Day 28 - 28th Feb - Gorakhpur (India) - Sonauli (Nepal)

Arrived in Sonauli at around 1:30am, asked where the border was and were pointed in the right direction. It was pitch black and we couldn't see much at all.

We thought we saw the border barrier but when we spoke to two gun-toting guys there, they told us we'd got to the Nepal border but needed to get our passports stamped at Indian immigration. We asked where that was and they pointed out a building that we had strolled straight past.

We knocked on the door but we could hear faint snoring so we assumed they were fast asleep. We had little choice but to persist, despite their sleepy shouts of 'closed'. Eventually we were shouted through and had to find our way into the right room in the total darkness.

An Indian official was sleepily sat in his pyjamas and thrust some forms at us. He kept telling us to complete them quickly but they were the same forms given to us on the plane and not everything was relevant. He eventually snatched mine off me after I asked for clarification and started grumbling at me quite angrily. He even swiped the water bottle that I had put on the desk to the floor because it was blocking some of the light from the only lamp in the room. He then asked us to fish around in the desk drawer to find the official stamps that he needed. As we left, he said "thank you my dear" in a really genial way, which seemed odd given the way he'd acted.

We then trundled over the Nepal frontier to find the Nepal immigration desk. We knocked and were told it was closed until 6am. This was obviously a bit of a problem as we couldn't go into Nepal but couldn't go back into India. We walked further and approached the soldiers who were manning the actual Nepal border and had a very circular conversation. Eventually they accompanied us to the desk but got the same answer. After a while they just told us to find a hotel and come back in the morning so we officially entered Nepal illegally on the say-so of the border officials.

We checked into the only hotel that appeared open, Holiday Inn, which actually wasn't to bad but wasn't very holiday-like.

Woke up around 10am and checked out. Tried to get a bus to Lumbini but was a strike because a politician was kidnapped. We initially did not believe them because we thought they were trying to get us to have a rickshaw but it turned out it was the truth and there were no buses until 5pm. Couldn't really see the point of visiting the birthplace of Buddha at night so we wrote the day off and checked into Hotel Paradise which is not as nice (or rather, more nasty) but cheaper.

Exciting Sonauli

We weren't too distressed about the delay because we'd remembered it was a leap year and we had a day more than we thought so we went for a wander around the nearest village instead.

Even though it's literally yards away, Nepal seems very different to India. It's cleaner and the people seem more relaxed. They are also covered in labels and brands with funky haircuts. Everyone seems to be wearing at least one brand and we've seen several old ladies wearing full traditional dress and carrying a 'Diesel' backpack and such-like.

We arranged a tour to Chitwan National Park for tomorrow and I've got my fingers crossed that it's more impressive than our other 'tours'.

We finished off the evening at Prakash restaurant, where there wasn't a menu, just whatever was available, and Matt had an awesome mutton curry followed by a debate with the Indian guy on the next table who couldn't understand why we had to stick to a budget.