Into India

It's a hard place to leave Pokhara but the lure of some proper XC flying in Bir eventually pulled me away. I wanted to get there ASAP but still opted for the long, overland route: bus to the border, hopefully an overnight train to Delhi (I only recently discovered how booked up Indian trains are), an overnight bus to Dharamsala, then a final bus or taxi to Bir itself. No small undertaking. 

The bus from Pokhara to Sonauli, on the border, took nearly 9 hours to cover the 200 odd km but the border crossing was easy (almost too easy - passport control on the Indian side is a small office on the busy street about 100m from the actual border and pretty easy to miss) and I found myself in India.

India was immediately busier and more hectic than Nepal, with the main street teeming with people and traffic and a long queue of lorries backed up on the Indian side, not going anywhere - the only  sign of any border troubles I could see. 

It was then a wild, rollicking 2. 5 hour jeep ride, squeezed into the boot, horn constantly blaring as we weaved in and out of the oncoming traffic and bounced over the potholes and unpaved sections of the road. 

People are everywhere and the area outside the train station in Gorakhpur seems a particularly popular spot for sleeping, hanging out, waiting (maybe). With nearly everything in Hindu, it was a pretty confusing place the train station. There was a special ticket booth for foreigners however and once I'd found it, I set about trying to get a ticket. 

No 'upper' class tickets were available but the clerk was delighted to get me a ticket to Delhi for only 420 rupees (about £4 for a 13 hour journey): 6 hours in sleeper class (the most basic sleeper class), a change at 3 am, then the rest of the journey in 2nd class seating. 

It was a lengthy bureaucratic process involving forms, computers, printouts, lots of scribbled notes in different places and finally logged in a ledger. Just as well I had a photocopy of my passport or I may not have got past the starting post. It must have taken at least 20 mins to get my ticket. He said something about the train been at the other end of the platform and I went to grab some dinner before the ride. 

I was waiting patiently at the platform under an LCD sign that had my train number on it, a train rumbled by on a different track, with a different train company to mine labelled on it, there were no announcements in English (there are announcements in English, but I didnt hear one for my train), the time came... and passed and I remembered the somewhat strange comment at the time of the sales clerk... 'it's at the other end of the platform'.

I wandered a little further down the platform to see a train at the distant end of the platform just pulling away. Oops. 

Back at the ticket booth, the clerk seemed only slightly surprised to see me. Luckily, there was another train, direct and in 3rd class AC sleeper in a few hours time. Much more expensive this one at 1050 rupees. 

I think it was a blessing in disguise, especially when it dawned on me that 2nd class seating is basically a free for all, competing for what space there is on the bench seats. It would have been an experience for sure but maybe not an altogether enjoyable one. My train rolled in 2 hrs late so I didn't leave until about 2 am. Its quite comfortable though. Just 2 bunks on my side but 6 opposite in stacks of 3. Managed to get a few hours sleep.