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Our journey to the border was a long but comfortable 22-hour coach ride. This is yet another crossing where you can't trust everything you read on the internet. There were some horror stories of foreigners being turned away and other posts saying that international travellers had to use a different checkpoint. We simply got off the coach and were asked by a tuk-tuk driver if we wanted to go to the border and he knew exactly where to take us, which seemed to be the same place that locals would be processed.
Upon entering India, we saw an immediate contrast between the two sides. Leaving Myanmar, we were processed outside a small hut in a wooded valley, but on the Indian side, we were greeted in a large paved complex on top of the hill with an impressive view of the surroundings. The increased level of development and infrastructure was shocking, with signs that this checkpoint was a major through-point. Fortunately for us, this was a quiet day and the only other person coming through was an Indian gentleman who had caught the same bus as us.
This point marks a change in our journey. Up until here we have made our own way, using public transport. As some of the Indian states we are heading through are experiencing some unrest and others may require a permit to enter we have hired a local guide to transport us around, making sure we don't get into too much trouble. We met SJ, a former manager at a tea plantation, at Moreh and he will be with us all the way to Patna. From there, we will have one more border crossing before reaching our goal of Nepal, where we shall be based for three months.
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