Day 19: Crossing the border

Today we will hopefully cross the Indian border. Unfortunately there are strikes today (as we heared yesterday evening), so we can officially only travel after 17.00, what means we have to cross the border in the dark (at around 20.00) and we will arrive in Gorakhpur late (around 23.00). Luckily we have very good help from the locals here and Prakash, so everyhing will be fine.

In the moning we sleep a bit longer than normal because we don’t have any plans before afternoon. Our taxidriver is prepared to leave at 16.00, so till then we eat a little and play some Nepali cardgames with Prakash. It is strange to realize that these are our last hours in Nepal, especially for Fenna who has been here for 6 months. I think it must be hard for her to leave this vivid country, both the good and the bad things create a very intersting environment here that is in no way like Holland. The mountains, the people, the food, the sounds, the life; she will miss it!

At 16.00, as planned, we say goodbye to Prakash. He prepared a little goodbye in Nepali style for us, with red tika on the forehead and special white scarve. I really think he is a great guy; he did a lot of effort to show us Chitwan, arranged many things for us here in Nepal and is always very kind, helpfull and I can have a good laugh with him. Hopefully I will see him again once in the future when I come back to Nepal, I really hope so.

The drive to the border is much faster than expected. Besides a few ambulances, UN-vehicles and a lot of bikes, there is no traffic at all because of the strike. Only the cattle on the road sometimes causes slow driving and horning. We drive 100 km/h almost all the time so we arrive earlier than expected at the border at 18.45. When we try to get out of the taxi almost immediately 6 man run to our car and shout that they have a ride for us to Gorakhpur. And yesterday we were discussing about what to do without a taxi at the border… silly us!

Crossing the border, changing money and getting a taxi to Gorakhpur took us one hour all together. In the end we took the most quiet taxidriver with the best price offer. It is a kind Nepali guy that tries to speak Nepali with Fenna all the time. Along the way we stop 4 times for mysterious reasons (then the driver gets out and comes back after a few minutes), but maybe that’s just the way it goes in India. The ride to Gorakhpur is in the dark, a very dangerous situation because half of the traffic here has no or bad lights and every minute you get blinded for a moment by a big headlight from upcoming vehicles. It is a small miracle we arrive in Gorakhpur safely 150 minutes later.

India is comparable with Nepal, but also different. Like in Nepal also here you can see the many small trashy houses alongside the road, the many little shops, the dirt, the many people, the traffic, it is kind of similar. But different is the very bad smell at many places like something is really wrong or rotten and the really dirty people and many bumps. A plus is the good infrastructure, like the condition of the road, which is much better than in Nepal, and the railways they have.

We are in Gorakhpur at 22.30 and take a hotel in front of the railwaystation. We saw a few hotels here, before deciding which one we would choose, but they were all very dirty, so we just took the cheapest one. Let me discribe the facilities a bit: the toilet is a dirty hole in the floor, there is no shower, the sink is full of hair, the ventilation is full of dust and makes a lot of noise, the beds are filled with very little crouching creatures and when I open the window I see the biggest cockroach I have ever seen, Welcome to India!