With the tourist season already on, internal tourists have started thronging Sauraha of Chitwan district in droves, national news agency RSS reported Wednesday.

Domestic tourists from different parts of the country are visiting several tourist spots in the district.

Open national park is one of the main attractions for the tourists in Chitwan, the third tourist destination after Kathmandu and Pokhara.

Jungle safaris, pony-riding and sight-seeing are major attractions there. According to tourists, lush green swaths of land and community forests of Sauraha, Kasara and Bagmara add the zing to their excursion.

Kanhaiyalal Keshari and Pawan Tiwari of Birgunj said that they were planning to visit this area again after the Chhath festival with their family.

“We found Sauraha much more attractive than we had heard,” they echoed each other.

After the rise on tourists’ arrival during the festive seasons, entrepreneurs have demanded that the area should be developed a ‘Pay Holiday’ site. More than 90 percent of the tourists who come to Sauraha usually want to go either for sight-seeing on elephant back or pony-riding.

But, Lal Bihari Yadav, assistant warden of the National Park, said that it was not possible to provide services to all the tourists for the National Park had limited number of elephants.

He said, “Conserving forest is our foremost priority. After forest management, we are here to extend our help to visitors.” Despite high demand for elephants, the Park has provided only four for the purpose of sight seeing.

Park warden Rameshwor Chaudhary said that the park used to earn millions in revenues from elephant and pony rides but it has drastically decreased in the recent past. He said the main cause behind this is the less number of available elephants.

Over 800 domestic tourists visit this area every year, said Arpan Shrestha, proprietor of Garden Guest House. nepalnews.com