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| Annapurna Range |
Last
night’s rain did clear the air. From our hotel rooms, we could see the rising
sunlight reflect off the snowy slopes of the Annapurna Range about 35 km away.
These are beautiful and magnificent mountains.
Today’s
drive was going to take us from Pokhara to Chitwan National Park. The drive was
amazingly beautiful. For the most part, we followed a series of river gorges
until we reached the lowlands near Chitwan. In the river valleys there were
green rice paddies with women in red sarongs weeding and thinning the crops. In
the slopes and gravel areas, corn is grown. There are some hydro-electric
stations on some of the rivers.
The
temperature was 36 degrees with high humidity when we arrived at the Royal Park Hotel. The evening’s program was a two
hour elephant ride. Each elephant had a driver and four passengers. Four of us
were squeezed into this crate like box atop the elephant with the driver
perched behind the poor elephants head. We rode off into the jungle in hope of
seeing a Bengal Tiger. While we didn’t see them, we did see some beautiful
birds including a peacocks. There were several monkey sightings as well as
numerous deer. The sedate pace and the tranquil setting made up for any disappointment
at not seeing tigers.
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