Leaving the madness behind

Just as well my phone alarm worked, as the hotel staff didn’t give us a call as promised. We had an 11 hour day ahead, so that wasn’t a great start. But at least our jeeps had air con – that made up somewhat for the number of potholes we bounced and crashed over. As we travelled along our senses were bombarded with a million images in a flat landscape. We probably didn’t cover many kilometers, it was just so slow. We were in the same jeep as Raj, which meant we scored a) bananas and b) samosas.

Gorakaphur is the dirtiest town I have ever seen – I thought by now I was immune to the filth, but this was on another level again, stinking piles of rubbish all over the place, people literally living in amongst it. I was glad when we went to a rather upmarket, clean looking restaurant for lunch, where Raj ordered Malai kofta, rice and garlic naan, all of which I enjoyed. Nearly 4 hours after lunch we reached the border town of Sonauli where was absolute mayhem - mainly caused by untold numbers of trucks blocking the narrow road, all jostling for position to cross the border. It was truly insane. Raj was brilliant and made our drivers take us closer than they wanted to – but we still had to haul our luggage quite a way through the madness.

Finally, we crossed into Nepal, (hooray, at last after all these years of dreaming, I am here!), our visas were stamped, and we were herded onto a Nepali bus built for midgets. Even my knees were bent double but Rob’s were up by his chin! Onward we travelled for another hour along roads getting ridiculously narrow - to Lumbini, and finally to our gorgeous hotel Buddha Maya.

All of us strolled out and stretched our legs before a hot shower and dinner. Recalling the day I have visions of Raj buying bananas at a roadside stall, leaping out of the car to buy fresh hot samosas, and so many other scenes – water buffalo in the water, people in their homes or shops, vehicles of every sort and shape. No wonder then that Lumbini feels like an oasis of peace and calm. No beggars or pushy touts, clean, friendly people. We were the naughty ones – at dinner the group of us sneakily knocked off a 750ml bottle of gin.