A tricky trip from Rishikesh, India to Pokhara, Nepal

Folks, the one road in Eastern Terai is fine. Other than that, travelling from Rishikesh India to Pokhara Nepal is hellish. Here's a short version of what happened during the 40 hour killer trip.

1. I took a vikram (a shared ricksha) from High Bank, Rishikesh to Rishikesh proper. (20 rupees.)

2. I took another vikram which was supposed to take me to Haridwar. It didn't. Instead the driver dumped me off in some junction and hustled me into a third vikram. Changing vikrams I stepped in an open sewer. In the third vikram then, a cute guy sat on my poo soaked shoe. I refrained from notifying the guy about the unfortunate incident. These two vikrams cost me 100 rupees.

3. Finally in Haridwar, at 7 PM I hopped on a government night bus (215 rs) to Bambassa in which I managed to sleep for about an hour.

4. Usually one hopes to get out of a crappy bus as quickly as possible. Not this time. I arrived in Bambassa at 4 AM, which indeed is a sucky time arrive anywhere. Fortunately though I wasn't the only one heading to Nepal. The main strip (the only strip, I mean) was full of people waiting for the border to open. I sat at a small tea stall and like everyone else tried to keep warm by the fire. No other Wessies to be seen anywhere!

5. The border opens at 6 AM so I took a bicyclericksha (the driver in the pic) to the Indian side of the border and walked for about a kilometer to reach the Nepali side.

6. At the Nepali side the border officer was nowhere to be found. His sweet wife, who had just walked out of a shower (or whatever dip in the water) kindly handed me the visa application form. When his husband came back from his odd morning business I payed 40 US dollars and took another ricksha to Mahendranagar, the first town on the Nepali side of the border.

7. There's one bus from Mahendranagar to Pokhara a day. It left at 2.25 PM which meant that I had about eight hours to kill in Mahendranagar. Eight hours in Mahendranagar! There's nothing wrong with the town, for a border town it's perfectly all right. It's just that there's nothing to do there aside from watching one's toe nails grow...

8. ... And to buy a bus ticket to Pokhara (815 Nepali rupees). I got one of the last seats on the bus, so if you are headed for Pokhara from Mahendranagar get your ticket as soon as you get there. Otherwise you'll end up like me:

9. I got a seat in the drivers cabin, which I thought was fine until they piled seven men into the cabin. After three hours of driving I learned that the dudes were actually quite alright. But it was too late to cherish their company now as the smallest of the men was exchanged to a family of four. That's when it got really tight.

10. It was 16 painful hours from Mahendranagar to Pokhara, mainly in the dark. But hey. the road at least was fine.

5 Karmic do's for Rishikesh

1. Arrive in the oh so New Age Rishikesh weary of all the hippies and yoga nutters, conviced that this would not be your place. Laying your eyes on the sacred Ganges have a total change of heart. Not knowing exactly why, you now want to join their ranks. Maybe they add something in Kinley here (Kinley is Coca-Cola's Indian mineral water brand).

2. Begin the search for yoga classes for beginners. Allow the search be disrupted by Mitch, a corporate risk analyst on his way to get bananas for the holy cows. Learn that an astrologer has just told Mitch to feed hungry cows since his Mercury is too low and he'll be damned if he doesn't. Inquire about his astrological sign. Leo! Same as yours. Inquire about his birthday. Same as yours! Which means Mercury is fucked up in your chart as well.

3. Join Mitch on this desperate mission to save your lives. Invest 10 rupees in green bananas and start looking for hungry cows.

4. Marvel at Mitch's cunning when he insightfully utters: "It's easier to feed cows you haven't met before", when a nutter of a cow starts following you after being fed two bananas. Indeed, India is a country of spirituality and wisdom, some of which you are bound to embellish while travelling here.

5. Get a blessing from a man dressed up as Hanuman for the Diwali festival in order to make sure, your mission has been properly completed. With these things you can never be too sure!