From the Land of the Curry to the Land of the Yeti

After having spent almost a week in Varanasi, it finally had to happen: crossing the border to visit the next country, Nepal. My fourth 'chakra' (stomach') had not been in a good mood all week, so every loo visit had been turned into a splashing feast. And that while I had not had any problems with my digestion system before in the past eight weeks, with a few exceptions only.

I had decided to take the coach on Monday morning at 7 o'clock at the local coach station. Just in time I had decided to book a tourist coach through the hotel. That was slightly more expensive, but two days inside a local coach seemed a bit too much. It's a good thing I did not know at all what to expect.… Thanks to the hotel manager's organisation talent, I could climb into a riksha at seven in the morning, together with a Japanese girl (I was grateful to be sitting next to a Japanese person - at least they haven't got big behinds! For the riskhas are really meant for 1.5 persons (just like the seats in buses here)) and we were driven to our tourist coach.

I have often mentioned that coincidences do not exist and today this came true again. At the collection point I spotted a girl who I was sure I'd seen before. It turned out that she was Dutch (her name was Jolette) and she was with a friend (Julia), with whom she had been travelling around India and Nepal for three and a half months. She chatted incessantly, but could not remember where we had seen each other before. Not that it mattered much.

I was not feeling a 100% when I boarded the coach, but everything had been fine until then. Later on, however, my bowels started to play a game on me: one toilet stop there would be liquid, the next toilet stop there would be obstipation. The closer we got to the border, the sicker I felt, having cramps and all. I did not exactly look forward to having to arrange a sleepover at the border and trying to find a bus again the next day which would take me Pokhara. But a solution was near. I was allowed to pay the other half and everything would be taken care of: hotel booking and coach to Pokhara.

Jolette and Julia, who I had got to know better during the bus journey, kept an eye on me while I was lying on my back inside the coach during the last few miles until we reached the border. When we arrived there, I followed the ladies blindly; I was green with sickness. I still had to fill in the forms for leaving India and then litterally walk over the border from India to Nepal. Here, too, I could not take a great photograph, this time of the notice at the border, because I simply didn't have the strength to take the camera out of my rucksack. That is how ill I was.…

At the Nepal side of the border, I had to complete the 'entering Nepal' form, besides arranging a visa. I managed to do all the paper work, but don't ask me how (it was already seven o'clock in the evening and pitch dark). I had to pay thirty dollars and give them a passport photograph; then it was all arranged, and I received a fat stamp in my passport. Eating and drinking was a lot better now.

The following day we first took a jeep to the coach station, which was five kilometres further. How many Europeans and Asians fit into one tiny jeep? Well, in our case, it turned out that six of us could be seated in the back (our legs were sticking out from the back of the car, because (how very practical) there was also a little table inside the jeep and not all rucksacks would fit on the roof of the car, so people had to keep these itmes on their laps or something!). There were also wto Japanese girls (the ones with those tiny bums) sitting beside the driver in the front of the car. That, of course, was all very natural, but I was relieved when we could get out and board another vehicle.

The coach to Pokhara was the type, 'I-do-not-know-if-I-will-get-there-but-if-not-we-will-see-then'. The coach from Varanasi to Sonauli (the border) had been reserved for tourists only, but this one was also used by local people. In a minute I could hear the chickens under the seats again (yes, the coach was so luxurious as to have seats), and the corridor was completely blocked with people and items. In itself the coach trip was alright, but I soon felt as horrible again as on the previous day. In Pokhara I crept out of the coach and left it to Jolette and Julia to arrange a taxi for me. When I returned from the toilet, I seriously started to wonder what had happened. The two of them were drinking tea while all the punters who were trying to get people to take their taxis or book their hotels were waiting patiently at some distance (even though they had still been hassling us only five minutes ago!). I had never experienced this before! 'Oh', Julia said, 'I just told them that we first wanted to drink our teas and then we will decide what we want to do next.' I was stunned, but decided to have a nice cuppa, too. Finally, after a lot of hassle, we could take a cab and find a hotel. What a different world we entered!!! A big western-type tourist street that may not have had bricks, but it was clean and there were 'proper' shops (there was even a supermarket) where you could buy, eat and drink anything; and the disco version of the title song from the film 'Titanic' could be heard everywhere!

At night I had still thought, 'If it stays like this (headache, nausea), I am never going to make it', but it turned out it was not so bad after all, and I had a lovely night's sleep. The next morning I woke up feeling a lot better. I finally managed to take a look at my passport; yes, there it was. It truly said: I have a visa and I am in Nepal!!! (Jolette and Julia: THANKS EVER SO MUCH!!!)

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