After I left Kathmandu, I returned to the lowlands from the mountain valley. I stopped for a couple of nights at the Royal Chitwan National Park of Nepal. It was once a private hunting reserve for royalty and their aristocratic friends, so I fit right in. The area was a mosquito infested malaria swamp where only one particular tribe had enough immunity to be able to live there. After mass applications of DDT in 1950 the area was opened up to settlers, and they flooded in. The new settlers hunted the animals and cut down the trees, so the national park was formed to protect a piece of the jungle. The park is buffered by community wood lots that were replanted with fast growing trees that can be harvested in a sustainable manner. I took and elephant ride into the jungle in search of the elusive one horned rhino, and we found couple.
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