Bhagalpur, India to Jaynagar, Nepal: 13 September 2014

We were two long days on the road (including some stops to visit field trials) to get from Bhagalpur in Bihar, India to Jaynagar (Janakpur) in Dhanusha, Nepal.  It would have been shorter if we’d not needed to detour to find a land crossing which would process our (non-Indian, non-Nepalese) passports.

On the way we slept at Siliguri, in north eastern West Bengal: the “chicken neck” of India, in a very fancy hotel – it was a welcome respite after the cockroaches – and the hot shower was wonderful when we arrived at almost midnight.  We’d been delayed on the way by bad traffic (we covered 30km in 2 hours) for which there was no obvious reason.  It was a major news story the next day that a train which had been lost in Bihar for 17 days (!!!) had been found – perhaps finding it disrupted traffic?  It was either that or the storm breaking spectacularly overhead.

It was much easier to leave India than to enter it, though, unlike the last border crossing, the Indian border guards were officious and stopped us taking photos (the Nepalese border and gate were much more impressive than the Indian one, and there we were able to take all the photos we wanted!). 

Indian border in the distance

After presenting our passports at emigration and getting our Indian visas cancelled we drove across the border to Nepalese immigration and compulsory Ebola screening.  I thought it particularly unlikely that anyone would be able to get to this remote border post before being incapacitated by Ebola, but if the guards are going to be officious about something I’d rather it was Ebola checking than photo-repression J

Crossing into Nepal

Gate from Nepal back into India

We then discovered that one of our two cars wasn’t registered to be driven in Nepal.  After a bit of a delay we were able to hire a second one to drive us to Jaynagar – there were a surprising number (10+) of cars at the border, waiting to pick up jobs.

Waiting for action at the Nepal border post

Initially we drove through a short area of tea plantations and silviculture – mainly eucalypts again.  Mature trees are grown in the tea plantations for shade, and the mature tea trees are grown to about hip height, with dark leaves below and bright green fresh young tips waiting to be picked on top.  It’s odd to see such small mature trees.

Tea plantations from the car

We then came out onto the terai country and drove west across the broad sweeping plains, often with mountains off to the distance in the north.  River beds were very wide, but few had flowing water – most fill rapidly after rainfall in the mountains and subside again just as quickly.

Terai plains

We passed a funeral procession – presumably of a very respected man; there were several hundred people in the procession.

The hearse

It’s interesting to be in Nepal – it’s very similar to India and at the same time distinctly Not India.