Night safari and Chepang dishes to lure tourists in Chitwan

Considering Visit Nepal 2020, the local concerned authorities and tourism entrepreneurs in Chitwan are preparing to introduce a new tourism product- Night Safari with Chepang Dishes – to the tourist visiting Chitwan, the third most popular tourist destination in the country after Kathmandu and Pokhara.

Ratnanagar Municipality mayor Narayan Ban shared that a night safari starting from Sauraha to Lothar via Rapti riverbank would be soon introduced for the amusement of the tourists willing to explore the culture and traditions of the indigenous communities in the locality, especially the Chepangs.

The night safari would stretch 18 kilometers and would be of 3-hour duration in total. Tourists would get to feast on the traditional dishes of the Chepang community consisting of domesticated wild tubers like Githa, Bhyakur and the like during the process.

So far, the tourists visiting Sauraha had been coming for wildlife safari in the Chitwan National Park and attending Tharu’s cultural program in the evening. As many as 200,000 tourists -domestic and foreign- have been visiting Chitwan annually, according to the Regional Hotel Association Nepal (RHAN), Sauraha.

The new product is expected to help augment the influx of more tourists. RHAN Sauraha President Deepak Bhattarai said that the tourists engaged in night safari would get to feel, sort of ‘newness’, and would help prolong the stay of the tourists.

A team of tourism entrepreneurs is conducting a feasibility study of the night safari and they would soon launch the new package, according to the RHAN. The plan has it that the tourists would be given a tour of Tharu villages from Jhuwani to Sauraha via Fashihara, Dewauli, Bokhara to Sauraha in bicycles in the broad daylight while they would be taken for a night safari to Chepang settlement for a cultural tour (RSS).