Day 551 - We're going on a Rhino hunt ...

Today we hired bikes and set off on the dusty roads that link one village to another as they skirt their way around the forests of the area. As we rode through the villages, we had to chuckle as the children yelled out "bye-bye" to us as we were approaching - we hope it was just a minor language mistake rather than a blatant way of telling us to "get out"!

We made it into the buffer zone forest that surrounds Chitwan National Park (this forest is much more adlibber-budget friendly), and rode 4-5km to the 20,000 lake. On arrival it was clear there would be no swimming today as the lake was more like a swamp, and we were later informed that it hid a large number of crocs!

We decided to follow a path around the lake in search of a nice place to sit down and read our books for a while, but it seemed like there were people everywhere! At one point a fisherman asked us if we had seen the rhino, and we thought "yeah right" - but sure enough he led us through the jungle and soon we were less than 100m from this magnificent creature! The 5 seconds we saw it for would have been enough for us, but we followed the fisherman along the path and soon popped out a mere 30m away from the forraging rhino. While Liv stood gazing with a dropped jaw, Adam went for a closer look and some photos.

Amped up from the experience we rode around for a bit and then when Adam's bike decided to give way Liv cycled ahead. Adam took 20 minutes to dismantle his brakes with a pocket knife and strapped them to the back of the bike and set off at full pace to catch Liv. Half an hour later he arrived back at the hotel where Liv was nowhere to be found. Liv in the meantime had take the wrong path and ended up having to back track half an hour to get back on track!!!

We met each other at the entrance to town, and decided that it was well and truly time for food and drink and absorb the fact that we'd been lucky enough to see a rhino as close to face to face as possible!

Adlibing it with a rhino.