CHITWAN, Nepal, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's tourism hub Chitwan hosted the elephant picnic on Tuesday as part of the ongoing 13th Chitwan Elephant Festival.
The concept behind organizing the picnic is to provide special care, love and respect to the elephants and to bring them closer with humans.
Deepak Bhattarai, first Vice President of Regional Hotel Association Chitwan told Xinhua, "Elephants serve humans throughout the year so this program aims to return them the love and care that these large creatures deserve. It is the perfect medium for rewarding them."
This is the third consecutive year of unique elephant picnic in the annual year-ender fiesta.
Nearly 100 elephants participated in the picnic program organized in Sauraha, the gateway of Chitwan National Park.
On the occasion, elephants were served their favorite sugarcane, rice with molasses, bananas, apples, oranges and cabbages. A single elephant was fed with nearly 70 kilograms of food in their day-off.
They also enjoyed a day-off from their regular safari schedule.
"As per the discussion with medical professionals, we arranged nutritious food for elephants that comprise vitamins and minerals", Bhattarai added.
Hundreds of domestic and foreign tourists attended the two-hour long picnic while mahouts were also treated with special delicacies.
A Chinese tourist with English name Sunny shared with Xinhua, "I am very happy to be a part of this elephant picnic. It will definitely boost animal-human relationship. I am very impressed."
Chitwan is the third popular tourism destination in the Himalayan country after the capital city Kathmandu and lake city Pokhara. Located some 170 kilometers away from Kathmandu, the place is especially popular for its abundance of rich wildlife and elephant safari.
Over 50 elephants conduct safari in the Chitwan National Park every day.
According to statistics, the region used to welcome nearly 200,000 tourists annually before the devastating earthquake of April 2015.
According to local tourism entrepreneurs, the region's tourism is bouncing back gradually with the impressive flow of foreign tourists especially from neighboring countries China and India.
