February 25th - Chitwan to Kathmandu

Today we split up the team. The kids and two of the adults took the plane back to Kathmandu, sparing them 5 hours of torchurous driving through narrow winding mountain roads. The rest of us went to Sauraha to visit with WWF and see the elephant dung paper making facility (don't laugh!)

There were no animal encounters on the way out of the park, and the road to Sauraha was surprisingly good. Sauraha is the tourist center of Chitwan and is packed full of Hotels, restaurants, and shops. There were elephants everywhere, and we passed a large race track where they hold elephant races twice a year. The meeting was at the main wildlife conservation center and was followed by a nice lunch which was prepared especially for us. Among other things we learned how rhino's are identified though a pattern of bulbous growths on the back side, every one of which is unique. The park rangers have given each of the 500+ rhino's in the park a name, which I though would make it sad when one of them dies. Poaching is a huge problem due to the high prices the rhino horn fetches on the Asian market. Seeing pictures of a rhino whose horn has been ripped out and the animal left to die is just heart wrenching.

Afterwards we visited the elephant dung factory. This is a sustainable facility set up by the green society of Nepal. The process is very similar to regular paper - the elephant dung is mixed with chemicals to form a slurry, and bleach is used to remove the brown color and the smell. A frame covered in a fine wire mesh is then dipped into the solution, and then left out into the sun to dry.

Our 5 hour trip back to Kathmandu ended up taking 7 hours due to a horrendous traffic jam over the pass caused by a stalled vehicle. The line did not move for literally an hour, and then once a policeman had arrived on the scene to control traffic, it started moving very slowly.

We finally arrived at the amazing Hotel Dwarikas at about 8pm just in time for dinner. Since Owen and Sammy had fallen asleep, we left a note saying where we would be, and went down to the restaurant where we were served a multi-course traditional Nepalese dinner which was by far the best meal we had had on the trip so far. Then a (relatively) early night since we needed to get up early the next day to catch our next flight.