About this tour

Nepal is a land of extreme contrasts in climate and geography, It has a unique topography ranging from lowlands with sub-tropical jungles to arctic conditions in the Himalayan highlands. Within a mere 150 kilometers, the land rises from near sea level in the south to over 8000 meters in the North. This, together with the monsoon rainfall along the south-facing slopes, has resulted in compacting virtually all climate zones found on planet Earth. As a result, Nepal has been endowed with a great diversity of life zones providing a home for a large variety of plants, birds, and animals.

The Terai lowlands are defined by a belt of well-watered floodplains stretching from the Indian border northward to the first slopes of the Bhabhar and the Siwalik Range. This is the richest habitat in the land with tall grasslands interspersed with riverine and hardwood sal forest. Here one can see wildlife such as the swamp deer, musk deer, black buck, blue bull, the royal Bengal tiger, gharial and marsh mugger crocodile, and the last of a breed of Asiatic wild buffalo. This area is also rich in birdlife with a variety of babbles and orioles, koels and drongos, peacocks and floricans, and a multitude of wintering wildfowl. There are five protected areas in Nepal – Koshi Tappu and Parsa in the east, Sukla Phanta and Dhorpatan for hunting in the west, and Shivapuri in the. mid-mountain region. The Churia, also known as the. siwalik, is the southernmost range of the Himalayas. Nowhere do they rise above 1,220 meters, This range is famous for fossil deposits of Pleistocene mammals, among them 10 species of elephants, 6 rhinoceros, hippopotamus, saber-toothed cats, various antelopes and primates such as the orang-utan, long extinct in the subcontinent, Situated north of the Churia are broad, low valleys of the inner Terai know as the Doons. These valleys are not unlike the outer plains with tall elephant grass, swamps, and ox-bow lakes where the last of the one-horned rhinoceros survive.