Nepal 38, Getting To India

I know the title is misleading but it’s all part of the same trip and I am only in India for a week. What I wanted to do and what I did were quite different. Early on I was warned about traveling alone in India so I wanted a guide. My plan was to visit Sikkim just over the Nepal Eastern border, it is still in the Himalayan region but, at one time was a country in its own right. It borders Tibet and Butan and it sits on a corridor of India that skirts around Northern Bangladesh and into Assam. I could just cross by land and that is what I had I my mind, I wanted to see Darjeeling and the tea plantations. I also knew they spoke Nepali, so I could communicate if I needed to.

I found a company that runs guided tours before I left the UK. To book something like this in the UK, it would have cost a fortune so I looked at Indian tour companies and did as much research on the one I chose as I possibly could. India Companies House said it existed, TripAdvisor had few but, very favourable reviews, nearly all by Asian travellers from a variety of different countries. I also could see they were trying to use e-marketing to raise their profile. Anyway I booked paid a deposit and then found out I couldn’t cross the land borders. Clearly at one time I could have but, worse still I had to fly into New Delhi which was in the opposite direction of where I wanted to be and not at all a greener option. I could of cancelled my trip I guess but, I decided to go for it and get the company to arrange everything, including a tour of Delhi on arrival.

Another major issue for me was the visa. I tried to arrange this in the UK, this was a fiasco because they stopped the e-visa for UK citizens, then there were no appointments and I was about to set off for Kathmandhu. I decided to try in Kathmandu and submitted my application (after two attempts), then they wanted to interview me. I was with Durga when they contacted me so not in Kathmandhu, I was running out of time. Then the tour company text me to say the e-visa had opened up again, so after such a frustrating time I got my visa within 24 hours. Left hand right hand!

Unfortunately I was still in the grip of stomach cramps and not at all comfortable. Kathmandhu Airport was it’s usual organised chaos, here immigration check you on departure and in my case they forgot to stamp my boarding card so I ended up doing a whole security loop over again like a walk of shame!

The departure lounge is dirty, very few seats have been cleaned, bird poo is on most of them. There are no shops here which surprised me. Just screens with music videos about love, (it seems most of the women die in them) or film trailers about bigamists! (Depressed yet?)

That all said, my flight was brilliant, I had a window seat and got amazing views of the Himalayas and even the Tibetan plateau. If you didn’t realise the Himalayas are a long stretch of mountains through many Asian Countries and to the North of it is the Tibetan Plateau. It is the the largest and highest Plateau in the world, it holds thousands of glaciers. In the picture you can just see the fairly snowless area behind the peaks and that’s it, a vast seemingly barren frozen area.

Landing at Delhi was like landing in Europe, very easy to understand, even the visa process was smooth although the fingerprint machine struggled to work on mine! Maybe climbing rubbed my prints off, I didn’t think of that! Eek! Maybe I should become a burglar!

My driver met me just outside and whisked me off to a very plush hotel. By now I was just “going through the motions” (excuse the pun) a migraine was moving in with the stomach cramps and I had to forgo my tour of Delhi. I needed to sleep, rehydrate and be near the loo.