Gorakhpur
Trip Start
Jun 13, 2008
1
51
Trip End
Ongoing
Gorakhpur,
Uttar Pradesh,
India
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Right, that said... We awoke on our last morning in Pokhara at around 5.3 and went straight to the bus station. Here we were treated to a very rare view of the Himalayas - at this time of year Pokhara is usually too misty, but we got a clear sky and a great view to say goodbye. :)
Pokhara mountain views
We got on our bus and started the 7 hour journey to Sonauli - the main Nepal-India border town. The trip itself was fairly uneventful... our bus did clip another one on the door, which caused us to stop for a minute or two, but honestly, Tom and I barely batted an eyelid... We've had so many near misses that it's not a big event any more!
The border crossing at Sunauli
We were dropped off about 200m from the border, so we walked across and got all the necessary stamps in our passports. We then went about trying to make our way to Varanasi. For some reason, we thought there was a direct local bus... we were wrong... We had to take a bus to Gorakhpur and then a train to Varanasi. We already knew that trains needed to be booked in advance, so we didn't really like our chances...
Goaty :)
Anyway, after downing some water and buying some snacks we got on our first Indian bus... It was pretty empty and we were able to put our bags on some vacant seats... Only the afternoon before I'd said to Tom how weird it was that we hadn't had to travel with chickens on our laps yet... At the first stop the bus made, a couple boarded with their baby goat and sat across the aisle from me. He was very cute and bleated away... then squatted and peed... fortunately this ran down the bus and away from us... but then he turned, rear end towards me.. I managed to gently swing him rond to the middle of the aisle just as he let rip, narrowly missing my flip-flopped feet and my day pack... phew! Unfortunately just afterwards more people got on the bus and put our bags down in it... haha...Shortly after that we had yet more excitement... Our driver (let's call him Bob) was happily driving along when another bus (driven by...Frank) decided to try and overtake us... However, Bob was just getting up to speed from a stop, so Frank couldn't really get past before a car came in the other direction. For some reason, even though he could see it, Frank kept trying to get past us until he was forced to slam on his brakes. This in itself has happened on pretty much every bus trip we've taken in Asia... these days we don't take much notice and Bob just carried on at his slow and steady pace.
The bus incident in diagram form!
A few moments later, Frank caught up to us, and this time he was successful in overtaking, but as soon as he did, he slammed on his brakes, causing Bob to slam on our brakes and stop. Then Frank hopped out of his bus and marched over to Bob's window to give him a stern talking to. Obviously I don't know what was said and I couldn't really see what was happening, but the whole bus was pretty intrigued so it must have been juicy. I don't think there was an actual fight, but it struck me as strange that someone that was in such a rush to get past other traffic had time to stop and bicker!!The rest of that bus journey was uneventful, I'm glad to say, and we soon arrived in Gorakhpur. We ended up staying the night because there were no trains available, so we went online, booked a ticket for the following day and enjoyed our first Thali in India. Magnifico!
First impressions of India...? It's hectic, dirty, friendly, troublesome, sneaky and beautiful... but you'll get to hear much more about that in the next blog :)
