We started the day with another civilised, relaxed breakfast in the garden of Hotel Fairhaven before embarking on our day’s travel. First of all we employed shanks pony to get us to the cycle rickshaw stand at our end of the lake. For Rs10 a head he pedalled us to the far end of the water where the bus stand is located. A bus heading to Haldwani was edging its way out of town so we jumped on – it was 9.30am and we were on our way to Nepal.
The road meandered and zig-zagged its way down through steep forest clad scenery with crop terracing leading into the valley below. The spring blossoms were beginning to burst forth adding splashes of colour to the palette of browns and greens. This was an auspicious start to what will be a long travel day involving a selection of buses and various other modes of transport. You know it’s a pretty journey when it has me gushing poetically and Steve has the camera pointed out of the window.
Once in Haldwani we eventually tracked down the Banbasa bus in among the melee of people and vehicles. It pulled out at 11.30am and our Rs97 ticket told us it was only 112kms to our next destination. It took the bus half an hour to crawl, nudge and beep its way out of town and we feared this leg could take longer than it should. This second leg of the journey wasn’t picturesque as we were back down to flat farmland passing through functional, grubby towns. It took an excruciating 4hrs to reach Banbasa which is spectacularly slow even by Indian standards. From there we knew it was a few kilometres to the border but we couldn’t find any sort of motorised transport so had to jump in another cycle rickshaw. With luggage this is not a comfortable way to travel and the shocking road surfaces don’t help the situation.
The poor lad who was pedalling must have been exhausted long before the road disintegrated and we were forced to continue on foot. By this point it had taken us an hour since leaving the bus and we still hadn’t tracked down the Indian Immigration Office. It’s a very strange border as the last kilometre stretch is along a dam with the immigration office being plonked at the end. There was a steady stream of people walking, on horse and trap or cycle rickshaw going in both directions. However, only Steve and I needed to use the immigration officer’s services. There wasn’t a computer in sight so everything had to be laboriously hand written in a ledger.
From there we had to walk another kilometre or so to the Nepali Immigration Office. There weren’t any sign posts of flags to indicate which way we should go but luckily there’s always someone around to ask. We found the unassuming office tucked away in the middle of the village where we received a friendly welcome. Again a complete lack of computerisation but it didn’t take long for the forms to be completed, $42 a head handed over and a 30-day visa to be stuck into our passports. We then wandered up the street and hopped on a bus that was going to Mahendra Nagar, the nearest town only 10kms away.
By now it was already 6pm and we’d anticipated reaching this point at least 3 hours earlier – we should know better by now! On getting down from the bus we were surrounded by people hassling us into rickshaws, hotels and taxis. So said we were trying to get to Ambasa and lo and behold a bus pulled up and we were bundled onto it. It was all a bit frantic and disorientating and a little way down the road we realised that all our rupees were Indian not Nepali. Fortunately we’d got enough change from paying for the visas to cover the bus ticket and could only hope there was an ATM in Ambasa. We thought the town must attract enough tourists due to its proximity to Bardia National Park to justify a bank’s investment.
We’d booked a room at Mr B’s Place and he’s said he would pick us up, however; we couldn’t contact him to let him know we were running very late. The bus conductor said we’d reach Ambasa by 11pm but in fact we reached our stop at a more reasonable 9.30pm. As soon as the bus pulled away we were plunged into utter darkness; we’d been dumped in the middle of nowhere. On scrabbling in the bag for a headlamp we discovered we were at an entrance for Bardia National Park. Good to know we were in the right place but how on earth were we meant to get to our guesthouse?
A man popped out from behind some sacking (which we later learned was his house / shop), listened to our predicament and promptly phoned Mr B. He was soon on his way to fetch us and it turned out he’d been waiting most of the afternoon for us but gave up once it started getting dark. Mr B, his wife and their staff were kindness personified and as we’d not eaten since breakfast rustled up some veggie noodles for us. It was almost midnight before we all got to crawl into bed. What a long day consisting of: walk, cycle rickshaw, bus, bus, cycle rickshaw, walk, bus, bus and finally Mr B’s jeep. A 12-hour transport marathon but at least we made it and had a bed for the night.
