Gorakhpur to Sonauli to Bhairahawa to Pokhara!
Amidst a lot of uncertainty and highs and lows of daily doldrums, I find myself sitting in the Purvanchal express train heading to the Nepal border. This express train is fashionably slow! Well, let’s put it this way, quite a few local trains crossed us along the parallel lines in the very first hour. Anyway! I am in the upper bunk of this 3 tier AC train. The rest of the coup is occupied by two sets of mother and daughter duos and a lanky man (possibly in his mid-30s). The daughter of one such mother-daughter pair and the mother of the second pair are glued to their phones talking non-stop. Their ability to continue such prolonged conversations is impressive! The other girl who is too young to have a mobile phone of her own constantly runs up and down the bunks, stomping on everyone’s shoes, almost spilling my food, dropping chocolate wrappers all over the floor…in a way being a nuisance that suits her age and annoys people of my age! Her mother doesn’t care though. She is deep into her telephonic conversations. Apparently, she is on her way to her in-laws in a village in Uttar Pradesh where she will have to draw her pallu almost down to the waistline. She tells me this and I have no idea how to react. Did you watch Lapaata ladies? My mind seems to enquire but I refrain from asking the question. I smile and nod and long for the train to run faster.
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| mumfali in the train kicks off the journey |
Gorakhpur
The train doesn't run any faster, of course. In fact, it reaches Gorakhpur thirty minutes late. ‘Not too bad, eh?’ The lapaata lady observes. I can’t decide whether to feel good or bad about this!
As I step out of the Gorakhpur station, lots of people swarm towards us claiming to give the best taxi-rate for wherever I fancy to go. My destination is Sonauli i.e. Nepal border. A driver suddenly gets into a cosy position and whispers as if in conspiracy, ‘best rate…400rs…come’. I oblige.
Gorakhpur to Sonauli is a 2.5hours drive. It’s 3 hours for us as we stop for breakfast at a roadside Dhaba. It’s a typical Dhaba with open tables and long casual seatings, serving all kinds of parathas. I gobble down half an Aloo paratha which was nice, but the second helping of the Paneer paratha steals the limelight! Best I have ever had (so far) !
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| Gorakhpur Railway Station |
Indo-Nepal Border
Sonauli on the side of India and Bhairahawa on the side of Nepal is distinguished by two big gates along an extremely chaotic road. Busy navigating through hundreds of street vendors, thousands of pedestrians and tons of vehicles, you hardly notice the gate-like structure up top. People seem to freely walk across the border, almost as if the border is only in my mind! We enquire a few uniformed personnels about immigration, they seem confused too. ‘Going to Nepal?’, they ask. ‘Yes’, I say. ‘From where?’, they ask. ‘India’, I say. ‘Go on then.’ comes the advice!
Despite the simple guidance, we force our bags into what looked like a scanner. Then we force ourselves into a tent asking to make an entry of us crossing the border. It’s amazing how honesty surprises people.
And then, just like that, carrying our bags and bottles we casually walk across the border over to Nepal!
Two Nepali guys who shared the taxi with us earlier shows us the way. A few meters into Nepal, I see a Toyota Hiace waiting. The driver, a sweet smiling chap keeps shouting ‘Pokhara, Pokhara’. Well, that’s our destination for the day. After a quick currency exchange followed by the bus tickets, I find myself sitting on the window seat of the vehicle, embracing for yet another long drive!
‘How long does it take to get to Pokhara?’ I ask impatiently.
‘6 hours after we start’, chuckles the smiling driver. Very precise and very clever as you never know when the journey would start!
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| Indo-Nepal Border at Gorakhpur |
Pokhara
It’s almost 9PM in the night when we reach Pokhara. A very long journey since I started from home back in Kolkata (even more stressful if I consider the Uber ride to the railway station as well!). But finally, we are here, in Pokhara and the wind chill makes me realise that the trip has finally kicked off.
With a smile on my face and a shiver down my spine, I sit down for the much awaited dal-bhaat dinner (Nepali Thali).
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| From the cliff lakeside BnB in Pokhara |
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