Nepal 97 Travelog : Jungle walks at the Chitwan national park (16/24)

<BODY BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT = "#ABCBBE"> <PRE>The Chitwan National park Jungle walks : some basics safety rules Before leaving the camp for a jungle walk, you get first few advises from the park Ranger which come with you during the walk ! So, you learn what to do if you encounter : a Rhino, a tiger, a bear or a crocodile… For the Rhino, the best is to hide behind a big tree (if any) or to climb on it (if it is not large enough to hide). If there are no trees , just run in zigzag as the Rhino can only keep running fast on a straight line … For the bear, which can climb on trees, the group should stay together in order to form a big shape in order to scare the bear….. and so on.. And for the Tiger, just hope you are on an elephant when you see it or that he is not hungry that day… For the entire park, I did hear the following statistics : every year, 1 person is killed by tiger, 5 by charging rhinos, 2 or 3 by bears.. Compared to the population in the park of each group (tigers : 100 / rhino's : 400 / bear's : 100), it seems that the sloth bear is the most dangerous one… When we started the walk, we were going first through tall grass before entering more into the jungle. We found first a tree used by rhinos to rub them… Jungle walks were really exciting ! especially with such a little group (the "4 foreigners" with our guide and the local ranger). You get the sounds of the forest birds and insects, the smell of the hardwood trees and a glimpse of the very rich ecosystem associated to the sal forest (the sal or "Shorea Robustia" being the dominant tropical hardwood of the region). 20 minutes after the start, we first did spot one Rhino (on the left): he was may be 30 to 40 meters away. The animal seems to be quite nervous and the local ranger decided not to have a nearer look. Anyhow, this first catch was very exciting for us. But, we didn't know that the best was still to come.. Indeed, we were following a small trail in quite dense jungle when…</PRE> </BODY>