Day 102 Tuesday 12 December, Lumbini, Nepal to Gorakpur India
A short drive to the border at Sunuli but after faffing around getting petrol to use up our Nep Rupees, the customs man has gone for lunch. The border tout steers us to his mate’s restaurant which turns out to be ok although the whole border thing is the usual chaos, lines of trucks, richshaws, goats, etc as well as a fair ground (hard to tell which is which). Then we plunge into the unbridled chaos which is India. Although it looks much like Nepal it's busier and more frenetic, both dirtier and at the same time a bit more affluent. We head for Gorakpur, 80kms south which we reach well before sunset.
Gorakpur is a dirty grimy crowded and utterly unlovely city. Traffic is the usual anarchy with the added challenges of mangy cows, goats, dogs and generally unpleasant unhelpful people. This first impression is reinforced at every hotel we try when we can find them, all of which are inexplicably full. We begin to think its a racial or a gender thing but apparently its normal at this time of year which is the peak wedding season. With frustration building and increased by the challenge of navigating a city of 600,000 people without a map in the dark with few street lights, I3 has the brilliant idea of photographing the mud map in the train station. We use the image in the camera screen to find a few more full hotels but eventually find a cesspit called the Park Regency which we won't describe. Although it looks all right from the outside in the dark, it had not had anything done to it since it was built, and we’re talking at least 20 years and about cleaning, not just repair. The ambiance is not improved by hoods with submachine guns lounging around the lobby. Still the restaurant is OK even if there’s no glass in the window of our room which is full of mosquitoes.
Gorakpur is a dirty grimy crowded and utterly unlovely city. Traffic is the usual anarchy with the added challenges of mangy cows, goats, dogs and generally unpleasant unhelpful people. This first impression is reinforced at every hotel we try when we can find them, all of which are inexplicably full. We begin to think its a racial or a gender thing but apparently its normal at this time of year which is the peak wedding season. With frustration building and increased by the challenge of navigating a city of 600,000 people without a map in the dark with few street lights, I3 has the brilliant idea of photographing the mud map in the train station. We use the image in the camera screen to find a few more full hotels but eventually find a cesspit called the Park Regency which we won't describe. Although it looks all right from the outside in the dark, it had not had anything done to it since it was built, and we’re talking at least 20 years and about cleaning, not just repair. The ambiance is not improved by hoods with submachine guns lounging around the lobby. Still the restaurant is OK even if there’s no glass in the window of our room which is full of mosquitoes.
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