After two days in Kolkata we hopped on a plane north to Gorakhpur, India. Our gateway to Lumbini, Nepal to check another item off Bill’s bucket list. First Dhaka, Bangladesh then Saudi and now Lumbini, Nepal. One would think it’s Bill’s birthday.
We stayed one night in Gorakhpur, India and hired a taxi to drive us to Lumbini. Google maps said it would take three hours.
As we waited for the car to arrive it began to pour buckets of rain and the loudest thunder we’ve ever heard crashed down around us.No way – not again! The last time we went to Nepal we drove down from Tibet and it was pouring down rain like the skies were grieving. The ride to our hotel was treacherous. The muddy, cliff hanging event is still deeply embedded into my anxious brain. Fearless Bill even speaks of it.
Soooo, this day did not start out well for me. Poor Bill. The grief this man has to tolerate.
Here rolls in a tiny four door sedan – like a golf cart on steroids. Only the driver’s windshield wiper worked. I sat on the passenger side and the windshield was a blur. The car had a quarter tank of gas – visibility was about zero. Whoopee! It certainly cleared the roads of motorcycles. We drove with the hazard lights on. I put my window down about four inches to take a photo and it was if someone threw a glass of water into my face.
There was lots of agricultural land on the drive. Some fields had been cut and cleared but unfortunately there were many fields with piles of newly cut and stacked grain absorbing the rain like a sponge.
Little shops out of carts and motorcycles that wanted out of the rain parked themselves under the overpasses.
I had read one report on the internet about a woman complaining that they got a new taxi driver who didn’t know the way to Lumbini and took a longer route then necessary. Yeah well he wasn’t the only one. The same happened to us. The driver, Saied, was so kind and shy. He drove perfectly and with utter confidence but his path didn’t match my GPS and he had never been to the border. No problem. We weren’t in a hurry.
A good portion of the ride bordered the construction of a new Indian highway. It’s a massive project. Unlike America’s eminent domain where your home is purchased and ultimately destroyed. Here they chomped off the fronts of buildings that were in the right of way – leaving the jagged edges of the brick buildings with the remaining rear portion still intact. Some appeared abandoned but remarkably many were still being used.
There were no flag men or orange cones directing drivers. The main road would run out with no warning and we’d take the diversion that was carved out of the dirt along side the road. This was continuous throughout the construction area. We even drove into oncoming traffic when a tractor was blocking our side of the road.
This seems so foreign to us but appears quite normal to them.
At some point it stopped raining. Our 3 hour trip turned into six but we made it safe and sound. Thank God.
Immigration added to the long drive. The border crossing went something like this: Drive there to that tent, wrong, you need to drive back 800 meters in the direction you came from, get an Indian stamp out of the country, now drive over there and show your Nepal visa, not this window, go over there, no sorry, your visa is not correct, wrong entry gate, fill out a new form on computer, no problem, take photo of the screen, no problem, go over there to that window, pay, what no Nepalese money, go change money, over there, no problem, I wait, come back, pay, now go over there to that window, get receipt, go inside to another window, pose for photo, get visa, go back to original tent, get Nepal stamp, good to go!
The muddy border was full of trucks, motorcycles and people crossing on foot.
We got about 100 meters into the Nepal side and Said (our driver) pulled over to get his visa papers squared away. This took an hour. A woman immigration officer walked up to my car window and saw Bill’s backpack on my lap and demanded that I empty every item out of it for no other reason than she had the authority to do so. With grunts and moans she instructed me to open certain bags to see what they contained and then with a wave of a hand she walked away without a word.
Our hotel in Lumbini was only 40 minutes from the border. It was a huge one story hotel built by the Japanese 40 years ago. We stayed two nights and virtually had the place to ourselves. We dined alone and briefly saw one other family.
Lumbini is a Buddhist pilgrim site. The birth place of Buddha.
In an effort to save time here is the Wikipedia version:
“According to the sacred texts of the Buddhist Commentaries, Amaya Devi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama in Lumbini in c. 624 BCE. Siddhartha Gautama achieved Enlightenment, and became Shakyamuni Buddha who founded Buddhism. He later passed into parinivana at the age of 80 years, in c.544 BCE. Lumbini is one of four most sacred pilgrimage sites pivotal in the life of the Buddha.
Lumbini has a number of old temples, including the Mayadevi Temple, and several new temples, funded by Buddhist organizations from various countries.”
We hired a tuk tuk and visited all the temples. It was two days after Buddha’s birthday.
All the foreign temples were elaborate.
The one marking Buddha’s birth place was plain but gathered the most people.
There are a lot of improvement projects going on within the master planned temple area – roads are being paved and sidewalks are being installed. They seem to be preparing for future tourism. It will lose some of its rugged charm but will be nice for pilgrims.
Our road trip back to Gorakhpur was on a partly cloudy day. Thank goodness the rain was gone. Our driver this time came from Gorakhpur so he to get up early to pick us up in the morning.
He went to the border on the quicker route which was quite pleasing to us. We pulled up and were literally 100 feet from India but hit a quagmire to which one worker consulted with a colleague and then called his boss who perhaps called his boss. A crowd gathered. After much to do we were informed that our entry visa was from the “other” gate and we need to exit from there. So we turned around to go home the long way!
The driver started showing signs of being tired about two hours from our destination when the craziness of the road slowed for an only a few minutes. He quietly closed his eyes and tipped his head forward falling asleep. I yelled his name and touched his shoulder. He woke with a frightful look on his face and thank goodness did not jerk the wheel. I motioned for him to pull over and with my hands together, snuggling them in the side of my face, suggesting he needed to sleep.
He pulled off the road and bought chewing gum from a road side vendor and insisted he was fine. We made lots of noise and opened our windows hoping to keep him alert. Thank goodness the traffic picked up – regenerating him.
The following morning we were dropped off at the airport. Literally- on the edge of the two lane road – by a gate manned by armed soldiers surrounded by a tall concrete wall topped with concertina wire. Come to find out the small airport building is on India’s Air Force Base. When we landed we thought the armed guards were for the official looking people in the official looking cars that were waiting outside the building not knowing it was a base. Go figure!
