Tiger Tops Tharu Lodge
Tiger Tops Tharu Lodge sits in the buffer zone on the western side of Chitwan, near the river at Amaltari. The group built the first camp in this jungle before Chitwan was declared a national park, and the lodge itself went up in the early 1980s on the site of a hunting camp established in 1964. The people running it are the second generation.
Worth knowing before you choose it
This is a lodge, not a resort. Rooms are comfortable rather than opulent, fan cooled, with en-suite showers on solar heated water. Guests who want marble and a concierge should look at Meghauli Serai instead.
What it offers in exchange is the longest institutional memory of any property in Chitwan, and naturalists who have worked this forest for decades.
Reaching it means a flight to Bharatpur and a transfer, or several hours by road. The Terai is hot from April and floods through the monsoon.
The property
Twelve rooms built in the Tharu longhouse style from locally sourced materials, alongside safari tents. The architecture is the vernacular of the people who lived in this valley when malaria kept everyone else out.
The elephant camp is the reason many guests come, and it is run on a position worth stating plainly: **there is no riding here.** The herd is chain free, kept in open corrals, and guests walk in the jungle alongside the elephants while they browse rather than sitting on them. You can join the fodder collection, watch the bathing, or simply sit with them.
Wildlife excursions run with naturalists, and there are sundowners on the Narayani.
Who tends to choose it
Guests who care how the animals are treated and want to be able to ask, travellers who would rather have the best guides than the best bathroom, and anyone interested in the Tharu community rather than a cultural show.
It suits a wildlife-led journey where Chitwan is the centre rather than a two-night add-on.
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