Arrived in Nepal.

Hello from Nepal. Before I get into talking about the trip to Nepal I had a couple more things to say about India.

Darjeeling was the nicest city, there wasn't garbage everywhere and the air was cleaner.
Most of the panhandlers are children, which is sad because they all look like they need food. However you aren't suppose to give them any money because some parents will send there kids to beg at the train station(where the tourists are) because there families need money and the kids can do this instead of going to school. In Darjeeling it was nice to see children wearing school uniforms and not begging for money. You can also see the missionary presence in Darjeeling because it's the first place I noticed any Christian items and churches.

Into to Nepal.

It took a long time to get here but it was worth it. So this is what my saturday consisted of. So I was awake at 8am and trying to think about what I should do for the day. I was anxious to get to nepal and out of India so that's what I did. I jumped in a share jeep for 90rs and headed to Siliguri which is down the mountain and it took about 3 hours. So by 2pm I was in Siliguri and looked for a share jeep to get to the border of Nepal and India. I found one rather fast, the border town is called Kakarvitta. I just basically walked across the border and started to get the paper work for my Nepal visa. This was less of a hassle then crossing the border between Canada and the USA sometimes. The visa was 40 dollars american for 30 days, I can get an extension if I want to stay longer. The difference in tempature was vast compared to in Darjeeling. It seemed like 40 degrees in Kakarvitta and it's a dry heat. Everywhere is super dusty right now because it's before the monsoon season, they have seasons just like we do except when it's not the monsoon season it doesn't rain at all. This makes everything super dusty and after a short car ride you can feel it on your skin. I was sitting at the border deciding if I should stay the night so I could shower or just go to a different town. Except in the eastern part of Nepal there isn't much to do or see so I asked about bus to Kathmandu.

Me: Bus to Kathmandu?
Bus Clerk: Yes, okay seat 12 window, 465 rupees.
Me: okay(thinking to myself, I guess I'm going to Kathmandu now)
-that may not seem like a big deal but being as dirty and smelly as I was it was a big deal. See, in India when you book a train it's a whole process on the computer and you spend like 10 minutes doing paper work, the bus took abou 2 minutes to set up.

It's like a 17 hour bus ride and this was about 5:30 at night and I was completely covered in sweat and dust. I felt disgusting but i didn't want to hang out this border town any longer. So the bus left by 6pm and I was on my way to Kathmandu, now to some people reading this a night bus might not sound so bad because you can sleep. However you can't because it's like driving down Burlington Street in Hamilton X5 with a vechile that doesn't have any suspensions. During the bus trip I think I heard every Indian pop song ever written, all of them being awesome, I'd say take the best ABBA song and multiply it by 5 and that's how good they are.

Honestly though it was probably the worst bus ride ever, if I was going back that way I'd consider flying just to avoid the annoyance of it all. The bus stopped often enough so everyone could go to the bathroom which is a relief. So finally at 11 am today we pulled in the Kathmandu, Nepal. First impression: wow there's a ton of pollution here. Travel books recommend wearing a face mask because it's so bad, it also makes for a crappy time trying to take pictures of the mountains surrounding the city. So I found Hotel Moonlight and I'm going to stay here for a couple of days while I plan what I want to do. Taking a shower today never felt so good, even without soap I could see the water coming off was brown/black. It looked like I'd been sleeping in sand for a day.