by Vincent
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| First step: the train from Varanasi to Gorakhpur. Up to 27 people in a compartment for 8. |
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| After another crazy trip by taxi, we are passing the Indian border with our new Danish-Hungarian friends. It's 2am. |
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| We passed the Indian immigration but the Nepalese office is closed. Only one solution: sleeping outside on the floor! |
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| Bus ride to Kathmandu. We are almost there! |
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| Inside the bus, there is always a kind of mini-temple for protecting the driver and the passenger. Indeed, we need that protection. |
After a rickshaw form our hotel to the train station, we waited some time for our train to Gorakhpur, the closest city to the border you can go by train. Our train number didn't appear on the departure screen so we asked to a policeman who told us to wait next to him, together with a Danish-Hungarian couple who were in the same situation and were also going to Kathmandu. At 5pm, our train finally arrived and we sat in our compartment. "Sleeper class", as usual (I could write a whole article just about train classes in India. There are so many and their names generally don't make sense at all, like for example "AC Three Tier"). So far, we had been quite lucky with trains in India. Before to start our travel, we had the image of trains completely full, with people on the roof and some others people hanging out of the train. It probably happens sometimes but we have never seen that. But that time, it was quite close to be like that. A compartment in a "Sleeper class" is normally for 8 people but we counted up to 27 people in ours!
Anyway, we arrived on time in Gorakhpur and met again the Danish-Hungarian couple. We had decided to travel together to Kathmandu. It was more than 10pm and we had two options: sleeping in that ugly city and not being sure to make it to Kathmandu the next day, or taking a bus or taxi immediately to the border (a city called Sunauli). We chose the second option. We had heard that there was maybe a bus at that time of the day to the border but after looking for it during 15 minutes, we gave up and decided to go with a Jeep taxi after a long time bargaining the price we would pay. When we agreed on the price, we thought we would leave but the driver wanted his Jeep to be full before to go. So he looked for some others passengers during almost 30 minutes, continuously yelling "Sunauli!" in the street.
The driver was really driving like crazy and way too fast. We were used to crazy driving after one month in India but that time, it was too much and too dangerous (and I forgot to say that in India and Nepal, by night, everybody drives with the full lights so you don't see anything when there is another vehicle in the other direction). Berit tried to tell him to slow down but he just answered by some laughings and repeated "Haha, slow slow!" while making fun of us with the others Indian passengers. We got quite angry and told him "Slow or no money". We had to say it a couple of times and finally, it entered in his head and he slowed down. We arrived at the India-Nepal border in the middle of the night, at around 2am.
One more time, we had two options: sleeping in a hotel on the Indian side, or trying to pass the border (which, according to our guidebook was open 24 hours). Since we were tired, we decided for a hotel but after ringing and knocking during 5 minutes without response at the door of the only hotel we found in Sunauli, we changed our mind.
On the Indian side, we found a small wooden house with an almost invisible sign "Border office". It had no door but just a curtain and behind, we found two guys sleeping and snoring under mosquito nets. We felt a bit bad but after a few "Excuse me" or "Hello", we managed to wake them up. They stamped us out of India and then we happily walked to the Nepalese office, a hundred meters away. We found a house looking a bit more like a house than the Indian office. We knocked at the door. No answer. So we insisted and after a while we heard somebody saying something from inside. But nobody came. We knocked again and again and finally somebody came, opened quickly the window, just the time to say that the office would open at 6am. We were stuck in the territory between India and Nepal. We couldn't come back to India, and we couldn't enter in Nepal. We had no other option but to spend the night there, outside on the floor, next to the door of the Nepalese office. And on top of that, it was not so warm and mosquitos were waiting for us!
We didn't really manage to sleep and were so happy when, at 5.30am, a guy came to open the door. Twenty minutes later, we all had our Nepalese Visa and at 6.30am (Nepalese time. There is a ridiculous 15 minutes difference with India), we were in the bus, ready to leave for Kathmandu that we would reach after a 10 hours ride.
A border is just an abstract line but by passing from India to Nepal, we immediately saw the difference in the physic of the people, the architecture, the cleanness and the organization. Nepalese people look like a mix of Indian, Chinese and Thai. Regarding the cleanness and organization, it was a big change as well. We had the impression to come back in a civilized country whereas most of the people arriving directly from Europe to Kathmandu would probably think the contrary.
But regarding the driving, it's quite similar. It was impossible to sleep in the bumpy bus which stopped at every place it was possible to stop on the way, picking up people, newspaper, letters, food, chickens and many others things to transport them from village to village. The bus was full of everything and a dozen of people were seated on its roof.
Like in India, the mentality is completely different compared to Europe when it comes to driving (but not only driving of course). Here, you don't wait to have space or visibility when you want to overtake. You just overtake, press the horn constantly and will happen what will happen. There is almost always a car, a bus, a truck, a motorcycle or a cow coming from the other direction, when it's not all of them in the same time. But by miracle, everything goes well and we manage to pass. I don't know how many times we tried to catch anything possible in a bus or a car (because of course there is no security belt) when we saw a big truck coming fast towards us, sure that we would unavoidably have an accident. Oh! and I forgot to say that this time, we were driving on high cliffs!
After 10 hours, we arrived in Kathmandu. One more taxi to Thamel (the touristic center) and we were at our hotel. It was almost 5pm. After a rickshaw, a train, a Jeep, a night outside on the floor nowhere between India and Nepal, a crazy bus ride and a taxi, we arrived to our destination, 24 hours after the start of our journey...
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