Denis got here safely and the strike is finally over. We just got back from a 3 day trip to Chitwan National park. Which is 200km and a 7 hour bus ride south west of here, closer to the Indian border. Away from the mountains and into the jungle, and the extreme heat, it is hot here every day but without the excessive humidity that we experienced there, we were sweating buckets, day and night, one time where I missed my AC, which I am usually not a big fan of and do enjoy it here without, they even had it but without power most of the time it is really not that effective, who knows if it even worked. We stayed in a really nice place where we had our own personal guide appointed to us the whole time. Went for a walk the first day, to see some of the elephants, insects, plants, and birds later in the day to avoid the worse heat and saw the sunset over the jungle, very cool. Next day started at 6:00 where we went on a beautiful canoeing trip down the river, quiet apart from all the beautiful birds chirping in the morning calm. After that we did a 2 hour jungle walk where we were first told about how to react to the different wild animals, rhinos, tigers, elephants and sloth bears in case we encountered any contact with any of those. So we started walking and soon after a flock of wild boars ran by in the distance, I was surprised to see how fast they can run. Later we saw barking deers, monkeys and all of a sudden we heard this loud sound and could hear something moving around close by in the thick jungle bush, our 2 guides who were only allowed to carry sticks, looked at each other with a worried expression on their faces, and started talking in Nepali, by then my heart already started racing, and I repeatedly asked what is it but no answer until all of a sudden they started yelling tiger tiger tiger, as scared as we were and with my heart now beating like mad, we still were moving forward and looking frantically to see where it was, a very strange occurrence, that we were approaching a wild and highly dangerous animal to get a look at it and maybe take a picture instead of getting the ---- out of there before becoming its next meal, we never did get to see it but after wards every sound made me a little tense. We saw lots of deers and still very scared of tigers and rhinos to unexpectedly show up. After an hour the one guide in front jumped up and he had almost steeped on a king copra, all I can say thank goodness it wasn't me, but we got to see it slide through the grass and was able to follow it for a while, again running after a snake that could kill so we could see and take pictures of it. Well we made it out alive and it was very exciting for both of us. Time for us to get cooled off a bit and have a shower but mind you not your regular shower, not that I had one of those in a long time anyway, so we went down to the river where the elephants were also trying to cool of in the extreme heat, we joined them and got up on the back of an elephant, which then wandered into the river where he repeatedly showered us with the water from his trunk which could hold 9 liters of water. I feel off the elephant twice when he was trying to lye down in the river, it was a total awesome adventure to be able to be part of. Later in the afternoon we went on a 2 hours elephant ride trough the jungle and saw lots of rhinos up close, but from the top off a very tall elephant we felt very safe observing them, we had an amazing experience seeing many animals on this trip. The next day we flew back to Kathmandu after a nice morning walk bird watching along with the elephants who went in to get their grass for the day, what an amazing site. Followed by getting to see a 3 month baby elephant who climbed trough the bamboo fence that was supposed to hold him back, very cute thing, but still a little scary when he ran in our direction with his over 200 pounds. Our ride to the airport was in the back of a small pickup truck with seats, but at a speed of 80km per hour passing all other vehicles and in the wrong side of the road most of the time, Denis was trying to imagine how many ways we could die in case we flipped over. Tomorrow we are setting off to Tibet on our 9 day trip.Starting with a bus ride, that now is just a normal day in my life to spend a day on a crazy bus, that will take us to the Tibetan border where we then will be riding in Jeeps the remainder of the trip to Lhasa. Here in Kathmandu we have just enjoyed sight seeing showing Denis some of the sights that I have already experienced and some new, went to see The Swayambhunath Temple, also called Monkey Temple because there are a lot of monkeys around there, so we went mostly for that reason, since for me I have seen enough temples by now. But to Denis's great disappointment, there was not one monkey in site when we arrived only to discover later that they all came out of the woodwork one by one until there were tons of them running around, eating scraps that people had left behind, picking lice on each other or jumping around in the tree tops, big and small. Now we are just relaxing in the Gardens of Dreams a welcoming quietness. I would have liked to go back to visit the kids and they asked me to come back when I left, they really wanted to see me again, so I said I would try my best, but one of the strict rules are that we can only visit on Saturdays, but because there were no seats on the plane back from Lahsa we have to spend an extra day there which is next Saturday where I had planned to go back to visit, so I get no chance to go, I asked permission for this afternoon for a couple of hours just, but unfortunately for me and the kids, not granted, so sad that I didn't get to see them one more time before I go back after I have spent 2 month with them. Well I guess such is life. Namaste Inger
