Day three in the Chitwan Jungle

We start the day off with a safari which lasts for one and a half hours.  The first animal we see is a rhino, real close up. I guess being on the elephant allows us to get pretty close. We see deers, birds and several peacocks. I'm in awe at how the male peacock can have such a spectacular tail in the dense jungle without damaging the feathers.

After lunch, its a 2 and half hour jeep safari. We see sloth bears, wild boar, bison, spotted deer, peacocks, crocodiles more rhinos. A mother and son that were with us on this tour are avid bird watchers so the guide tended to stop for every bird siting which made the trip a big longer that it should have been, but what heck. They were like a dictionary of bird names (common and Latin names).

Back at the lodge we are faced with another meal that we are not sure we want. We have found that eating at the restaurant has become painful at best. We have resorted to being very specific about what meals we want because they tend to give us way too much food which ends up going to waste. I don't think they are used to cooking for westerners—they typically have tourists from China, Japan and India.

When I ordered 2 scrambled eggs for breakfast I received a bowl that contained two boiled eggs that had been smashed up, mayo and spices added and then the whole thing heated up. It was definitely NOT scrambled eggs and I ended up not eating breakfast that day. Another day I ordered vegetable chow main and ended up with a plate full of crispy chow main noodles with a handful of cooked noodles and a bit of curry sauce poured on top. Not all meals are bad, but its become a crap shoot as to whether or not we get an edible meal. I've resorted to making sure we have a bunch of lychees on hand to eat just in case the meal is bad. In defense of their cooking skills, I'm sure that if we ordered Nepalese meals the fare would be just fine. We're just at a point in the trip where we are getting tired of curries, dal bhat and momos so we're starting to crave western food again.

When we eat, its not uncommon to have the maître d', the waiter and the cook staring at us. Many times either Rick or I have glanced up form a meal only to find all three staring at us. We've never been such center of attention before and we're not sure what to make of it. It's kinda creeping us out. And this seems to happen every time we eat.

During the middle of the night there is a very violent thunderstorm. One our windows broke in the wind and woke us up. We start to secure the rest of the windows only to notice that water is pouring in through our front door. We put down towels to help stop the flow. The wind is so bad it looks like it is bending many of the fruit trees almost to the ground and the lightening seems to be constant...no breaks in between the flashes. The storm continues for almost two hours.