.

Some lodges use an airstrip at Meghauli and arrange transport to it as well as from there into the jungle and their doorsteps.

Jeeps, buses and taxis are easily available for transportation around the area.

By Road
Chitwan lies along Nepal’s main highway, the Mahendra Rajmarg Highway. Buses going eastwards from Kathmandu will all pass this way. From Kathmandu Tardi Bazaar comes up first. Further down are the other entrances to the park where the up market jungle lodges that give you the real jungle experience are.

Getting Around

If you hook up for a package deal then all your travelling arrangements will be taken care of. These include getting to the park from the highway and jeep safaris, elephant safaris and guided tours into the forest.

Some visitors find this restrictive and choose instead to travel independently. Private vehicles in the park are a no-no; private operators will take care of your wildlife sighting requirements. An early morning jungle walk is highly recommended: an experienced guide (and most having grown up around here, are) will help you appreciate the variety that subtly surrounds you: bird calls, various droppings, sundry paw marks, all these have a meaning.

Sauraha is a tiny village and can be covered on foot but motorbike rentals and bicycle rentals help you get around further afield. Wobbly flat-bottomed boats take visitors across the Rapti in the mornings and afternoons.

Tourist Offices and Park Entry

The purchase of a ticket, which is a multiple-entry permit for a period of 2 days, is mandatory. The Tourist Office at the Park’s entrance issues tickets for entry and elephant safaris. The permit also covers canoeing rights on the Rapti. It is open daily from 6:30 to 9 am and again in the afternoon from 1 to 3:30 pm.

When to go

High season is during the months of December and January when the Terai cools down. The pro side to it is that early morning walks need not be too early in order to be exceedingly pleasant; the con would be that hot water availability becomes an issue! This is the time when the towering grass is cut and visibility improves.

Where do I stay?

Part of the charm of Chitwan is that it suits any budget without denying anyone pleasure or exposure. Levels of luxury go up and down in direct correlation with price but luxury here has more to do with solitude, proximity to the forest and exclusivity than air-conditioning. Tourist accommodation inside the park is the real thing for wildlife lovers. Expensive but a holistic and complete experience, these lodges pay the government a good amount of money for almost exclusive rights over their vicinities.

You’re forgiven if you arrive at Sauraha, a tiny village on the outskirts of the park, and think you’ve landed in someone’s quirky third-world meets the west dream. Sauraha’s main street is alive with little shops that sell knick-knacks for you to take home. Embroidered rhinos, elephants and tigers adorn t-shirt fronts and you can’t miss the "yak-yak-yak-yak-Nepal" one. Floppy hats, wooden finger rings, pretty trinkets sell off the same shelves as mosquito repellent, deodorant and razor blades. Teeming with Europeans and Americans, and with humble shacks that promise spaghetti and moussaka, Sauraha’s hotels are run by management that beautifully combine their English with Nepali-French, Nepali-Italian, Nepali-British or Nepali-American accents to come up with a lovely lilting speech.

Sauraha is the budget tourist’s dream. Within the budget bracket there are sub-parentheses of dirt-cheap, cheap and upper crust cheap! Little private villas that have been divided and sub-divided (with varying degrees of success) into hotels along Sauraha’s dirt track, these lodges are invariably settled around a garden where the residents gather late nights to swap stories on where they’re from, what they do, and what they saw in the Park. ‘Late nights’ because the evenings are spent sipping chilled beer or cola on the banks of the Rapti while the tour elephants rollick in the water and the occasional rhino strolls out of the park on the other side to cool off at the day’s end.

There is a range of cuisines available on Sauraha’s dusty lanes that defies its small town profile. Along with Kathmandu and Pokhara, Sauraha is the third place in Nepal where ‘dal-bhat-tarkari’ is not mandatory at meals. From spaghetti Bolognese to Greek moussaka, steaks and cakes to salad advertised as "washed in iodine water", the dining scene in Sauraha is quite colourful.

What to bring

Carry dull clothes: greys, browns and olive so the rhino doesn’t spot you before you see it. Mosquito repellent, iodine tablets to purify your drinking water, binoculars are other recommended luggage.