Help me find a Post Office please
Trip Start
Apr 29, 2006
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128
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Trip End
Nov 15, 2007
Itahari, Nepal
Friday, September 29, 2006
Itahari, Nepal
Itahari looked like the last major town before the Indian border and there were a few things we had to do, posting some post cards for one thing. I asked a local lad if he would take me to the post office for 50 rupees. He smiled and gestured 'OK' with an Indian head wobble. It was just a short walk so I gave him the money and his friend who had walked with us asked "Me too?" I chuckled with the boys, as we all knew he was a chancer! When I hopped back into the car all the lads' friends where laughing and giving each other high fives because of the western woman who paid so much money for a walk to the post office. I also bought 2 locally grown pineapples for their vitamin content, and 12 fresh eggs, all very inexpensive. The world seems a little unbalanced really when we have so much and these people have so little.
We saw many people collecting reed out of the waterways, it looked like it could be for rope, twine or Hessian. There were miles of it laying beside the road to dry, and huge cart and truck loads full of it when it was rolled up into skeins.
Another thing we noticed is common place in Nepal is for the older school students to stop traffic to sell raffle tickets. All transport is stopped by waving down or the students standing on the road and really forcing drivers to buy their tickets. Dangerous practice I think.
At the border we checked out of Nepal through Customs and Immigration and had the carnet stamped. Then we checked in across the border in to India 20 meters down the road. At the Immigration office we noticed a sign advocating family planning, which read "One is fun".
All through Nepal we saw huge signs advertising the use of condoms and one sign which read "Be responsible, don't behave like a rooster".
We stayed the night at the inexpensive Marina Hotel which served beautiful tea at breakfast which one would expect with a Darjeeling Tea plantation just up the road.
