Waterfalls

We made our way to a small town outside Similpal National Park - Barapada - by coach, arriving in the middle of the night. After a couple of closed hotels, we found one that was open much to our relief and it seemed nice so all was good. After sleep we tried to organise a trip into the park....of course you are meant to organise these type of trips weeks if not months in advance, so we found we had to wait a day in a small town with nothing going for it. Fortunately we had cable TV so we thought we'd spend the day relaxing - I was very glad we did as I was ill after a firey curry the night before!

We were a little sceptical as to whether we'd see many animals in the park as we'd been warned by people that there aren't many, but we went for it anyway - the waterfalls were the highlight rather than the animals! But we did see mongoose, kingfishers, eagles, monkeys, fireflies and deer - something at least. As mentioned in a previous post our guide soon annoyed us so we didn't exactly socialise with him as we did with our guide on the camel safari, for example.

We realised why no-one sees any animals except for deer at the salt lakes - we got there and despite all the signs saying "SILENCE" all the Indians were chatting and joking and playing music loudly from their mobile phones. Is it much surprise that only deer come any more?! They have kind of missed the point of being there really - they also squeezed through the barbed wire fences to try and get better photos of the deer!

We went to bed in a crusty shack at the salt lakes and it wasn't long before there were lots of noises coming from the roof. I wasn't sure what it was but suspected rats....whatever it was it woke us up each time they scrabbled around. Michelle wasn't worried - she thought it was monkeys playing on the roof - ah, sweet! When I asked what it was the next morning Michelle was very glad that she hadn't known at the time - it was rats!