Dashain Festival, Pokhara
Continued from India (part #1)
Nepal is a calm, peaceful, fascinating place. As soon as we crossed the border from India into Nepal (walking for approximately 1.5 km at Saunoli border), we could immediately see differences between the two countries: less people on the streets, no unnecessary honking by vehicles, little to no garbage lying around. The peaceful Buddhist music played by smiley immigration officers (no army, no armed forces, no patrol) was very different than what I was expecting. From Varanasi (India), we took a 6h train ride, then a 3h shared jeep ride to get to the border. I knew that this would be a long travel day, so I booked a private taxi transfer from the border to Lumbini. This taxi was waiting for us at the border and was very welcomed. Overall, it took us 12 hours to complete a 275 km journey on our first day into Nepal. We quickly learned that Nepali roads are terrible and that even small journeys always take a very, very long time (averages speed are always in the range of 15 km/h to 20 km/h, but sometime much lower)
