Typical.

I took a little weekend getaway from Kathmandu for a few days. These are the results.


We began in Royal Chitwan National Park, it is a 5 hour bus ride from Kathmandu and rather bumpy. I was feeling slightly sick from breathing in the dust and the exhaust so it wasn't one of the more pleasurable bus rides I've enjoyed. The end result was well worth it though. These are the sights that you wake up to there.



I took these photo's right out side of our room. It is completely amazing. This was at about 6 in the morning so the lighting was extremely beautiful. I have this weird obsession with lighting, and the light was perfect. Unfortunately it was super dusty which wasn't super helpful with the pictures. I guess that comes with elephants though.

We took an elephant safari through the forest. Since it was so early in the morning it was very mystical. Literally. It was extremely green and there was this magical mist everywhere. It was amazing. I thought just riding an elephant needed to happen, and I was very pleasantly surprised by how great the actual park was.


On our big guy we were able to walk through a large river, on the other side we were lucky enough to have a Rhino waiting for us. I was super excited about the outcome of that. I went on a Safari in Africa a few years ago and one of the only animals that we never were able to see was a rhino. So it was pretty great to finally see one in the wild. I'd have to say that they are very interesting creatures. We just walked right up to it on our Elephant and stood next to it for a little while. He just stared right back at us the whole time like, "Are you done, can I get back to my breakfast now?"


Well worth it.

We also were able to take a canoe ride down an alligator infested river, as well as, see the only set of elephant twins that there are in the world. They didn't have the little guys chained up like they would the large elephants so they came out to play. They came up to about my chest in height, and could easily take me out. I tried to take a picture with one and it nuzzled right into me and almost succeeded in taking me out. They are so cute.



Afterwords, we headed to Pokhara. I'd been trying to get there for a few weeks now with some friends. We never made it, but I made it with Josh. It's a fun tourist town that is kind of the starting and ending place for many treks. It's nestled in the hills near the Himalaya's with a great view of Anna Purna and its nearby peaks. It's got a lovely little lake, and is a nice retreat when you want to get out of the dirty air of Kathmandu.

Getting back to the dirty air, kind of felt like home though. It's nice coming back after a long weekend. This picture is how I feel about all the great things there are to buy in Kathmandu.



Josh and I explored the city a little more. I took him back to some of the places I'd been figuring he'd enjoy them. I'd been around the city a lot but I never really have a camera. It's nice to finally be able to take some pictures of what I've been doing for the last while. This is at Swayabhunath in western Kathmandu.