Pokhara to Sounali
After a day in Pokhara to sort our stuff out it was a 6:30 am start on the tourist bus from Pokhara, with more locals than tourists on board, and less leg room than a Ryanair flight. In saying that after the initial uncomfortable 1/2 hour before getting the driver to make a quick pit stop on the side of road, it was a enjoyable and interesting 7 and a bit hour journey. With all but the last 45 mins of it spent twisting through the steep mountains and valleys (which prompted a few people to reach for and use the plastic sick bags, particularly the older Indian couple in front, and the young kid behind us)
Its spectacular to drive through with the steeply terraced rice fields and alpine rivers, and better for your nerves if you don’t have a view out the front window. Once we got to Butwal, we had an unscheduled stop as the ticket boys did a bit of tile shopping and then it was a quick dash across the thin strip of the Terai Plains to Sounali on the border.
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Tourist bus from Pokhara
Roof riding
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The Border
Once at the border we swapped the Nepali Rupees over to Indian versions to be told by the money exchanger that the border was closed, due to a local Indian election taking place today. Undeterred and keen to get into India as soon as possible we walked through the mass of people queuing on the Nepali side, and asked the ever friendly Nepali police what the story was. His response was that for “us” as foreigners it the border was open. Popped into the Nepal immigration building to check out so to speak, and then went about confusing the officials as we were departing Nepal on our NZL passports and entering India on our European ones (A slight oversight on our part in the planning and largely due to the Indian embassy bureaucracy in London) Eventually we got through along with some marriage advise from the official. It was the lonely walk across the 60m no mans land to India, where once again we had to go through the explanation of the passports to the very friendly old fellas sat around the table in the street that was the immigration office.
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Heading for the Border
Thanks
Sounali to Gorahkapur
Found a bus to Gorahkapur for the 3 hour journey across the dead flat plains completely covered in rice fields and in dispersed with villages. Due to the lack of local traffic due to the election the driver was able to get up some velocity for the usual maneuvering and erratic overtaking. Not that an impact would have made much difference with the human padding that was rammed into the bus at certain points! The bus station was right outside the train station so it was quick change to drop the bags in and find some dinner, as we had 5 hours to kill until the train to Varanasi leaves.
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All Aboard
Indian Sunset
Modes of transport
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Gorahkapur to Varanasi
The last leg of a very long day with the 549 train, we managed to figure out which berth we had on the train from the reservation print outs on the platform. While waiting on the platform a large group of boys followed us like a shadow, wanting to shake our hands and know our names. A bit strange but we found out that a boy from a small village was making a pilgrimage to Mecca so the whole village had turned out to say goodbye – hence their inquisitive interest in us as westerners. Initially we have the whole berth to ourselves, which was great but in the end we shared it with two other late comers from Nepal as well. We set up for the night locked the door (on the advice of the guard) and got down to sleeping. Thankfully the door was locked with the amount of crashing and banging and attempts to open it! Woke up just as dawn was breaking and we were parked up in what seemed the middle of no where, when in fact we where only abut 20 miles out from Varanasi. 2 hours later we had finally made it to Varanasi 26 hours after leaving Pokhara.
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On the Train
Varanasi City Station