Nepal Day 5 - Chitwan junge trek

We joined a couple who have been traveling for 14 months and toured the Chitwan National Park. It began with a boat ride down river and followed by a six hour hike. Which was probably 4 hours more than I cared for...

I found these trees interesting.

We marched through some very dense grass. The grass ranged from 3 feet high to over 20.

One week per year the country allows natives to enter the park to remove bamboo and grass. We happened to be in the jungle during that week. As we were trekking along we stumbled across this group of workers cutting grass and braiding hair.

While it was interesting to see the natives doing their thing their numbers scared off the interesting wildlife like tigers and rhinos. In a six hour walk we had the opportunity to see lots of rhino poo but no rhinos. (Ok, there's more to this story... I couldn't bring myself to take a picture but the mounds of rhino dung were unbelievable. Three feet high and three to six feet across. I said, "Come on, there's no way that came from one animal." The guide explained that the rhinos will come back to poop in the same place over and over to mark their territory. Oh.)

The tall grass had these beautiful and very soft seeds at the top.

Towards the end of the day we did see some monkeys in the trees.

These are grasses that have been cleared. Although I found the seeds at the top to be soft and and pretty cool, they serve no functional purpose so the natives cut them off before hauling it off to the river.