DRIVE TO NEPAL (Day 13)

We awoke early and said our farewells to Mukesh. We grabbed a tuktuk to the Nepal Tours Service bus station and were eventually squeezed into the very very small bus seats. Our luggage fortunately went inside the bus (in a hatch in the back) and didn't have to get tied to the roof like many of the larger bags. Outside, plenty of people stood waiting for an empty seat so the bus was guaranteed to be full.

We had only be driving 20 minutes when we got a flat tire. We had to wait 40 minutes by the side of the road in the glaring heat until it was repaired. We continued on. The landscape was much greener with lots of water and small lakes. As far as the eye could see, everything was covered with rice fields but no trees. At 4:30 pm we briefly stopped in Gorakpuhr, a noisy, busy city filled with plenty of choking fumes.

It was dark by the time we reached the border. Getting into Nepal was extremely confusing! We were given border forms to fill out and told to head to the Indian border desk. Our papers were all in order... but there was no indication of where to go next. Suddenly a man showed up and led us to the Nepal immigration. Apparently he was from a hotel on the other side of the border and was hoping we'd stay at his place. We told him a hotel was already included in our bus price but that we'd try to visit his restaurant if there were time. He informed us that this was one of the last opportunities to get out of India because the borders were closing for a couple days due to the elections. And with that, we walked across the relatively unmarked border into Nepal.

Our guide waited for us while we filled out more papers (but not as many as everybody else since we already had our visas). He then led us to Nepal Guest House (iin Belahiya) and left. Eventually another man appeared and showed us to a room... which was probably the worst we'd stayed in so far. I suppose you truly do get what you pay for! The bathroom was most noteworthy. The sink drain was just a short tube that dumped onto the dirty cement floor below. The water was expected to trickle its way over to a gunky looking drain in floor on the other side. Naturally we had to cross that area to get to the pit toilet which flushed by using a water bucket. On top of all that, there were the bugs. Fortunately the room was so dimly lit that we could almost use our imaginations to pretend otherwise.

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