So I have a love of baby animals, beautiful wild open spaces, and wild animals living their life. So it's no wonder Chitwan is the place where I really started to fall in love with Nepal. Don't get me wrong I loved Lumbini and my lunch in the hills but this was on another level of beauty.

I'll admit I haven't been to that many national parks, and the ones I have visited have been in the UK. There's one less than an hour drive from my home and it is beautiful but I am very used to the greens and rolling hills of the Welsh countryside. It's not to say I'm not sat with my mouth open when on a train through the UK and the sun is peeking through the clouds making everything Golden but Chitwan definitely struck me more.
I knew I'd be in love with Nepal but honestly I was preparing myself to be a bit disappointed because I'd hyped it up so much, I was not. Not only am I planning to re-visit Nepal during my summer next year but I also now want to do a world tour just by National Parks, there's seriously no no other beauty like nature and wildlife being allowed to do it's own thing.
So driving to our homestay I was already in awe, excited like a little kid on Christmas eve because my dream of being in a beautiful place in Nepal was coming true. And when we got there we were greeted by the people who live in the village, they have us necklaces made of flowers and bindis and clapped us in. I'm not going to lie it felt a bit false and I wasn't too keen on it but I've never looked more like a girl on a gap year than having my bindi sweating down my face.
So I talked about sweat in my last post about the border crossing and this was even worse. I couldn't believe it, the humidity was unreal. There's feeling sticky and sweaty and then there's feeling just plain wet all the time. But I didn't care I was in a little paradise of my own.
 I shoved my bags in my room, had a quick look around and then made my way out for a walk. On my walk I made two dog friends, who followed me around and were darn sweet, and went to see how everyone else on the tour was doing.
I also ran round trying to take all the pictures I could of the little baby chickens and didn't really get any good ones, I didn't care though I was surrounded by baby chicks.
 Then the heavenly feeling just kept on going as we went on an afternoon bike ride. I love a good bike ride and, you guessed it, this one was heaven for me. We rode around neighbouring villages for about an hour and ended up by the river where we watched the sun set. I was sweaty and red and a little bit dehydrated but I honestly didn't care.

We rode back to the village and had our dinner and it was all lovely. until really really big cockroaches decided it would be fun to fly into everyone's faces, it was pretty entertaining because I don't really mind bugs and they weren't flying at me. Until one of the cats decided to eat one at which point we decided to go sit outside. Then we couldn't see the cockroaches flying at us we could only hear them.
There were soo many bugs though, so many mosquito and flies and moths, I guess because it is a rural, extremely humid area full of wild animals but still.
 The next morning it was a 6am start for breakfast and onto a jeep to take us down to the river for a boat trip and wildlife tour. Only me and one other person on my tour decided to do this part so it was really chilled out. Though him and the guides spoke hindi so a lot of the time I was just left to contemplate life on my own, not that I minded I was in the perfect place to do it.
Before getting on the boat we saw a load of monkeys running past and a barking dear, but they were all waay too far away to get a decent picture.
Then we saw a crocodile, some pretty birds, and locals fishing once in the boat. Morning is the best time to do this tour though because although you have the sun on your face it's not ridiculously hot and floating down the river doesn't seem too bad. Then we got off the boat and went on a little walk through the grass and woods. We didn't see anything exciting but we saw a lot of Rhino footprints, some fresh tiger scratches and learnt about local medical plants.
Tiger Scratches
Leopard footprints
 Then once we got back to the village and everyone else on the tour was just waking up I had all the chances in the world to take pictures of all the baby animals, which I took. And fell in love with the most beautiful baby goat I've ever seen. Now I'm a big fan of goats, a big fan of baby goats. When i was in Costa Rica I was the primary carer for a baby goat for a few weeks. And as much as I love Oscar there is no goat I have ever seen as beautiful as this one.
Plus there were ducks, baby ducks. I love ducks.
 And that's it for the pictures, later that day I felt really ill so didn't end up going on the safari trip with everyone, they saw nineteen rhinos, nineteen! Instead I played volleyball with some local kids and honestly it made me feel 100x better. They decided to gang up on me and I sweated more than I have ever before and ever since but I didn't do to badly and I think I sweated all my illness away.
Then I went straight on another bike ride and was bright red continuously for about three hours but it was so nice. The kinds were skimming stones in the river and I just sat there wishing I didn't have to leave.
Two very very busy days but I loved pretty much every minute of it. I am determined to go back to Nepal and see some Rhinos (almost as determined as i am to see a Tapir in real life). But I'm sure it'll happen one day, in the mean time I just have these pictures to look back on and smile about. Plus a little vlog.

And this  was part of an India-Nepal trip with G Adventures which you can view and book for yourself here.
That's it for this little story in my Trip the next post, next Friday, will be in Pokhara so I hope to see you guys then, have a lovely weekend and wish me luck as I'm moving into uni today! Scary life things. But hey I've sweated all my problems away in Nepal so it can't be that scary, right?

Thanks for reading!