As I walked from the Chinese side of the Friendship
Bridge to the Nepali side, I felt a slight excitement rushing through my veins,
for I was about to arrive in another foreign country. Even from my hotel room
in Zhangmu where I stayed last night, I could see that the land just across the
Bote Koshi River had a totally different nature from the Tibetan soil that I
have traveled in the last eight days. The winding road looked very green and I
could smell the humid air, which reminded me to a small town in my
country called Bogor. The journey I started from Tianjin almost three weeks ago
had so far yielded many things that I have never seen before. And I just could
not wait to begin my Nepali experiences.
Once I arrived in the border town, Khodari I saw the
road condition that was not in its best. But the happy faces of the local kids who
were running around in their humble clothing, despite of the unstable political
condition of their country reminded me of the people from back home. In an
instant I knew that I would make a connection with Nepal easily, or so I
thought.
But I was not completely right. At the small
Immigration Office I filled in the visa application form and submitted it to
the Officer. After thirty minutes of waiting, I realized that many people had
received their visas and left, but my name had not been called out yet. After a
brief investigation, I found that the officer had stacked all the passports in
front of him, but only took those in the middle. I had to smile and indicate to
him that my passport was still at the bottom of the stack and kindly asked him
to work on my visa. And once again I have proven a friendly smile works in any
part of the world. Before long I had walked out of the office with a 15-day
visa.
My jeep ride to Kathmandu was not an easy one
either. The rain had filled the damaged roads with mud and the suspension of
the old vehicle I was riding in was definitely not enough to smooth my ride.
Nevertheless I enjoyed the journey very much, especially as my friendly Nepali
driver told me many things about his country and also about the Diwali holiday, which explained the many people we saw on the road that day, traveled within the country to either go back home to celebrate with their family or to
visit relatives.
After more or less five hours of the bumpy ride I
arrived in Thamel. The area was dirty and filled with many different types of
people, but somehow interesting. As I checked in at the hostel I knew that I
was just getting myself into yet another exciting adventure in this fascinating
country in the Himalayas.
