Mountains, temples & jungle

A shop sells carved wooden Buddha.[Photo by Xing Yi/China Daily]

A walk in the jungle

The jungle is my next destination, which stretches in Nepal's southern Chitwan district.

The name Chitwan means "the heart of forest" in the Nepali language, and the district established the country's first national park in 1973 to protect its abundant animals and forests, which was listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1983.

It took me 7 hours by bus from Kathmandu to reach a local Tharu people's village by the jungle, where a river separates it from the forest.

A wooden plaque in front of the resort I stayed at read: "Into the Wild".

With a group of around 16 tourists, we set off at 8 am the next morning from the river bank.

We boarded a wooden canoe and set off westward following the current of the river.

At the front of the canoe stood a local boatman with a long pole, and at the other end a boatman with an oar.

The current was fast and the river was quiet, and I could only hear the sound of the water as the boatmen paddled.

As we passed, we saw birds resting on sand banks in the middle of the river. A rhino was later spotted standing in the shallow water on the southern bank of the river bordering the jungle.

In about one hour, we arrived at Kasara entrance of the Chitwan National Park.