Elephant Grass in Sauraha

It is possible to stay inside the park itself and to do that I think it is easiest to go on a packaged tour but most independent travellers stay in a very small town (Sauraha) right outside the park and then take tours inside the park itself. It's possible to take a number of tours as there are many tour agencies, so I don't see the point of staying inside the park. Among the possibilities are walks, jeep rides, canoe rides and elephant rides. Since the park is protected (or somewhat protected anyway) the main draw is the wildlife. There is a type of grass that grows inside the park that during certain times of the year people are allowed to gather. This grass is gathered and then used for many things. It is stored as in the picture above. This picture was taken right in the town where we stayed. Sauraha is very small, two main streets and at that the streets with the banks, money changers, shops and guest houses are short streets. I'd say that Mill Street in Grass Valley is probably the equivilent to the entire size of Sauraha. Nepal is very short of electricity and every day the government does what is called 'load shedding'. They just totally cut the electricity. People of means and business' have generators. But generators are noisey so in Suaraha the government makes all generators shut off at 9:30 p.m., which makes it nice at quiet at night. The electricity usually is on during the day and goes off about 6:00 p.m. and sometimes comes on later in the evening and sometimes I think it is off all night. This morning we had no electricity until about 8:00, but now we're back in Kathmandu. In Kathmandu they run the generators until later at night but now it is dark early so when we go out in the afternoon we always take our flashlight with us. We have changed hotels now, to Tibet Guest House and it has an elevator. There is a sign by the door that says "No electricity, No elevator". We are on the 5th floor so guess we'll have to hike up after load shedding. We have just moved here this morning. Have kind of a nice room, with windows on two sides so it's nice and sunny. Dad is sick so I splurged and got a room with a heater. It is a heater/a.c. combo like we used to have in Riyadh. They are actually pretty good. He is in bed today but at least we have a good t.v. with satellite stations so maybe he can find something he likes. It is sunny and warm today so I've handwashed a lot of clothes and have them strung all over the room. I'd have them washed in the laundry but after seeing how they wash by hand, just along the road and use the water until it is filthy I'd rather do them by hand, myself. We leave next Wednesday so need to have clean clothes to last until then, the place we stay in Bangkok has washing machines we can use. There are a few places here that advertise electric washing machines but I don't want my clothes washed with other peoples dirty clothes either. Since dad is sick I did wash his clothes but I refuse to wash his socks. He can get out of bed to do that!!