Because our travel is also a way to share our good tips, here you have our « Practical Information » category. Enjoy !
To cross the border between Nepal and India is very common. Indeed, if you are reading these lines, you may know already that Pokhara is not very far away from Varanasi.
But why should we follow this path ? Do you also want to make Pokhara / Rishikesh ? We did it and we are telling you how.
So, first of all, nothing complicated ! Just a bit of patience.
From Pokhara, there is a daily bus going to th border. Leaving in the afternoon around 4pm, he is supposed to arrive the next day in early morning. We were late. Nothing surprising I guess.
As the bus leaves from Pokhara city which is a bit far away from Lake side, it may be easire to buy the tickets with a travel agency. A bit more expensive but still not that much.
The bus will drop you few kilometers before the border. You need to take a tuk tuk. Not very expensive but we cannot remember the price. The tuktuk leaves you to immigration office. Quick and efficient !
Attention, the border is closed between 12pm and 2pm for foreigners. If it is your case (like us), you can have a lunch in the middle. You can then admire locals crossing the border. Just to let you know, it is a very small border, not too much traffic. It is a huge meadow with cows everywhere.
To finish to cross the border, we took a rickshaw. A guy was insisting a lot for it and his perseverance paid. We hired him and we can thank him. The border was longer than we was expecting. Difficult to walk.
In Banbasa, the rickshaw dropped us on the main road. Buses stop there. Here, it became a bit more complicated. To get to Haridwar (the city we want to sleep), we have to make a stop in Kashipur. There are some buses to Haridwar but Banbasa is not the departure city and buses are already more than full when they stop. With our backpacks, impossible!
Finally, tired and desesperate to stay in Banbasa which does not look very attractive for a night, we take this bus for Kashipur. From over there, people explain us that we will have more choices.
We got an empty bus to Kashipur. Yeah, it can happen! The journey is long. We had 4h (130 km). In Kashipur, we need to change for Haridwar but same story. It is late and most of the buses going to Haridwar come from different city. They are full and it is the indian fight to get in. With our backpacks, we are disadvantaged… until a retired man starts to help us. He speaks English and is more than happy to help foreigners. He is also going to Haridwar and he will manage the things. Believe it or not, 10 minutes later, we are in a bus, with a seat. It is 7pm. It is already dark, we are at the front of the bus (is it reasonable ?). We arrive at Haridwar at 1am, extremely tired by 30h journey. But we did it!
We are Ela & David, 2 citizens of the world. In quest of a new way of living, more respectful from the environment and the Humans, we travel slowly to discover new cultures, to look for inspirations and with a wish of sharing. Wants to know more?
