Nepal-Ilam

... and on the road again... after spending another 5 hours in our Schanka-mobile ( aka the suicide taxi), we arrived in indianstyle Janakpur, went to the movies to escape the heat and visited a temple (Janaki Mandir). On the next day we arrived in tea-heaven Ilam. Actually Ilam is the nepalese version of indian Darjeeling. We had a very bumpy road to get to a lovely lake (Mai Pokhari) on top of a hill ( as it is below 4000 m), harvested some tea and went to a cheese factory ( yes yes...you read right). All in all it was a great day. Unfortunately we had just two nights in our very basic rooms before we hit the road again back to Kathmandu. We planned to leave Ilam at 7 o'clock, because the road to the capital is very long. Unfortunately there was bandha ( a strike) so our departure was postponed and we had to wait the convoy of a maoist leader to follow him downhill. 

Nepal-Chitwan National Park

After a 6 hour ride over serpentine roads, we eventually arrived in the south of Nepal. The Chitwan National Park, of a size of 932 km2, is home to elephants, asian rhinoceroces, tigers, bears, leopards, crocodiles and many more ...Courageous as we are, we wanted to discover the forest - by foot and on the back of  Dumbo-  fortunately we didn't meet all of those wild creatures as some are a tad dangerous:-)

Furthermore, we had the great opportunity to see the Himalaya ( in the background-almost in and above the clouds!) for the first time.... wow!!! we can't wait to get there!