Shuklaphanta National Park

A flight of about an hour and a quarter takes us to Dhangadhi in the far-western Terai, and from there it is a two-to-three-hour drive west to Shuklaphanta in Kanchanpur, in the very corner of Nepal against the Indian border. Almost no visitors get this far west, which is precisely the appeal - you will very likely have the park to yourself. The name comes from the phanta, the open grasslands that make up much of it, and the largest of them runs for kilometres without a tree. We check in near Mahendranagar and there is time in the afternoon for an orientation drive and the sunset over the grassland.

A full day on the phantas. Shuklaphanta holds the world's largest population of barasingha, or swamp deer, in herds that can run to two thousand animals moving together across the open grass - it is one of the great wildlife sights in South Asia and almost nobody has heard of it. There are also tiger, rhino, wild elephant, hispid hare and the Bengal florican, a critically endangered bustard that displays on these grasslands. We go out by jeep at first light and again in the late afternoon, with the middle of the day spent out of the heat. The scale of the open ground is what registers.

The morning at Rani Tal, the lake in the eastern part of the park, which is the best place here for waterbirds and for marsh crocodile - and around 460 bird species have been recorded in the park as a whole. There is a watchtower overlooking the water. Later we go into the sal forest, which covers much of the park away from the grassland and holds a different set of animals again: leopard, sloth bear, wild boar and four species of deer. Late afternoon back on the phanta for the deer herds.

One last early drive, which as usual is often the best - by now the naturalist knows exactly what you have and have not seen. Back for breakfast, then the drive to Dhangadhi and the flight to Kathmandu, arriving in the afternoon. The best months here are the dry ones from February to April, when the grass is short, the water is concentrated and visibility across the phanta is at its greatest.