Getting Around Lumbini Zone

With an early rise and an expensive tasteless breakfast in our stomach, we jumped in a minivan to Bhairawa a little after 8 a.m., after a 10 minutes wait somewhere on the main road in Lumbini. From Bhairawa, we took a 100 rupees rickshaw to the Indian border, with the rickshaw man helping us find someone to exchange Nepali rupees into Indian ones, at a rate which proxied closely what we had in mind. Passport shown on the Nepali side, border crossing by foot, and we arrived in India….looking for the Indian border police, hidden between an endless array of stores and shops selling everything for everyone. Luckily some people showed us the kiosk of the border police, otherwise we could not have find it. We already had visas for India, but this did not mean we were exonerated from filling in some sort of application forms, sticking photos and explain where are we heading and which hotels will we be staying. Nevertheless, these bureaucratic procedures, out of place considering all the trade happening around us, were expedite, less than 15 minutes.

There’re always some passenger buses waiting a dozen meters further, and most of them go as far as Gorakhpur. We jumped in the first bus we came across, paid 55 (Indian) rupees each and waited half an hour to get full. Arrived in Gorakhpur around 3 p.m. (i.e. more or less 3 hours later), just in time to miss the express train for Varanassi at 3,30 p.m.