A brief resumé of the trip
As it says on the home page, this was a Naturetrek tour - "Nepal - A Birdwatching Tour". Our group flew with Qatar Airlines from LHR to Kathmandu via Doha, leaving on the afternoon of 29th Mar and arriving late morning the following day in Kathmandu, where we stayed in the Hotel Royal Singi. From Kathmandu, we visited Phulchowki Hill, a forested hill south of the city and the highest point in the Kathmandu Valley at 2791 metres. We had a whole day there. On 1st April via an internal flight with Buddha Airlines, we moved to the S.E. corner near the border with India, to explore the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve. It comprises extensive mudflats, reed beds, and freshwater marshes in the floodplain of the Sapta Kosi River, and ranges in altitude from 75 to 81 m. We stayed in the delightful Koshi Camp Resort, which was set up by our guide Suchit Basnet and a number of other leading Nepali naturalists, together with David Mills [who founded Naturetrek in the UK] and his wife Maryanne. We spent three nights there, so had 2 full days of exploration. After that we travelled by road on the 10 hour 400km stretch to Chitwan NP which is in south central Nepal, S.W. of Kathmandu. Here, we stayed in the excellently appointed Tigerland Safari Lodge, again for three nights. On the final day we had a long scenic, but slow drive through mountain passes back to Kathmandu for our last night in the Hotel Royal Singi. We departed for our flights the following day, 8th April. We were accompanied at all times by Suchit, and at Koshi by Badri Chaudhary and at Koshi and Chitwan by Dhiraj Chaudhary, both of whom were also excellent guides and companions.
All in all it was a fantastic trip with a lovely group of people with the same interests in a fascinating country, and we generated a pretty impressive bird and animal list - see the menu bar for links.
All in all it was a fantastic trip with a lovely group of people with the same interests in a fascinating country, and we generated a pretty impressive bird and animal list - see the menu bar for links.