Chitwan National Park

Five to six hours by road from Kathmandu following the Trishuli out of the hills, or twenty-five minutes by air to Bharatpur. Chitwan was established in 1973 as Nepal's first national park and inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1984; it protects nearly a thousand square kilometres of sal forest, riverine grassland and wetland in the central Terai along the Indian border. We check in, and the afternoon covers the park orientation and the small museum, followed by the walk down to the Rapti riverbank for sunset over the park. A Tharu cultural programme in the village after dinner - stick dance and song from the indigenous people of this part of the Terai.

Into the park at first light by jeep, which is when the animals move and the light is at its best. Chitwan holds one of the world's strongest populations of greater one-horned rhino, brought back from a few hundred animals in the 1960s, and a sighting is close to certain and often at short range; there are also Bengal tiger, gaur, sloth bear, leopard, wild elephant and both gharial and mugger crocodile. Later we take a dugout canoe down the Rapti, drifting past crocodile on the banks with kingfishers, storks and darters along the water. The middle of the day is spent out of the heat. In the afternoon, the elephant breeding centre and a guided walk in the buffer-zone forest with a naturalist.

An early walk along the community forest edge with a naturalist - the best hour of the day for birds, of which the park has over five hundred recorded species including hornbills, bee-eaters, paradise flycatchers, Bengal florican and a long list of raptors. It is slow, on foot and unhurried, and it shows you the park at ground level in a way the jeep cannot. After breakfast we make the drive or the short flight back to Kathmandu, arriving in the afternoon. Two nights is the minimum that justifies the journey; three is better and easily added.