Crossing Northern India to Nepal

We had a great time in Shimla.  It was warm, but not like the plains of India, and everywhere was walkable and traffic-free.  We found some lovely coffee shops and bars to chill in, and generally relaxed after our first (almost) month in India.  It was a good break as there has subsequently been a lot of travelling across northern India to get to Nepal, where we arrived yesterday.

Our first journey was on the beautiful “Toy Train” from Shimla.  Over five hours we dropped down steep valleys towards the hotter plains.  We started in a thunderstorm and passed through pine forests and gorges, in our little carriage for 16 people.  We passed over 1,000 “bridges” and through 100 “tunnels” before reaching the unusual town of Chandigargh that night.

Chandigargh was a cross between Milton Keynes and Bracknell, but did not have the charm of either.  Designed by Le Corbusier in the 1960s, we spent a day wandering around the Nek Chand Rock Gardens, with lots of quite disturbing pottery characters amongst the elegant water features and pools, and along the very straight roads.

However, Chandigargh’s redeeming feature was the very modern aspect of some of the “Sectors”.  We actually found some Soho- or Manhattan-like bars in Sector 26b and ended up having a meal in a micro-brewery.  We did spend the rest of the time planning the next few days so we did not miss our target of being in Khatmandhu by the weekend.

We got up to light rain, and took our coats out for the first time in four weeks.  However, we did not need them once we found our way to the public bus station to find our next mode of transport.  We had to take a public bus to our next destination as there were no bookable bus or train services available.

A public bus station in India is somewhere between a crowded market and a rubbish dump, although Chandigarh’s was at least cleanish.  We negotiated our fare in a rather unusual manner, an orderly queue, before getting on the bus.  If you imagine a local bus, but with all the vestiges of comfort removed, like comfortable seats, air-conditioning and closeable windows, that is the basis if a public bus in India.  However, we did have allocated seats, unlike some people who stood up for six hours.

Haridwar was the next stop.  An extremely holy place for Indians as it is where the Ganges meets the plains, and so a place of massive pilgrimages.  We managed to arrive in the middle of a taxi strike so getting around proved difficult.  At one point our rickshaw was stuck in the middle of a road construction site, whilst the two-way diversion beside us consisted of three lanes of traffic all going in one direction.  Indian police are hopeless when it comes to traffic, so angry bus conductors spent half an hour trying to move individual vehicles, in turn, until the complete road block was cleared.

The problem with crowds continued when we climbed the mile up to the temple above the city.  The cable car, basically a tin can on a rope, was fortunately a two hour wait hence the climb along with hoards of people.  We should have realised as at the top there were long queues to get in the Temple.

Everything was fine at first as people were in lines and singing songs, but after we removed our shoes and got near the Temple everything changed.  We were walking on the remains of the Hindu offerings, everything from flowers to sticky sweets, tinsel and coconuts, which was lovely; but the best was still to come.  At the top of the stairs, everyone turned into demons as they tried to give the remains of their offerings to priests and be given blessings by them.  It was chaos with elbows everywhere and shoves in the back, and that was just the old women!  We felt bruised and battered afterwards and we learnt that shouting at them did not help either.

Not a great experience at all, but faith was restored a few hours later when we arrived at the banks of the Ganges for sunset.  At a point called Har-Ki-Pairi Ghat there were twenty to thirty thousand people sitting along the banks.  Priests were performing the Ganga Aarti ceremony, which involves chanting and lighting fires.  Hindus travel there to achieve “mokshi” for their ancestors, which is freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth so they go to heaven.

As more fires are lit, people put their hands over the flames, but also light candles of their own.  These are then put in palm leaf rafts and pushed out into the Ganges so that they flow down the sacred river.  We were watching from a bridge above and it was all very moving as people joined in with the chants, and raising their hands in the air.  We stayed in the area after the ceremony to eat in a local “dhaba” and had a lovely curry for £4.50 – #livingthedream.

We left Haridwar on an overnight bus to Lucknow.  These can be hit or miss affairs because when the bus dowsn’t start from your location, but arrives from somewhere else, it can be a guessing game as to what time it turns up, at which stand, or whether it will actually arrive at all.  Fortunately we found some locals who were catching the same bus and we all found it at a different stand and half an hour late.

This bus was a government-run affair but did have air-conditioning and reclining seats.  This meant that there was an element of relaxation, but the ability to fall asleep was tempered by the state of the roads and the ability of the driver to project you forward into the back of the seat in front everytime he tried to avoid an on-coming vehicle.  We did get through the 13 hours quite well apart from the many insect bites.

Fortunately Lucknow was a much more serene place.  The roads were wide and had less traffic, and there were some lovely neighbourhoods.  We visited the former complex of the Residency, which had left as it had been abandoned after the Indian Mutiny of 1857.  Built as a place for the local Nawab rulers and the British Raj, it was a previous grand place with ballrooms and houses; but now has the remains of the canon balls which wrecked much of it, along with the majority of the local British population.

Other sites were the nearby tombs of Bara Imambara and Chota Imambara.  These were lovely complexes of palaces, tombs and mosques.  The first was famous for having a labyrinth of tunnels and stairs which eventually gets you to the roof, and which we got completely lost in for twenty minutes before finding our way out.  The second one was laid out around a water feature, and was very intricately designed.

Suitably relaxed, we were ready to take the two day push to Khatmandu.  We left Lucknow on a train.  We originally sat in the wrong seats only to be told we should be in First Class.  We moved along to a plush carriage with only four seats which converted into comfortable beds with sheets etc.  This suited us for the seven hours it took to get to Gorakhpur, and only cost £6 each anyway.

After an overnight in Gorakhpur we headed for Nepal.  We took a taxi to the border, or did we?  We rather foolishly got a ride with a madman, who preferred to drive on either side of the road depending on how the traffic was.  After narrowly avoiding trucks on the wrong side of the road and returning to the correct side, he would turn to us and laugh insanely.  We weren’t convinced he was a taxi driver, but we arrived at Sonauli with our luggage and valuables, but mainly, still alive.

We stopped at what appeared to be a little hut, which was Indian Passport Control.  After being stamped we walked across the road to get our Nepali money, being ripped off for £2.50 commission we shouldn’t have paid.  Then we walked 500 yards up a busy village road.  Our idea of nomansland  is slightly different, and we could have wandered straight into Nepal without any checks.  We did find a little building where we handed over $US80 to a happy Immigration man who proceeded to give us a no fuss visa, and we were in.

We managed to find the one air-conditioned bus going to Kathmandu, leaving at 1pm, and we had time for lunch before departing.  We noticed immediately that the place was different.  Roads were generally in good condition, with two lanes and road markings.  People waited to pass without beeping horns, and everyone gave way to each other – another world.  The only thing that is similar to the mountains of India is that they are very steep and progress is slow.

We eventually arrived around 11pm, but we are staying in a lovely historic building called the Kathmandu Guest House and looking forward to our stay.  Already Nepal seems an oasis of calm, apart from the noisy bars at midnight.  Hopefully things will stay the same as we head across to the Kingdom of Bhutan on Monday.  We can’t wait and we think we may be out of communication reach for ten days so watch our contact page to see…