From Bodhgaya to Kathmandu

It has been so far the most trying trip: to get out of India: we left Bodhgaya on the 23rd of February in the morning and on the 25th of February 4 am we arrived to Kathmandu, Nepal. We had lots of adventures this time - new kind of adventures.

The train trip to Patna took us 6 hours instead of the scheduled 2. Arriving to Patna, especially after the South is a bullet in the head: the hotels were booked, they were and no value for money - or maybe we landed in the middle of high season business event... Rickshaw drivers offered sky high prices and we had extremely hard time to get it lower or get a ride at all. Finally we decided to escape from the place with the 10 pm governmental night bus to Raxaul, which is the border city to Nepal, with the naive hope to make it through to Nepal.

Well, the bus broke down in the middle of the night and waited 6 hours for a mechanic to repair it. Basically the bus crew abandoned us somewhere what looked like a desert where we had tea with some sort of a family warming themselves up around fire. At 10 am when we made it to Raxaul all we had in mind was just to get out of India. We made it through the Indian immigration without falling for the officer's attempt to be paid for a service which is for free, but we had problems with the Nepali visa, as we did not have USD. So having a funny conversation with the Nepali immigration officer, who ensured us several times in a loud voice that he is not making business, he is a government officer, we paid in INR a couple hundreds more than the normal fee and were happy to enter a country which was on strike. We started hearing that there is a strike in southern Nepal but it is hard to believe what the Indians say until you really see it (we have heard so many times fascinating stories about closed or burned down places that we just said - ok - on strike? so what? - yet another attempt to sell us overpriced services) .

Birganj, the Nepali border city looked like a war zone: roads were blocked with stones and bricks, lamp posts were thorn out of their places and laid over the road, there were no cars whatsoever, all shops were closed and citizens were marching on the streets with flags. Generally as there were no cars and no horning, one could hear deadly silence around which "sounded" not too inviting. Soon we learned that we will not make it from this place to Kathmandu or Pokhara unless we take a bicycle rickshaw or a horse carriage to the neighboring town, 25 km North, called Simara. Though we did not have any cash left, we hoped for a bank or an ATM in Simara to be able to pay for our horse carriage and make our way further by bus. Well, every time we said so far that it seems things are getting better, it just got worse: Simara was in a similar chaos as Birganj, there were no cash options and we have not been eating for the last 24 hours. That was a moment, when I started to count what would my ring and earrings worth as a payment for our ride in case some miracle does not happen and can get cash. The miracle arrived in the form of two Slovakian fellow travelers, who were angels and helped us out with a loan, I guess with no hope that they would ever see their money returned. But we decided to change our original plans and took the bus to Kathmandu, hoping for better facilities and a bit of peace. The bus was supposed to depart at 4.30 pm and arrive at 10 pm, so we were not prepared for a chilling cold night ride and had no time to eat. At the end Tomek threatened the driver to call the police in order to be able to depart at 6 pm , when we already suspected that we will not arrive to Kathmandu before the following morning (worked well as the bus departed within 15 minutes). So it happened and after a half an hour walk in the pitch dark of Nepali capital (being without electricity most of the time), we bumped to the first hotel and fell asleep.

Now having an almost warm shower, some sleep in a bed and food we can again better appreciate the small goodies of life. And Kathmandu is just addictive, you will see more in the next post!