The
following day we took a domestic flight from Tribhuvan International Airport to
Biratnagar. It only took just over an hour to get there because Biratnagar is
Nepal’s second largest city and a real hub for tourists, transportation and so
much more in the eastern part of the country. Although it’s Nepal’s second
largest city, it’s not your typical tourist attraction compared to other
cities. It has relatively fewer large temples compared to Kathmandu. One of the
more interesting things to see in Biratnagar are the local markets displaying a
myriad of food and other local products.
Also,
weekly bazaars take place in many different parts of the city. We decided that
we had seen enough temples and architectural feats recently so we decided to go
to the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve which covers 175 square kilometres of land.
We took a small taxi to a small town on the banks of the river Koshi. There, we
hooked a local self-acclaimed guide to take us into the reserve. We all didn’t
really know what kind of animals there would be in the reserve. Our guide
explained that this reserve is a real must see for bird spotters because there
literally hundreds of different species
in the reserve. The park also sustains Nepal’s last population of wild
water buffalos. We saw a small herd of these water buffalos wading in a shallow
creek and our guide explained that there are only 150 buffalos left in Nepal
and that they will probably vanish in time.
We returned
to the city to spend the evening and went to one of the 2 local ‘gardens’,
which are actually city parks. The parks also house the few religious buildings
of the city, a number of mostly small temples and shrines to a lot of different
gods.
Thomas
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