Chitwan
Rhino, deer, crocodile and sal forest in the Terai — the best possible recovery from a week of walking uphill.
From
$565per person
Chitwan is subtropical grassland and sal forest at two hundred metres, four or five hours by road from either Kathmandu or Pokhara, and it protects one of the densest populations of one-horned rhino left anywhere. Most visitors see rhino. A few see tiger.
Jeep drives into the park at first light, guided walks with an armed ranger, a dugout canoe down the Rapti for gharial crocodile and kingfishers, and an evening in a Tharu village. The pace is deliberately unhurried — this is the trip people take after a trek, not before one.
Elephant-back safaris are not offered. The park is seen by jeep, on foot and by canoe now, which is both the better experience and the defensible one.
October to March is ideal: comfortable temperatures and the grass low enough to see through, which matters more for sightings than anything else. April and May are hot, but animals gather at water and the viewing is excellent.
<p>A morning on the road down out of the hills into the Terai, arriving for lunch. An easy first afternoon: a walk through the buffer zone, the Tharu village, and sunset over the Rapti.</p>
<p>Canoe down the river at dawn, then a guided walk and a jeep drive deep into the park. Rhino are likely, sloth bear and gaur possible, and tiger is the one nobody promises.</p>
<p>An early walk for birds — Chitwan holds well over five hundred species — breakfast, and the road back to Kathmandu or Pokhara.</p>
