We spent our last day in Pokhara relaxing and catching up on the blog, and on the morning of 17th December we headed south towards the border with India. This was an extraordinary 24 hours of travel (and an extra-long post too, sorry!)
The day started at 5.30am, when we checked out of the Little Tibetan Guest House and caught a taxi over to the bus stop. We bought a couple of very heavy "croissants" from a food stand and boarded the minibus. Legroom was non-existent, which did not bode well for the seven-hour journey, and I started to long for South American buses. While Clem tried to sleep, I drifted off into the Ramayana, the great Hindu epic I'd loaded onto my iPod.
The bus trundled through the outskirts of Pokhara and rumbled along pot-holed roads from village to village. After a couple of hours' bouncing along we found ourselves amidst spectacular scenery, traversing a densely forested valley with steep drops off to the side of the road. It wasn't quite as traumatic as the road from Uyuni to Potosi in Bolivia, but it wasn't far off. It was, however, beautiful.
View of the valley below
A few bovine obstacles
A video to give some idea of the scenery:
After another few hours the bus pulled in at a small town, where we jumped out to stretch our legs and buy something to eat (the fine combination of satsumas, crisps, and biscuits). By then it was around midday, and we were expecting to reach our destination (Bhairahawa) in an hour or so. From there we would take a taxi the short distance to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha.
Pit stop
Only 15 minutes after our lunch break the bus stopped again. It was soon clear that this was unscheduled. We eventually found out that the road had been blocked by members of the Nepali Congress party. A prominent politician had died that morning after being attacked while in prison, and they were protesting what they believed to be his assassination by opposition parties. Link here.
Everyone we asked had a different idea as to when the strike would end: maybe in the evening; maybe the following day; maybe the day after that or even later. We didn't much fancy staying in the middle-of-nowhere town (Butwal) that we found out was a ten-minute walk past the road-block, but at least we could be flexible. On the same bus were Chinese and Australian couples who had flight and train connections, which left no room for waiting out the strike in the Nepali countryside.
The Australian guy and I walked past a long line of trucks and buses to the road-block, which consisted of a circle of half-a-dozen men stood in front of a branch burning in the middle of the road. After talking to a few people, including some tourists stuck on the other side, we had a plan.
There were another ten or so road-blocks between there and the border with India. The only vehicles allowed to pass were ambulances, cycle rickshaws, and - just maybe - jeeps containing only tourists. We decided to walk past the first block and into Butwal, and there to try to hire a jeep to take all six of us to the border. It was a shame to have to write off Lumbini, but we didn't want to risk being stranded for even longer and having to skip places on the way to Kolkata, which we had to reach by the 24th. (As it turned out, the strike did continue.)
We joined the others back at the bus, collected our bags from the roof of the bus, and set off towards Butwal. As we walked past the road-block several rickshaws offered us a lift, but on we trudged. We arrived in town and started asking around again, how long the strike would last and where we could find a jeep. No one could answer either question. We walked on a little further, past another road-block, but still there was no sign of a jeep.
Loading up
Walking past the other vehicles stuck behind the road-block
Eventually we came to a group of rickshaws, and decided to ask how much it would cost to cycle to Sunauli, the town on the border with India. 800 rupees we were told, about $10. We tried to get some idea of how far it was, whether it was uphill or downhill, and whether or not it was actually feasible, but neither the drivers' English nor our Nepali was up to the task. By this point we had been surrounded by a pack of curious locals, and finally decided to give it a go. Somehow we managed to squeeze the two of us, plus all of our bags, onto the back of a rickshaw. Our driver, a waif who was at least 10 years younger than us and probably a couple of stone lighter, pushed off with legs pumping and we were on our way.
The centre of attention
Our convoy of three rickshaws, six tourists, and innumerable bags attracted plenty of attention in this rural region that probably only ever saw tourists passing swiftly by on the bus. It was actually interesting to have some insight into daily life in a less touristy part of Nepal than we had seen previously.
A very short and bumpy clip of a road-block, before Clem sensibly told me to put away the camera
The kids love cricket in Nepal too
Shortly after setting off we saw a painted stone by the side of the road, marking the distance to Sunauli: 21km. Thankfully the road was flat or downhill, so the youngster in front of us did not seem to be toiling too hard, but we felt distinctly uneasy nevertheless. He'd been very keen for the fare, we hadn't haggled on price at all, and in fact we planned to pay far more than he'd demanded, but the situation still felt slightly exploitative.
After almost two hours (including a couple of navigational mishaps) we eventually arrived in Sunauli. Between the final blockade (the first on arriving from India) and the border we passed more than a hundred brightly decorated trucks, mostly Indian, pulled to the side of the road. Their drivers seemed relaxed, or at least resigned. We gave our driver, who seemed thrilled but exhausted, a round of applause and a generous tip. Shouldering our bags, we walked through the chaos to the Nepali immigration building and then across the border into India.
Indian trucks stuck just over the border
Last few steps to the border (that's Clem swallowed up by the grey bag)
This squalid border town was not somewhere to hang around. After stopping off at the shack that served as Indian immigration to have our visas stamped, the six of us recruited a jeep to drive us to Gorakhpur, the nearest transport hub (from which the Chinese couple had a train to catch that night).
By this point we were shattered, but there was not much chance of sleep on this two-hour journey. It was 6pm when we set off and the fog that descended was so thick that we could barely see five metres in front of the jeep. Our driver's solution was to beep his horn incessantly for the entire two hours. To be fair, this strategy did work and we arrived at Gorakhpur train station safe and sound (albeit with white knuckles from clinging to anything solid).
Apparently Clem and I had not had enough of travelling for the day. We had the bright idea that rather than staying the night in Gorakhpur (which did not seem very appealing) we would catch the train straight to Varanasi, which would leave in an hour or two.
Dealing with the train station was itself a fairly unpleasant (and saddening) experience. The large entrance and ticket halls were awash with bodies huddled together in rags to keep out the cold. We tip-toed our way across this homeless shelter and eventually found the correct ticket booth, buying two "sleeper" tickets for the six-hour journey to Varanasi.
Sleeper, all that was available apparently, is the fourth of five classes: far better than the free-for-all seating of "general" carriages, but much less civilised than 3rd, 2nd, or the luxury of 1st class. There are eight sections per carriage, each of which has eight berths: six perpendicular to the rails, three berths piled upon each other across the other three; then two more berths, one upper and one lower, across the narrow aisle.
Even more entertainingly, one of our berths was double-booked. The Indian guy who also seemed to have a ticket for #53 tried resolve the issue very simply by planting himself on the bed to claim it, but eventually a conductor arrived and turfed him off. A leering local asked me whether Clem was my sister, and was manifestly disappointed by the answer. Then another couple tried to sit down on my seat, but with a little help from our now-sympathetic neighbours I managed to explain that I had paid for the entire seat, and sent him on his way.
Nevertheless it would actually have been reasonably comfortable if not for two factors: first, the stench emanating from the foul toilets; and second, the miserably cold night. Of course, the latter was partly down to our own stupidity. Everyone else had blankets with them, but we were dressed for a daytime bus journey, not an overnight, unheated train. We piled on as many layers as we could and curled up to shiver through the night.
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