NEPAL!
After a 5 hour delay waiting from midnight until 5 am on a packet train station platform our train finaly arrived, and we slept like babies for 5 hours until the train arived in Gorakpur were a nice Indian man we met took us on a bicycle rikshaw past all the touts looking to rip of tourists to a local bus that would take us all the way to the border for 80p (a three hour bus ride). Admitedly the bus was old and the seats small, but was perfectly fine and it got us there. Nepal border crossing of foot is really easy and the people really helpful. Because our train was so delayed we had missed the bus to Kathmandu but found a taxi driver who had come Chitwan and was heading back so we got a cheap ride there. The next day we went on a jungle walk in the Chitwan national park, in search of Tigers. The tigers might have seen us but all we saw were pawprints and scratch marks. We did see elephants, deer and a monkey. The experience alone of walking in the jungle was a great one trying to be as silently as possible. Thenext day we again needed to take another bus for 5 hours to cover the last 186km to Kathmandu. It takes so long because the road is etched into the side of mountains as it climbs slowly higher and higher. In parts the road is so degraded, broken or washed away it is only wide enough for one vechile to pass which also slows it down allot. Then broken down vechiles or stalled trucks present more fun obstecals. Our own bus also needed some attention before leaving they were fixing something and we stopped for about 10-15min while the driver and conductor frantically worked under the bonnet after the first hour or so of driving. But after that it was fine just a slow bumpy ride and we made steady progress all the way to Kathmandu.
After a 5 hour delay waiting from midnight until 5 am on a packet train station platform our train finaly arrived, and we slept like babies for 5 hours until the train arived in Gorakpur were a nice Indian man we met took us on a bicycle rikshaw past all the touts looking to rip of tourists to a local bus that would take us all the way to the border for 80p (a three hour bus ride). Admitedly the bus was old and the seats small, but was perfectly fine and it got us there. Nepal border crossing of foot is really easy and the people really helpful. Because our train was so delayed we had missed the bus to Kathmandu but found a taxi driver who had come Chitwan and was heading back so we got a cheap ride there. The next day we went on a jungle walk in the Chitwan national park, in search of Tigers. The tigers might have seen us but all we saw were pawprints and scratch marks. We did see elephants, deer and a monkey. The experience alone of walking in the jungle was a great one trying to be as silently as possible. Thenext day we again needed to take another bus for 5 hours to cover the last 186km to Kathmandu. It takes so long because the road is etched into the side of mountains as it climbs slowly higher and higher. In parts the road is so degraded, broken or washed away it is only wide enough for one vechile to pass which also slows it down allot. Then broken down vechiles or stalled trucks present more fun obstecals. Our own bus also needed some attention before leaving they were fixing something and we stopped for about 10-15min while the driver and conductor frantically worked under the bonnet after the first hour or so of driving. But after that it was fine just a slow bumpy ride and we made steady progress all the way to Kathmandu.
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