Elephant madness

Next we went to Chitwan, for the cheapest safari holiday ever. It was pretty awesome aswell, floating about in those big long canoes. We also got a bucking bronco from an elephant and a hosing down. There were elephants everywhere. On the main street and all over the place.

We realised here that hiring bikes was by far the cheapest and best way to get around. The breeding sanctuary up the road was full of mental claustrophobic elephant mothers, chained, and cute little babies, unchained. It had fences of a sort, but not really. If an elephant wanted out it would probably just have to sit on it. and the evidence showed that that had already happened. A little baby elephant strolled out and said hello. We shook its trunk and sat and had a chat with it for a while. Then it got hungry and started charging us down if we got too near its meal. I never thought I'd have to hand off an elephant. But yes, I have done that now.

One night we went to the tour guides family's local hut. We got on well with the tour guide, his name was Dorjee. We enjoyed the food and had a long chat. Eventually a guitar was produced and the meal turned into a rice wine fuelled sing song, alternating between traditional Nepali and traditional English songs. They entertained us with such songs as the harvest blessing song and several traditional dances, we in turn entertained them with such British traditional songs as Tribute by Tenacious D, God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols and If You Wanna Be My Lover by the Spice Girls. It was a most multicultural experience.