Day 73 Tues 14 November, Damen, Nepal to Siliguri, India

The mountain views are excellent, apparently the best panorama in Nepal from Annapurna in the west to Everest in the east, although the latter is looking into the sun and doesn’t stand out. After breakfast we continue the descent through forests and terraced fields of mustard, rice and potatoes to the Terai plains. 30km takes 2 hrs before we reach the Mahendra Highway which runs East – West the length of Nepal. Fortunately its a good sealed road and we are soon cruising along through lush jungle and in parts eucalypt scrubland.

Despite reasonable progress its a long way and we hadn’t reckoned on it getting dark by 4pm. The last 2 hours are a bit of a nightmare, its pitch black by 5pm and no one uses lights. None of the bikes and rickshaws even have reflectors and the trucks only put their lights on full beam when they are close enough to blind you. Somehow we make it to the border, by superb navigation as there are few signs.
Its the usual border chaos, but not too busy at 7pm, although the exit procedures are not helped by the power going off on the Nepali side. Although there’s no street lights anyway, sorting out carnets by candle light is an interesting experience. India isn’t much better, they are all well intentioned but generally don’t know much about what’s going on. We insist on visiting customs although we keep being told its not necessary, and spend a lot of time copying all sorts of details into a large book – how anyone will read our writing or make any sense of our entries is a mystery, particularly as we put the wrong details in the wrong columns. Still it doesn’t seem to matter, (why they want the info and what they do with it no-one seems to know nor care, the records pile up gathering dust and mildew until they are consumed by mites and silverfish) and after cups of tea with the jovial customs man, we are on our way again.

Indian roads are just like Nepali ones, huge potholes in unexpected places and rather more trucks and motor bikes. Steering by instinct, (the navigator says luck but the driver says its just a case of noting which way the buses are pointing) we get to Siliguri, once a sleepy Indian town and now a large truck stop.

Unfortunately there are no signs to the city centre but again relying on instinct, as opposed to LPs mud-maps, we find the hotel we were aiming for and have dinner. The fact we haven’t got any Indian rupees causes a bit a problem but eventually they accept that we will pay them tomorrow.

We again remind ourselves of the rule of not driving in the dark and always arriving in a new city by mid afternoon.
Weather 9C Sunny
Distance today: 495km
Distance from start: 14,735km