ROYAL CHITWAN NATIONAL PARK, Nepal -- Imagine, for a moment, U.S. Secret Service officers atop elephants lumbering into the sunset to protect first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, one agent bending to speak into the radio microphone protruding ever so slightly from the cuff of his shirt sleeve.


Or officers in stocking feet padding after her in a mosque.


Or agents peeking uncomfortably into the crib of Mother Teresa's orphans in search of hidden hazards.


It's all in a day's work during what the first lady's staff has dubbed the Hillaryland Tour: Clinton's 12-day journey through the women's empowerment organizations and prime ministers' residences of South Asia. The tour has so far included visits to Pakistan and India. On Sunday, Clinton flew from Nepal to Bangladesh and she will complete her tour in Sri Lanka.


Over the weekend she took a day off to ride elephants and hike at one of Nepal's most popular wildlife preserves, home to rare Bengal tigers -- which she didn't see -- and endangered greater one-horned rhinoceroses -- which she did see.


But the trip, which is providing the first lady with a chance to promote what have become her main causes -- women's and children's issues -- is also giving her a crack at proving that she has a humorous, human side after a grim year of health care reform failure and such scandals as Whitewater.


Some who have observed her up close for the past few years say they have not seen her so relaxed since she assumed the role of first lady.


After spending more than a week harping on the importance of educating girls in cultures that place little value on girls and women and where female illiteracy is extraordinarily high, she had but one response when told that several mother-daughter pairs of rhinos had been spotted in her vicinity at the wildlife preserve: "Are they sending their girls to school?"


In New Delhi, she watched schoolchildren demonstrating yoga. When a student at a village school in Pakistan asked the first lady, "What is your nickname?" Clinton paused momentarily. She then replied: "My nickname? Well, it depends upon whom you talk to. Some people have, I would imagine, very rude nicknames for me."


The first lady has also been showered with presents during her stay: Her take has been so great that a State Department protocol "gift officer" is accompanying her just to handle it all.


She has been draped in a half-dozen handmade shawls, presented with antique Victorian armchairs by Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and plied with armloads of crafts and crates of souvenirs.


First daughter Chelsea Clinton, who is traveling with her mother, accumulated enough pearl, gold, emerald and ruby jewelry from Pakistani government officials to sustain the dowry of a wealthy South Asian bride.


Sunday the first lady also met the person responsible for her name -- Sir Edmund Hillary, 75, who led the first expedition to climb Mount Everest. Clinton said her mother read an article about Hillary in 1947 before he scaled the world's highest peak.


"So when I was born, she called me Hillary and she always told me it's because of Sir Edmund Hillary," Clinton said.