Open momo!

Just in case you were curious, there is another way that one can eat momo and they are delicious too. There is a spot that I always go to eat open momo... You can choose from three different sauces to enjoy them with.

Chitwan: part 2

Nepal has so many different types of landscapes within it's relatively small territory and I am continually amazed. I've seen mountains, the flat plains of Terai, and now the jungle of Chitwan.

This past week, I went on an elephant ride through Chitwan National Park early in the morning. The forests were so dense and I felt completely removed from my regular life. While the elephant plodded along through the trees (temporarily stopping to pick up branches and leaves to eat) I peered into the wilderness hoping that I might see a rhino. After about an hour I saw a group of beautiful peacocks, a wild chicken and some other brightly colored birds. And then suddenly we stumbled upon a rhino!

The rhino was eating and turned away when we approached, so I only captured it's backside. But we were so close to it and I was just so impressed to watch it eat. The elephant I was riding was clearly scared to be in such close proximity to the rhino - it made some high pitched trumpeting sounds - so we eventually let the elephant turn to walk a different direction. But only a minute later, we stumbled upon a second rhino. It was incredible luck!

This Chitwan trip was so much fun and introduced me another side of Nepal. Not to mention, I had an extremely relaxing stay at the newly opened Jungle Villa Resort. The view from my room looked across the Rapti River to the forests of the national park.

Chitwan field trip

This past week I went on a field trip to Chitwan in order document some conservation work that is being done in an area called Madi. Madi Valley is remote in many ways and I was able to see how many Nepalis live in smaller villages, in contrast to the city life of Kathmandu.

Madi doesn't have any electricity or reliable phone connections. The area is surrounded on three sides by Chitwan National Park and on the fourth side by hills that crossover to India.  People are living in a buffer-zone to the park, making it very isolated and it is typical for elephants or rhinos to roam into the villager's land, destroying their crops.

Everyone I met on this project was extremely welcoming and willing to share stories of their experiences. I was invited inside many homes and I was shown around their farms. I saw goats, tomato patches, chilli farming, etc, and I saw people working to collect water or carry hay.

The lady in the last photo showed me her goat, which she said had been attacked by a tiger this week and narrowly escaped. It had an injury on it's right shoulder and she was getting medicine to treat it.

Some people really enjoyed having their photos taken too. The children were especially excited!! They look a bit nervous in the photo below, but the girl in the red shorts insisted that they all come together to pose for the camera.