One challenge at a time

I woke up having slept extremely well. 15 miles through hard terrain will make you a little tired. Today’s plan was for a slow walk back to Sauraha, seeing if we could find any animals on our way.  It was a beautiful morning with sunlight dappling the forest floor. I felt the peace and calm infuse me with a sense of such well being. I had to suck it all up today because tomorrow I would be heading back to the chaos of Kathmandu via a probably long, cramped, uncomfortable bus ride.  And it was a lovely 12 mile walk. Along the way we didn’t see many animals, the forest seemed to be asleep today. We watched some langur monkeys move through the trees with delightful abandon and then came across a troop of rhesus macaque monkeys including a mother and her baby and some other younger ones scampering through the trees. We walked through the sal forest, eyes scanning the ground for ny sign of the King Cobra, but no luck today.  We sat on the river bank for a bit with some other t...

  Today was going to be a long day. The idea was that we did a long trek out to a village, stayed there the night and then trek back. My guides seemed to think that there was a possibility of finding a snake of some kind near the lakes that were out that way. So we set off early, cross the river and then following the jeep track. The track was very stony and not particularly comfortable to walk on. My feet felt like they were already in shreds after the last 2 days of walking. We strode long with a good pace. It started to warm up and all was good with the world. Then  jeep came up behind us and stopped. My guide spoke to the guide on the jeep and then asked me to get on the jeep.  I was confused and a bit pissed off. I particularly hadn't wanted to do a jeep tour. They were noisy and I didn't really agree with their use in the national park personally. I had wanted to walk and was perfectly capable of doing so.  We bumped along and then the jeep stopped when we saw ...

  2nd day in the park and hopes were high after yesterdays sightings. Today the plan was to take a canoe down the river a bit and then walk from there. This would give a good chance of more croc sightings. We set off early and the dugout canoe sped down the river, carried mainly by the current but with some skillful poleing by the boatman balancing on the end. We saw quite a few mugger crocs... big... about 7 to 10ft in length. They sat on the sand banks basking in the early morning sunshine. There were many birds that we startled, they rose up from the river banks screeching. We also saw a maribu stork, a massive bird, sitting majestically on the bank. Soon however we reached our destination and disembarked to begin our walk. The aim.. find a snake... preferably a cobra of some kind, but any snake would do.  As we trod carefully along the path, there were some clear signs that tigers were around... first a couple of paw prints... huge prints, then some places where the tiger ...