Crossing the Border..

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Xmas Day was an early start as we had several hours drive to the Nepal border. We crossed at Sounali then styaed in Lumbini that night. Great trip through the countryside, but fairly slow as usual- its difficult to get up to 40km per hour, with the state of the back roads, the number of villages to go through (every few kilometres, and the ever present buffalo, goats etc on gthe roads (not to mention the fact that even onb the highways, no one turns a hair if someone drives down the road on the wrong side - its sometimes just the quickest way to get through!...Anyway, we just love all of this, particularly the country roads...and it was clear that hardly anyone seems to use the roads we were on, because we didn't see a tourist all day...and there were certainly not any stops along the way, even in the big towns, that could be identified as roadside stops for tourists - only the truck driver highway posts. Anyway, our driver couldn't find any, so we drove for about 6 hours from 6am without stopping, until we came to a Jungle Retret next to an Ashram not that far from the border. A lovely place in the forest, with mostly all nepalese cooks (and customers)

Arrived at the border to a huge lineup of trucks, so our driver parked the car and got us a couple of rickshaw drivers to get us in and out of the trucks (andbasically jump the queue) Must say I felt like Lady Muck...sitting up in the rickshaw, surrounded by luggage, holding a sheaf of gladioli, tuberose and red roses given to me by our driver for Xmas...as Al, the driver and some tour guide touts walked alongside expediting our passage to the Indian side official and tghen on to the Nepalese...They couldn't have been more easy going, shook our hands and made us feel like we were actually someone..(perhaps it was the sunglasses) Whatever,...we were certainly looked after. Pareye (our driver raced across to get the guide and driver from the Nepalese side to meet us and then left for the 2-3 day trip back to his home Delhi. He had been such a wonderful companion and driver for the 4 weeks he had been with us, we were very sad to see him go!)

So we were now in Nepal. After the usual money changing, hotel check in etc, internet posts, etc we kicked back for the night. Next morning we went to Buddha's birthpalce - he was actually born in Nepal at Lumbini and then on to some of the temples, including the World Peace Pagoda built by the Japanese Buddhists. Afetr that it was on to Chitwan National Reserve for some Elephant safaris. (see next blog)

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Photos

The Lady and the Flowers
Perhaps the gladioli did the trick?

Elegant transport!
Queue jumping in a rickshaw

Border Xing
Line of trucks

Walking to Buddha's birthplace
In the early morning mist

The Pancho Sila
With the basic tenets

People at the souvenir shops
Before the entrance

The path to Buddha's birth site
As you can see ir was very misty!

Inside the ruins
At the actual birth site

Objects of interest
Everyone wanted our photo