The Mad Adventures of Zach and Robynn: Nepal Y'all

Getting into Nepal could be easy, depending on how you do it. Most people go with the flying option, which means arriving, filling out a form, avoiding the kids playing soccer in the terminal, paying your visa fee, and moving on. Sounds easy, right? That's not how I went about it though, cuz where's the fun in that?

So we ended the last post near Jaigaon, India. We spent a night with the local brothers, then hopped in a taxi and headed to Siliguri. Siliguri is fairly close to the border with Nepal, and has a mall with a KFC. This time we managed to avoid it though, and you should be proud of us. It was really hard, guys.

In Siliguri, we stayed at a sketchy little hotel that totally wasn't covered in mold and the bath mat definitely wasn't already soaked before we got there. I also didn't get horribly confused when they started asking if my roomie and I were family and did we have husbands. They did randomly give us samosas wrapped in newspaper though, so I'd count that as a win.

The next day, we caught another taxi to the actual border. The taxis can only go so far, at which point you have to hop in a rickshaw. So we sat in rickshaws on the India side, got out to do our formalities, and they started asking for our father's info. Dad, if random Indian men start sending you letters, I'm sorry. I'm not 100% clear on why they needed the info, and considering the hotels all wanted to know about Zach, I really thought his info would suffice, but according to the customs guy, husbands can change and parents rarely do.

Back into the rickshaw we go and now we get to cross a bridge that's a sort of no man's land. We aren't in India, cuz my passport stamp says so, but we aren't in Nepal yet cuz we haven't passed any signs.

After we get to a place that actually exists, there's thirteen thousand forms to fill out for Nepal. They even wanted the serial number of my camera. And a passport photo, which I didn't have. Dude, my passport photo is in my passport. Seriously, it's the first page, and it's a new passport so it even looks like me for once. Can we let it slide?

Ok, full disclaimer, I was well aware of this requirement but could never find a photo center that was open, including the one right at the border, which is probably a really good one to have open during daylight hours. So, that hold up was kinda on me, but also, come on, why are you closed in the middle of the day?

Then they didn't like the way my money looked. Fun fact, at the land crossing, they want cash. But it has to be pristine. That teeny tiny, not at all noticeable little pink spot on the edge? Means you have to find another bill to use. We persevered however, and finally got stamped in all legal-like. Now to hop into a taxi for a few hours.

I desperately needed a local sim card so I can contact the sister we're supposed to be staying with, but guess what? To get a sim card in Nepal, you need a passport photo. Thankfully, we had made friends with the taxi driver at that point, so he registered for the card instead, and I'm pretty sure he only tried to call me twice in the next few weeks.

So we're off to Dharan, where we catch a bus to Dhankuta, where the sister is staying with some friends. About three hours into the ride, we begin to have have a few concerns. First, our bags are on the top of this bus that's flying around these corners and over these bumps, and I'm pretty sure I just heard a thump of something hitting the road behind us, and second, we don't actually know where this town is or when to get off the bus since Dhankuta isn't the final destination. Oops.

Passing my phone to random strangers on the bus to talk to the sister sorta helps, but these Nepali people apparently don't speak Nepali either, because they don't seem to know if we've passed the town or not. To our relief, about five minutes later, I manage to read a sign that has the name of the town on it, so we decide to get off the bus since most everyone else is too. Sometimes in life we make good decisions.

And now to meet a couple of complete strangers.

So my favorite thing about travel is that my appreciation for the brotherhood always grows. No matter where we are, and where we come from, we can always find someone and have an instant connection. In El Salvador, we met the family we were staying with for the first time at the airport and were able to be friends right away. In Nepal, a friend we met in Honduras somehow hears about a random need greater who lives in a random town and says "You should totally go meet this person I've never met before" and we can do that with no worries. It was a bit confusing since none of us ever figured out how the Honduras connection became aware of the sister in Nepal, but it really didn't matter. We just showed up, hung out for a few days, went in service together and it was great. It's so nice to be able to do that.

A few days later, Donna and I decide we really would like to stop moving around so much and maybe even sleep in the same bed for more than a night or two, so we take an overnight bus from Dharan to Pokhara, a super cute little lakeside town. That was a dark time that we've vowed to never talk about again, other than to say that what should have been a twelve hour ride was closer to twenty and I will never get some of those stains out of my backpack.

And on that vaguely ominous note, pictures!