Arriving in Kolkata at 6.30am after a reasonable nights sleep on the overnight train we had a pretty scary taxi ride to our prebooked hotel. We were to discover that the taxi drivers in Kolkata were the worst ones we had seen in the whole of India. Most of their cars were decrepit, in fact the government had already ordered hundreds off the roads only a fortnight before - it was only the better ones left! One driver we had actually went the wrong way up a wide very busy 4 lane road, stopped at a traffic policeman, kept his hand [View Full Entry]

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We left Darjeeling and drove - on really rough roads - through many tea plantations to the Sikkim border. Heading north towards Legship on roads that were in much better condition we began our seven days in Sikkim. As usual our driver was lovely and he was also the best driver we've had the entire trip. This man handled the bends and traffic on the narrow roads brilliantly! The scenery was lush - totally stunning and so much better then we were expecting. Lots of very tall bamboo, terraced rice paddies, flowers (bougainvillea, wild ginger, trumpet flowers and many common wildflowers) [View Full Entry]

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It was a long slow train trip from Varanasi to Siliguri (the starting point for the trip up the mountain to Darjeeling) - from 11am to 7am the next morning! We arrived feeling very tired and were immediately surrounded by touts, all trying to pull us towards their jeep for the 5 hour trip to Darjeeling. I lost my cool and ended up shouting at them all to go away (after 5 months in India it was only the second time I've done this - a pretty good record I think). They all retreated hastily but over the next half an [View Full Entry]

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We changed taxis at the border - the area was totally chaotic and I'm sure a lot of smuggling goes on undetected there. The immigration desk was a table in the main street - we didn't even see any customs officers. Totally crazy - people and trucks loaded up with goods everywhere and absolutely no order at all. Our new driver spoke hardly any English. It was a long drive to Varanasi - we could have caught a train part of the way but you still had a 2-3 hours drive to the train station so we decided to just take [View Full Entry]

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We left Tansen by hire taxi for the three hour trip to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, and a tiny town close to the Indian Nepal border. The trip was stunning - traveling along the edge of some very deep gorges lined with rice terraces and jungle. The road was pretty bad in places - there were a lot of washouts and areas of landslide. We passed hundreds of buses - one after the other - and I've never seen buses as crowded before. Everybody was heading home for the Dasian celebrations and all the buses had at least a [View Full Entry]

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We decided to visit Tansen en route to the border - our visa were running out - and finally the birthplace of Buddha, Lumbini, which is very close to the Indian border. There seemed to be know direct tourist bus to Tansen and we weren't prepared to catch another local bus after our terrible trip from Bandipur. It wasn't particularly far, only 140 klms , but it took over 4 hours (with a puncture stop). Tansen was described as a romantic medieval hill town with many old Newari houses and cobbled streets. It was quite different - there were cobbled streets, [View Full Entry]

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We left Bandipur for Pokhara by a local bus. The driver was totally crazy - he drove far too fast around the bends (and there were many) and we were getting concerned for our safety when the bus stopped and nearly everybody got off and went onto other buses. The only people left were us - we were unsure whether the bus terminated there (though it was supposed to go to Pokhara) or whether everybody else got off simply because they didn't want to go any further with that bus driver. We were put onto another bus - this one had [View Full Entry]

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We left Chitwan by tourist bus, heading towards Pokhara, but were planning on leaving the bus at Dumre. The trip passed through many tiny villages but still no views of snow capped mountains as the horizon was very hazy. Three hours of traveling before we arrived in Dumre - a dusty roadside bazaar town through which all traffic between Pokhara and Kathmandu passes. There were dozens of buses parked along the street, which was edged with shops. Dumre appeared to be not much more then this strip of highway. We took a taxi the 9 klms of winding road above Dumre [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Royal Chitwan National Park after a pleasant 5 hour bus trip from Kathmandu. As it is only the very beginning of the tourist season we were surprised at the long line of buses waiting to depart Kathmandu - most were heading to Pokara. The closer we got to Chitwan the greener and prettier the scenery got. We weren't sorry to arrive as the buses were made for people much smaller then us - the seats and space between seats was very limited. We were collected by jeep and taken to the lodge we had booked - very quiet [View Full Entry]

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Bhaktapur is the city to go to Nepal if you want to see stunning temples. We loved our 48 hours there! It was made even better by the fact that the main areas are traffic free though the odd motorbike still managed to find its way through. Our hotel room had a window seat which overlooked the main sqaure and in the evening (when the day trippers left) it was a wonderful place to sit. To get to Bhaktapur was not much fun - it is now virtually a suburb of Kathmamndu, separated only by a few rice paddies. The road [View Full Entry]

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