Buddha and rhinos

We've been in Nepal about a week now, and have been loving it. After taking a train and a bus we made it to the Indian-Nepali border. Getting the visa was hassle free and we were soon in Nepal. The first step was to go to the nearest town, 4KM away. We took a "jeep bus," which could comfortably fit 11 people -- ours had 19 in it.

We then took a car 30 minutes to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha. This was a great town to spend a day and a half in. In 1978 an architect designed the Lumbini Development Zone, a 1.2 square mile area. Inside this zone is temple housing the supposed exact spot where the Buddha was born in 623BC. Throughout the rest of the zone are monasteries built by various countries. The area is still a work in progress -- new monasteries are still being built, and the rest of the zone currently consists of long grass and muddy roads. But still, it's very easy to imagine what it'll look like once completed.

The one negative to Lumbini was that there was an infestation of some type of fly during our last night that is so small it fits through the screens. There were literally thousands of them in our room and our only protection was to huddle in our sleep liners. The other issue was that Chris became sick with a 101 fever, a throat infection, and a stomach bug.

After Lumbini, we spent 4 days in Chitwan National Park. Despite the sickness and the issue we had with lodging (see "First Travel Snafu" post) this was a great experience. Our first morning, after taking a dugout canoe down the river followed by a jungle walk, we had one of our most fun experiences so far on this trip -- the elephant bath. This consisted of us each hopping onto an elephant's back, going into the river, and then the elephant sprayed us with his trunk and dunked us into the water. We felt like kids.

The other main activity is riding an elephant into the forest, since animals aren't afraid of the elephants. The highlight on our two outings was seeing 3 one-horned rhinos -- it was an awesome animal to see.

Alex also became a little sick, so in between any activities we pretty much slept. Chris went to the doctor one night, which was an experience in itself. It was in a village near the Park; the entire village consisted of mud huts. There was no electricity so it was pitch black; luckily, we pulled up to the one "real" house, where the doctor lived. He didn't speak English but we managed to communicate enough and he gave me some medications. No need to file a claim with Blue Cross Blue Shield - the examination and medication cost a total of $4.