Kathmandu, Nepal to Varanasi, India
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2006
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130
228
Trip End
Jul 15, 2008
Sunauli, India
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Kathmandu, Nepal to Varanasi, India
We purchased tickets from a travel agent at our hotel in Kathmandu for a bus to trip to Bhairawa on the border across from Sunauli, India. We will travel via Golden Travels bus line for 1600NR. We also bought tickets for the train from Gorakhpur to Varanasi for 6600NR. But we have to find our own way from Sunauli to Gorakhpur. We got up at 5 AM in order to catch our bus in Kathmandu at 7 AM. Our bus takes a dog leg route to the border heading south, then west for a considerable distance, then south again. Overall we continued the downhill journey which we began when leaving the Tibetan high plateau. Cool spring turns to the heat of summer in about 6 hours. Pine trees and temperate climate vegetation turn to banana plants and jungle foliage. Terraced rice paddies turn to wide fields, and forested mountains with rushing rivulets turn to broad rivers on endless planes as we reach the Indian border. The Golden Tours bus dropped us off near the Nepal customs office in Bhairawa and we were immediately set upon by touts and rickshaw drivers. Exiting from Nepal immigration was even easier then getting in. We give in to sensible logic and let a couple rickshaws take us and our bags across the border to India immigration. We already had our Indian visas so passing through Indian immigration went smoothly with no further costs. Our rickshaw wallas waited outside with our bags so they could take us on to the bus staging area for our onward trip to Gorakhpur. We stopped on the way so Irina could change our Nepali rupees for Indian rupees. Arvid went next door for a cold Sprite. Irina joined him shortly and had just finished her drink when a guy came running up to tell her that the money changer had made a mistake and gave her too much money. She left to sort it out and agreed the money changer walla had short changed himself, but she wondered if he would have run after us had it been the other way around? We are now officially in India and we have to tell you that it is at least twice as dirty and chaotic as Nepal. And loud too; it is like someone turned up the volume; music blaring, horns honking, hawkers shouting. There are only a few buses from here to Gorakhpur and they take something like 5 hours which might make us late to catch our train to Varanasi. We are told that this is because a bridge has been washed out on the route. So we have to take one of the jeeps or four wheel drives that make the run. We choose a Land Cruiser which doesn't seem too full so we won't be crowded. But after the driver's assistant ties our luggage to the roof we just stand around and wait while he and the driver round up more passengers. After an hour they have crowded 14 people in the Toyota Land Cruiser including the driver and assistant. The driver has to reach across the passenger next to him in order to steer and shift.
We reached the Gorakhpur train station about 9:30 PM. We have read lots of accounts of travelers in India and their descriptions of the horrors of the train stations. So, on the abstract level, we were prepared. But on the physical visceral level the only thing that could prepare one for this experience is perhaps being dropped into a brimming septic tank. The train station is a large affair with people sleeping with their possessions on just about every available space. What isn't covered with bodies is covered with feces and urine. Then there are the beggars. Our noses burn, our stomachs tighten and we grit our teeth as we steel our senses to make our way through this real life Dante's Inferno. This is the quintessential Indian train station. This is a nation that has nuclear weapons! Our train is already at the platform so we board even though it won't leave for another hour. Our coach is an air conditioned three tier sleeper, which is not the top class but better than the non-air conditioned sleepers. It is somewhat like the hard sleepers in China. We got glimpses of the lowest class carriages with their wooden benches like the ones we imagine Kipling's Kim and his Buddhist lama would have rode on.
Comments
Very expensive
If you paid anything near what you described I think you got seriously husled. We went from Varanasi with train to Gorakphur, then with shared taxi to Sonauli and futher with a night bus to Kathmandu. Per person we paid 65 indian rupies for the train (really bad standard), 100 indian rupies for the shared taxi(would take the 70 rupies bus if I would have to do it again) and finally 350 nepali rupies for the night bus from the border to Kathmandu. So in total this trip cost us like 9-10$.
Re: Very expensive
Wow, that sounds exactly like the trip I'm planning to take... if you're following this thread and could email me at 'jason@sonic.net' (I realize this is a lot to ask :/ ), I'd really love to ask you some questions!