COUNTRIES

Durbar Square in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal

Kumari Ghar, a palace where the Royal Kumari lives. People believe she's the incarnation of the goddess Taleju

Kumari is chosen at a very young age and it is believed the goddess vacates her body after she menstruates

View of Kathmandu Durbar Square

Fake Sadhu. A real one would not pose for photos and ask for money

"How am I going to find my motorbike?"

Don't try this at home!

Phewa Lake in Pokhara. It's only 200km from Kathmandu but it takes 7 hours by bus

View from the World Peace Pagoda. The mountain in the middle is Machapuchare 6,993 m

Machapuchare means "Fish Tail". It is revered as sacred to the god Shiva, and is off limits to climbing.

Chitwan National Park. We took a guided walk hoping to see some of the animals living there

Spotted deer (chital) seems to be common, because we saw a few of them

Red Cotton bugs attacking a tree in Chitwan

Grass in Chitwan can grow up to 8m high

Our guide looking for animals, especially rhinos. Unfortunately, we didn't see any

Back in the village, there was a rhino just grazing near the river!

This guy was taking his elephant to the river

It was too cold for a bath

One of the nice houses in Sauraha

There were also many simple houses like this

Villagers near Sauraha

We took an elephant ride in the forest

It's the best way to see rhinos, because we could get closer without risking an attack

Sometimes a big male like this one can charge an elephant

There are around 500 One-horned Rhinoceros in Chitwan. Poaching is the biggest threat

Elephant breeding centre 3km from Sauraha

Elephant trunk has 40,000 muscles

In late afternoon elephants come back from the jungle and are chained

Elephant was taking tips from the kids and passing it to the mahout sitting on it's back

A line of trucks stuck for days because of road blockades. It complicated our travel plans, too