May 15 - 16, 2013 - Hannover, Germany

May 15, 2013 - Germany

Left Kathmandu.  The most intense security I have ever been through at an airport.  My bag was scanned twice and searched once and I was patted down 4! times.  Geeez.

Anyways, it was Kathmandu to Delhi.  Then Delhi to London.  I was certain that was going to be a 4-5 hour flight.  Turns out it was 8 hours, but I got caught up on some movies.  Then from London to Hannover.  Which I almost missed!  In Delhi we had to sit on the plane for 2 hours for them to repair something.  This forced me to run like an idiot through the London airport.  hah.  I made it just in time and they closed up the doors behind me and took off.  Landed in Hannover after 11pm and my favorite German, Steffen, was there to pick me up!  HE even had a box of Kinder Buenos (a candy you cant get in the states) waiting for me.  We went back to his parents' house and after a quick introduction to Stefanie, Steffen's gf, I immediately fell asleep. Long day.

May 16, 2013 - Hannover, Germany

The three of us embarked on a walking tour around town to see the sights in Hannover.

At 11 we met a friend of Steffen and Stefanie's  for a tour of the town hall.  She gave us some history on the building and the town.  The Hannover town hall has the only elevator in the world that is at a slant.  So of course we took the elevator to the top of the tower to have a look over the whole city.  We were even given the "special" key to be able to take the stairs back down.  Sweet!

The slant elevator.

The view. 

The innards of the tower. 

Found some really old signatures on the wall!

Then it was lunch time.  And I had been looking forward to Doner for a very long time.  We stopped at Happy Doner, "the best doner shop" and ordered a fabulous German/Turkish morsel and a beer.   We took our meal to a park bench along the river to enjoy the view and the food.

Visited the local lake and fed the scary big fish.

We stopped at a parking garage in town whose top level had been turned into a beach club.  Sand and umbrellas included.  Then it was out on the town with more friends!

May 12 - 14, 2013 - Chitwan National Park, Nepal

May 12 - 14, 2013 - Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Had an early pick up and bus ride to Chitwan.  The road was VERY curvy and narrow and right along a cliff!  I managed to sleep through most of it so I didn't have to look out the windows and hope the bus driver was paying very close attention.

We arrived at the bus stop in Chitwan and then my hotel picked me up and transported me to the Jungle Wildlife Camp.  A very nice little hotel on the river.  We were served lunch and then given some free time.

At 4pm the group, me and 5 Chinese people, went on a village/town tour.  We stopped the home of a local family and had a look at their houses.  The family stays close together so all the houses in the immediate vicinity all belonged to the same family.  The houses are made of poo and mud and are decorated once a year during festival times.  We also saw elephant walking down the road! It finished up with a stroll along the river and back to the hotel.

We did dinner and then we all went to a cultural performance.  Here the locals performed their traditional dances done during weddings and festival celebrations.

May 13, 2013

EARLY breakfast was followed by a canoe ride down the river.  A local boatman pushed us along in the canoe with a long stick.  I was hoping to see a long of wildlife a long the river.  Like a tiger! hah.  No tigers but we did see some spotted deer and lots of birds during the ride.

After about 45 minutes of canoeing down the river we docked and went on a jungle walk.  After being in Africa and knowing there were tigers in this jungle I was a bit scared to be walking around.  I couldn't help but laugh to myself that we were a walking buffet! But as you can well guess, no one was attacked by a tiger, thankfully.  We saw lots of spotted deer and climbed a 4 story look out to see across the jungle.

We ended the scary jungle walk with a tour of the elephant breeding center.  They had a very new 3 month old baby!  Don't worry he isn't dead in the pictures, the babies just sleep a lot. Cute.

Later that day we went on an elephant safari.  4 of climbed onto the back of an elephant the mahout (elephant driver) lead us on a 2 hour safari through the jungle.  This is supposed to be a more intimate way to see animals.  The animals are used to the elephants and the elephants are quieter than a 4x4 engine.  And it worked!  We got within feet of a mom and baby one-horned rhinos!!  So awesome!  Even in Africa we didn't get this close.  They are huge and strange creatures.  And they didn't mind at all that our elephant and about 20 others were so close.

Crazy enough, I even ran into Johan while on the Chitwan tour!

May 14, 2013

The bus back to Kathmandu left at 9:30 and wound its way through the mountains. I didn't sleep as much on this ride and got to see straight to the bottom of a few cliffs. Ekk!