Day 481 - The return to Nepal

We woke up on the train in the middle of lush farmland - such a complete change from Dehli. From the window we saw water buffalo lazing neck-high in the muddy ponds, children running playfully along the mud banks or hitting cricket balls in the fields, and adults biking their way between the huts that make up the rural villages.

We arrived in Gorakhpur and 10 minutes later had managed to tie our packs on the roof of a bus headed to Sanauli, the border town between India and Nepal. We bumped along in a full bus much like local buses in China, and passed a dynamic display of Indian life - for once we kept the camera away, satisfied to simply absorb the sights for ourselves and tried to digest the vast differences between life at home and and the worlds we find ourselves in as we adlib Asia. We navigated our way through Indian and then Nepali immigration with Clayton, another traveller we met on the bus, and before we knew it we had a three month visa (for the extreme price of US$100 each) and were eating lunch in Nepal with our hands.

The buses the Kathmandu didn't leave until 6pm, so we spent the next few hours wandering around, trying to negotiate a share taxi, and drinking lots of cold drinks!! At 6pm the traffic coming from India was still as backed up as it had been all day, so we made the decision to walk past all the traffic and cover the 3km to Bhairawa, the next town, despite being choked by the exhaust fumes. We arrived in the dark but still managed to locate the bus station and purchase tickets for 120 rupees less (thanks to our walking efforts) before boarding the bus.

The bus was an antagonising 11 hours of stop-start movement - when we were moving, the wind came through the windows and cooled us down, but on the frequent stops our clothes became soaked depsite it being the middle of the night. The reason we stopped was because areas along this road are only open at certain times, so we spent ages waiting to be let through another checkpoint.

Adlibing it back to where it all began ...