Delhi to Kathmandu – Drive to Chitwan

Image above: Making an offering to Buddha, a worshipper lights incense in the Sacred Garden. [Monday 02 February]

Kicking off several photo sets of Nepal’s Terai region, here’s the first that covers the rather two days drive from from Varanasi, across the border to Nepal at Sonauli, overnighting in Lumbini, and the final push eastwards to Chitwan National Park.

Some of the highlights were:

• Winding and weaving throughout the Uttar Pradesh countryside trying to avoid both the random traffic inspector checkpoints (with the tolls they would exact) and the resulting traffic jams caused by long lines of lorries parking up on the road avoiding them too.
• Having a lot of respect for our lookalike Ghandi driver who would not back up his vehicle on a very narrow road – even when threatened with a rifle – but without batting an eyelid just continued to scream obsenities at the other driver
• Being amazed by the lax nature of border controls between India and Nepal – to the extent that I think that I could’ve got into Nepal without even applying for a visa. Though … flying out of Nepal would have been interesting without that entry stamp
• Enjoying the serenity of Buddha’s birthplace in Lumbini
• Randomly discovering that the iPod Genius function is actually pretty good for long drives
• Winding and weaving (again!) through the Terai countryside – this time trying to avoid the bandh (strikes/protests) blocking our way
• Just being able to chill out in front of an open log fire having finally reached Chitwan

Coming up next, the World Heritate site of Chitwan National Park and my stay in the local village of Ghatgain.

[View the Drive to Chitwan photo set]