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Stuck in Nepal
Ever heard of the town of Narayangarh in Nepal....no? That's probably because it's nothing to write home about - the main road to Chitwan Park cuts through its middle, it has the usual shops, dhabas and a collection of rather seedy hotels. Pass through is what most people do in Narayangarh and that was exactly what I intended to do before a series of road blocks stranded me there for two days….Two days is a long time to spend in Narayangarh.
Instigating strikes and road blocks is the preferred method for local people to get the attention of the Nepalese government on a wide range of issues. They can last several days and will completely halt the movement of vehicles and therefore people, supplies and goods. In this poor country of predominantly mountainous terrain, driveable roads are not exactly ten a dozen and there are often no alternative routes. In addition to the regular powercuts, I marvel that anyone can successfully run a business here. I guess in many cases, they can't.
I had heard stories from other people whose travels had been affected by road blocks; some of whom had eventually been forced to fly into the country in order to carry on with their trip. But in that, 'it'll never happen to me' mindset, I hadn't given it much thought….until some new guests arrived at the lodge where I was staying in Chitwan National Park and said that they had just been turned back from their intended destination due to a road block. I was planning to take the same route the next day.
The hotel staff were really helpful and advised me to travel on as far as possible to Narayangarh, three hours drive from the border, in the hope that the strike would lift the next day. I would also be able to get more up-to-date information and hook up with other travellers in the same boat. That was the theory.
With much regret, I departed Chitwan where I'd spent three spectacular days exploring the park and wildlife watching (rhinos, but no tiger) and boarded the bus for Narayangarh. The bus deposited me on the road-side, where as a strange white woman with a back-pack, I attracted the usual deluge of attention and curiosity. A young policeman approached me; he confirmed that there were definitely no buses out of Narayangarh that day and offered to help me find accommodation. I gratefully accepted and followed him round the corner to a hotel he knew.
Now, I have become pretty used to roughing it over the last few months. I don't mean total squalor; but rooms that are basic, a bit grubby, sheets with holes in them, rock hard pillows, no pillows, squat toilets, bucket showers, mosquitoes, windows that don't close, windows with holes in them, rooms that are noisy and haven't seen a lick of paint….ever. I can manage this for one night, when it is literally a place to put my head down and then leave at the crack of dawn for the next destination. I can manage this when I can escape my room into beautiful surroundings. Facing the prospect of an undefined length of time in a town that was far from paradise, I needed somewhere I could retreat to. This poor excuse for a hotel certainly wasn't it. Nor were the three other places I checked out after that. My heart started seriously sinking.
Narayangarh clearly wasn't geared up for long stay travellers. In fact it didn't seem geared up for travellers full-stop. I had assumed that I would bump into lots of other people in the same predicament as me. Not so. I suppose it is probably suffering from the general dearth of tourists across Nepal, but in three days I didn't see a single other foreigner.
Anyway, I decided that the situation required me to play a 'get out of jail free card'. I called the most luxurious sounding hotel in the Lonely Planet - which cost $20 a night (seven times what I was paying in Kathmandu), negotiated them down to $17 and booked myself in. Sod the expense. If I was going to be stuck here, I may as well be stuck in style. I would treat myself to a day or two of luxury - comfortable beds, peaceful surroundings and joy of joys, a pool!
Things have obviously changed somewhat since LP last vetted the Island Jungle Resort. The place was okay, but the rooms were shabby and dingy and in desperate need of a revamp, the bed was hard as nails, there was a rowdy cricket match going on in the adjacent field and the final blow; the pool was out of use! I wouldn't have minded for $5 a night, but for $17. My visions of the lap of luxury were shattered, and I would still be seriously out of pocket.
I sat in my room deliberating over what to do and eventually decided to take the next bus an hour back to the traveller hub of Sauraha in Chitwan, where the accommodation would be cheap and there would be fellow travellers. I repacked my bag, went to reception and handed in my key. I politely explained that I felt the room really was not worth the price they were asking and told them my plans. At which point the nice man at the desk informed me that there was real trouble at the point where the road leads off to Sauraha and that no transport was getting through. Sheepishly I ate my words and headed back to my overpriced room.
The next day the block was showing no signs of lifting. I made the most and visited nearby Devghat, one of the holiest places in Hindu mythology. It is situated at the confluence of two rivers - Kali Gandaki and Trisuli which after joining, form one of the main tributaries of the Ganges. Many elderly Hindus apparently come to live out their last days here. Western visitors are clearly a rarity and I was approached by lots of pilgrims offering all sorts of useful advice and information about the site, where to put my shoes etc. I was befriended by a 15 year old girl who had come from Kathmandu with her family. She gave me a guided tour of the temple complex and we talked about our respective religious beliefs, the problems in Nepal and debated the pros and cons of Facebook!
On my return the hotel staff informed me that there was a good chance that a bus would get through to the border tomorrow. I had a somewhat disturbed night's sleep due to yet ANOTHER mouse in my room incident (although not in my bed this time). At 5am the next morning the staff took me out onto the main road.A bus pulled up and there was much talking in Hindi and then I was given the good news; it was headed for the border!
It was a pretty grim journey. The bus was packed with men who had clearly just finished a night of boozing; and it didn't take long for the stench of stale (and worryingly not-so-stale) alcohol and cigarettes to find its way to my nostrils. And of course there was the usual hardcore staring. I never thought that attention could be so draining. On a rational level I can understand it; people with my appearance are unusual. A woman travelling alone is truly bizarre to them. Naturally people want to take a good look. But there is something dehumanising about being brazenly scrutinised and examined; I am stripped of an identity other than that of white, western woman. It is even more uncomfortable when the curiosity has a salacious component to it.
After two hours the bus came to an abrupt stop. Again, the usual confusion whilst I tried to figure out what was happening. It transpired that the road was still blocked after all. We were just one hour from the border, but we would be allowed no further!! Two hours later I found myself back in blummin Narayangarh!
Determined not to spend any longer in this town I decided to instigate plan B - a massive detour involving a 4 hour ride to Pokhara an overnight stay and then a 9 hour journey back to the border tomorrow. Five hours later, after a journey through scenic mountain area, I arrived exhausted in Pokhara. It was beautiful, set on the shores of a tranquil lake. I was surprised at how relieved and pleased I was to see other foreigners. The last few days without company, my mobile phone not working and limited internet access felt quite isolating.
I found a decent hotel, watched the sun set over the lake, ate a dinner of Momos and beer and got an early night in preparation for another early start. At 7 am the next morning I was on the bus bound for the border town of Sunauli. This journey passed without event. The scenery was stunning and I got talking to the chap sitting next to me; a great bloke called John, whose tales of travelling, mountaineering and fitting the bathrooms of famous people (he was a plumber) helped speed away almost eight hours.
Twenty-five kilometres from the border the bus stopped. The driver explained he couldn't take us any further due to road blocks. We were told that our only option was to take a cycle rickshaw as no motorised vehciles could get through; it would take two hours…TWO HOURS?! John and I had teamed up, and after establishing that no, this wasn't a con by some shrewd rickshaw wallahs on the make, we procured ourselves a rickshaw driver who would cycle for two hours with us and our heavy backpacks to the border.
The journey was agonising; not because it was physically uncomfortable, but because I felt so terrible for the poor guy. It must have been at least 25 degrees, us and our baggage weighed a ton and he looked scrawny as a chicken and was soon sweating buckets. As John discovered when he volunteered to cycle for a while - it is back-breaking work - he lasted ten minutes before giving up! We kept insisting that the poor bloke stop, rest and drink water.
However it did allow me to see these road blocks 'up close and personal' and get a better idea of what they are all about. This particular strike or 'banda' had been organised by the Tharu Welfare Council, who were protesting against the way the government are categorising the Tharu people as Madhesi - another much larger ethnic group, found mainly in the flat plains (bbcworldservicetrust.wordpress.com).
Some of the blocks were just a line of rocks in the road, some kids waving sticks about, quite a jovial atmosphere. Others were more serious and threatening; lorries and trucks forming complete barricades across the road; groups of men brandishing sticks; charred patches on the ground showing evidence of fires and in some case there was a police presence. Tourists are notoriously NOT targeted in these protests; people don't want to discourage visitors to their country and so we, and only we, were permitted to pass without trouble.
However, at one point local people told our driver that the next block was pretty volatile and so we went 'off road' to avoid it. And I mean 'off road'. At several points the track was so bumpy that had to get off and help push the rickshaw along. We passed through beautiful little villages, causing much bemusement to the residents. At another one of the blocks there was a more threatening atmosphere and despite his "tourist cargo" our driver approached with evident hesitation. A man stepped forward from the crowd and, it seems, told our driver to turn back. He then knelt down and attempted to let the air out of the cycle tyres. Fortunately, he was stopped by other people and we were allowed to pass.
I was relieved when we finally reached the border. We paid our exhausted rickshaw driver handsomely and headed for the immigration office. I couldn't wait to be back in India.
But the drama wasn't over yet… My Nepali visa had expired a day ago and I was told I had to pay a fine of $33 in order to be stamped out of the country. It felt like a kick in the teeth. I had been trying to leave this damn country for three days. I had already paid for an overpriced hotel and bus tickets here, there and everywhere. I had booked and subsequently missed two non-refundable trains back from Gorakhphur to Delhi. I had endured hours and hours of bum-numbing bus traveland a two-hour cycle rickshaw ride and now they wanted me to pay even more to leave the country!
I produced the train tickets I had booked as evidence that I had intended to leave on time. I tried politeness. I tried assertiveness. We tried group tactics (there were several of us in the same position). The officials just laughed and told us there was nothing they could do.
Perhaps my judgement was impaired by two hours riding under the hot sun, but I just felt so outraged that me and the others decided to leave without a stamp. We walked over the border into India where the immigration officials informed us that they wouldn't admit us as we hadn't been stamped out of Nepal,….unless of course, we wanted to pay them 400 rupees (about $9). Bribery, corruption.. ah yes, it was great to be back in good old India. Anyway, this seemed preferable to paying four times that to the Nepalese immigration, who I felt (from my high horse) were behaving atrociously to guests in their country. In hindsight this may not have been the most advisable course of action should I ever want to return to Nepal (I can always get a new passport right?).
From here four of us (me, John and a Danish couple) took a two hour bone jangling jeep ride to Gorakphur, where as expected, we learned there were no seats left on any train to Delhi that night…or the next day. So I resigned myself to a night in Gorakphur - the Indian equivalent of Narayangarh - but at least this time I had company.
Five am the next morning found us at the train station trying desperately to find a way to get to Delhi. We managed to get tickets to Lucknow, from where we just hoped we could pick up a train to Delhi. At Lucknow they told us that there wasno seats on any trains to Delhi that day - none at all, zilch, nada, a big fat ZERO. I was gutted. But fortunately in India, 'no' is rarely the final answer, and there is almost always a way round any stumbling block.
The man at the ticket office referred us to his supervisor, who took pity on us and I think, also liked to show that he could pull strings - thank heavens for egos! He told us we were on the waiting list, but that he would do what he could and that we should return in an hour. It was like waiting for the outcome of a job interview. John thought it was in the bag, but I wasn't so sure, we had had such a run of bad luck. An hour later we returned to receive the verdict; we had tickets on the 15.30 Shatabdi train back to Delhi!!!! I felt like doing cartwheels down the platform. The Shatabdi train are pretty pucker; comfortable reclining seats, meals served, and most important of all…fast! Finally my luck had turned.
That last leg of the journey sped by. John and I continued swapping travelling tales, whilst making the most of the catering service. Before I knew it I was back in Delhi. It was eleven o'clock but my fab friend Emily was up waiting for me with a much welcome glass of wine. Although I was incredibly tired we ended up sitting out on the balcony till 2am whilst I filled her in on my travels.
Despite the shenanigans of the last couple of days, I had a brilliant time in Nepal and hope to return some day - providing, of course, they let me back in the country!
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