We got up very early after not being able to sleep from all the bugs. Not wanting to stay in the mosquito room any longer, we hit the road just after sunrise and decided to stop for breakfast later on down the road. It was actually super nice driving at this time of day because it was so quiet and not yet dusty from all the trucks and buses. We went through some villages that were like stepping back in time. Carriages pulled by buffalos, dirt roads, and different farm animals roaming around everywhere.
From Lumbini we decided to go to Chitwan National Park which is in the jungle and a big conservation area for a vulnerable population of rhinos, and a protected habitat for the Bengal tiger. We thought this would be a totally different part of Nepal to see compared to the mountains, and it definitely was. This journey was just over four hours but we ended up stopping for a two-hour break for breakfast. We didn’t mean for it to be two hours, but due to a language barrier we thought we ordered food but the guy at the restaurant just thought we ordered tea. Food always takes a long time in Nepal and we didn’t question it until after an hour when another patron came in and ordered and got served right away. Once we were able to effectively communicate that we did indeed want food, we finally got served some dal baht which apparently was the only option.
We arrived in Chitwan early afternoon and checked into Chillax House which I had read about from other bloggers. This was another bare bone accommodation full of bugs which at this point being in the jungle, bugs were going to be completely unavoidable. The owner was super nice though and the bed did have a mosquito net around it so I felt more comfortable about that. We spent the afternoon relaxing and planning a jungle trek for tomorrow to search for a rhino. We walked down the road for sunset before having dinner at Chillax House. We were the only guests there and it did feel like a really peaceful place.
