ANDY, SONAULI BORDER, NEPAL. 6th JAN 2014

Nepal

We crossed the Sonauli border (easy to miss - see photos) would be far to easy just to head across to Nepal without being stamped out of India, you really have to look out for the exit and entry points, fortunately there are archways over the road to help!

 Bye India! This is pretty much all there is to show you're leaving...

Hello Nepal! Don't forget to get your entry stamp. You will need to ask them otherwise you'll just wander in!

Immediately you are in tout territory again, change money here, get a rickshaw, get a bus or taxi - argh - just go away and leave to to think!! This bit proved tricky as we had not really planned what to do next.

A Spanish guy approached us and asked if we had just come over from India and if so did we want to exchange the last of our Indian cash with his Nepalese rupees - great! So we swapped all of our currency between us and we were loaded with enough Nepali currency for the onward journey. Worked out well for both of us as the money changers at the border charge crazy rates and as it happens we had stood in front of one of these extortionists to compete our transaction at the latest rates from xe.com so no fees for anyone :) He also gave us some maps for the Kathmandu region which we were sure will come in handy, nice guy.

To get out of the immediate hustle and bustle and to try and stop looking like easy prey, I took the executive decision to jump in a cycle rickshaw and ask to go to the local bus station which we knew was about 3K away. Ana and I and our baggage just about fitted if we held onto everything and the poor old rickshaw driver fought his slow way up the slight incline. Not my best decision at it was cold, slow and I felt a bit sorry for the guy! 

Still we got to the bus station in one piece and were shepherded inside to the booking counter. and sold a ticket for lakeside Pokhara (Phewa lake), we were very clear on being dropped at the lake and were assured this was where we would be dropped, the fare was pretty much what we had researched so we were happy and toddled of for a cup of tea in the 30 mins or so before our bus was due to leave. Sorted!

A lovely refreshing cup 'o' chai before the bus

Not so lovely or refreshing bathroom visit. Ana has dubbed this the bathroom of death and I blame the photo on her!

We headed back across to our bus - this was clearly not a local bus that we had been expecting but some tourist special run by a group of young lads, still the price had been right so we hopped on and settled in for the long journey to Pokhara - around 7 hours from the border. 

The bus set off with the young lads hanging out of the open door, Ana and i freezing and being blasted by the cold air, the bus stopped wherever and whenever they fancied to try and corral as many people as possible on board, many more people than really fitted and some of whom, I am not even sure wanted to be on the bus in the first place!

After a long and cold journey for us the bus stopped in the dark and someone up front shouted ‘last stop’. Something not quite right here, I got out to have a look around and was surrounded by a large, rowdy crowd of local taxi drivers trying to get us to go with them to lakeside of all places!

Both Ana and I may have snapped a little at this point, in our defence we had at that time been travelling for over 24 hours straight with little or no sleep and were being dropped off (apparently) in the middle of no-where. So we got back on and insisted that they would take us to where they had agreed, not just somewhere near. Ana had also had the presence of mind to grab both of our rucksacks from outside and bundle them onto the bus. We were the only passengers left and there were 3 of the bus guys and a host of rowdy taxi drivers baying for cash. A Nepali stand off ensued where Ana and I were holding a sit in protest and the bus drivers were insistent that they were not going any further.

A friendly local intervened and tried to mediate for us explaining that the lakeside was a 300NPR cab ride away, I said fine, then we’ll have 300 NPR back of these guys and be on our way. There was no way that the bus lads were giving up a single rupee of their hard earned cash and so the standoff continued.

So I went and sat next to the driver (the guy who had originally agreed to take us) and in my best shaky, angry Brit abroad having a tantrum voice pointed at him and said “you agreed to take us, so thats what your going to do” sure enough he caved and sped off driving like a complete moron to make some sort of point, I was OK with this and sat right next to his throughout and sure enough they dropped us by the lake as agreed.

On reflection (and after some sleep) this whole episode is a non event over a 300NPR (GBP 2) cab fare and certainly not the best way to deal with it but we got there in the end.

As we left the bus, Ana even gave a Hyacinth Bucket type lecture along the lines of “Imaging if you were in a strange country and this happened to you” I don’t think they were really taking it in but it made us feel a little better.

We walked the 5 mins to Hotel Global Inn and on our way into reception to check in met a group who were sitting outside having fun Tom (Irish), Marianne (Dutch) and Mark (Canadian), very welcoming and had just come back from a trek round the Annapurna Circuit full of stories, recommendations and in Tom’s case, beer - he kept recommending the garlic onion pizza in Manang as a highlight of the whole trek!

Hotel was great, run by Shekar who will do anything and everything for you, The power supply was on a rolling schedule as is all of Nepal as part of their load shedding program but hot water in the mornings and a comfy bed - bliss! Hello Nepal!

Time for some food and a beer I think- Phew...

 Hmm Everest Beer, not my favourite local beer - tastes a bit like Fosters, at the time it was like Champagne (and its got a cool name)

N.B: It doesn’t make us look good but a couple of weeks later, we found out that buses are not permitted all the way to lakeside to drop people off and this may explain the racing driver antics when we forced the poor bus lads to take us there. Maybe a little more research next time - note to other travellers in Nepal. Anticipate a cab ride to Lakeside at the end of the bus journey - its only 5K so we really did make a Mountain out of a molehill. We were really, really tired though! Lesson learned :-/