After 45 minutes on a possessed pickup rollercoaster the driver comes to an abrupt stop and tells us all to get out.\u00c2\u00a0“What’s going on?”\u00c2\u00a0 “This is it; this is the border.”\u00c2\u00a0 “Border, what border, this is village in the middle of nowhere”.\u00c2\u00a0 “Just keep walking that way.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll see a bridge– cross it, that’s Nepal”.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
*blink*<\/p>\n
So we did… we walked past a mess of bicycle rickshaws at dusk, onto a bridge, and voila– Nepal.<\/p>\n
We stayed overnight in the town of Kakarbitta (it’s spelled differently everywhere I look).\u00c2\u00a0 Early on the 30th we climbed on a local bus to Kathmandu.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Everything was going fine until we got to the edge of a river and the bus stopped.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s it, everybody out.\u00c2\u00a0 We were explained that the monsoon had taken out the bridge and the bus couldn’t get to the other side.\u00c2\u00a0 We had to\u00c2\u00a0 take our bags and cross the river.\u00c2\u00a0 How you might ask?\u00c2\u00a0 Well by boat– and by boat\u00c2\u00a0I mean a bamboo canoe who had to be drained by bucketfulls twice a minute.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, I panicked, but there was\u00c2\u00a0no other option, and the river was less than a mile wide, so I’m sure we could swim across, provided\u00c2\u00a0we could take our 25 kilo packs off our backs.<\/p>\n
We got safely across, where we got a connecting bus (surprisingly, all covered by the same ticket– including the canoe), and continued our journey through Himalayan mountain passes to Kathmandu.\u00c2\u00a0 The entire journey took just over 14 hours and was well worth it.<\/p>\n
So here we are in Nepal, wondering what the new year will bring.<\/p>\n
Happy new year from Kathmandu.\u00c2\u00a0 Now onto finding that elephant sanctuary.<\/p>\n
p.s. The internet is slow beyond description, and the 10 year old 700mhz computers overloaded with software do not help.\u00c2\u00a0 Needless to say, I won’t be uploading pictures until we get back to New Delhi.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh– and I lost the computer cable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After 45 minutes on a possessed pickup rollercoaster the driver comes to an abrupt stop and tells us all to get out.\u00c2\u00a0“What’s going on?”\u00c2\u00a0 “This is it; this is the border.”\u00c2\u00a0 “Border, what border, this is village in the middle of nowhere”.\u00c2\u00a0 “Just keep walking that way.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll see a bridge– cross it, that’s Nepal”.\u00c2\u00a0 … Continue reading Panitanki to Kathmandu<\/span>