Birth, Death & Border Horrors: In And Out Of Nepal
The wheels of the Buddha train are still rolling as we finish breakfast and wander back to our compartment: evidently there has been some sort of delay overnight and we finally trundle into Nautanwa station about two hours behind schedule. Nautanwa is the end of India’s railway line, the border with Nepal just a few miles away.
In spite of the extra two hours to prepare, and in spite of strict instructions to disembark quickly, about ten of the Dawdlers are late, and finally – finally, after 30 minutes waiting on the coach – Little Miss Selfie, the most incorrigible of the Dawdle group, bowls up as if it’s all perfectly acceptable. Our nickname for Little Miss Selfie could just as easily be Mrs Munchausen. You get the picture.
Apparently the tour organisers have allowed two hours for delays at the border crossing as the process can often be lengthy – but even forearmed with that information, nothing can prepare us for the torture which follows. Obtaining permission to leave India comes first, and takes an hour. Two of our party are rejected – they only purchased a single entry visa and wouldn’t be allowed back into India tomorrow – and are now faced with spending the night in a gruesome looking Nautanwa “hotel”. We feel for them.
Next is a pointless baggage check where only non-Indians and non-Nepalis have to go through and nobody checks that every foreigner passing through the border has actually gone to this checkpoint. Nobody checks that you’ve taken all of your baggage, and you get no form of proof that you did it. What in God’s name is the point of that?
And then the real fun starts. To obtain our Nepal visa, we have two more wooden shacks to go through, each of which has a melee of baying people in a ruck rather than anything resembling a queue, all pushing and crushing to get through the narrow doorway to the ONE person doing the paperwork. That entrance door doubles up as the exit, so the lucky ones who’ve obtained their visa can’t get out of the room – thus blocking the melee from making any progress. This is a whole new level of disorganised chaos.
Just as we get close to the office threshold, the one admin guy finally loses it, throws his pen against the wall and starts shouting angrily at the baying crowd, who must look to him like a pack of wild dogs. It turns out, he’s shouting at us all because most of us haven’t paid the fee to the man at the outside desk and got hold of the receipt which in turn facilitates the visa. Trouble is, there is no man at an outside desk. Unbeknown to his colleague, and before we had joined the ruck, he had been the first one to lose his shit and throw in the towel and has long since abandoned ship. Seriously, you couldn’t make this up.
Eventually, eventually, order is restored and we complete the process which on an individual basis takes all of two minutes. By the time we board the bus, the border crossing has taken just over FOUR HOURS. Sitting waiting on board the bus is the Indian contingent who are seemingly not required to go through this entire arduous process. Amongst them are the Dawdlers, the ones who have caused delays at every step of this trip – and, incredibly, unbelievably, they are complaining bitterly about being made to wait! What’s more, they seem to be blaming the tour operator staff, which is ever so slightly unfair, it’s hardly their fault.
This visit to Lumbini in Nepal was intended to incorporate lunch, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, a visit to Lumbini town, an evening meal and an overnight stay. With all that has happened today, and an insistence from some of our party that lunchtime is not to be sacrificed, most of the daylight has passed before we even reach the birthplace.
Inevitably, the site is interesting and meaningful and would be worthy of a much longer visit. The Buddha’s mother was walking from her own home to her father’s house when labour pains started, and the baby who was to become Lord Buddha was born beneath a saal tree, which is the reason why saal trees feature so prominently at Buddhist temples. Unfortunately the mother was to die from the consequences of childbirth just seven days later.
Twentieth century excavations unearthed the remains of a commemorative stone, and so the position of that stone is now accepted to be the actual spot of the birth of Buddha. Around this spot a temple was built, the foundations of which are still visible but are themselves now encased in a large and rather functional white building.
The surrounding gardens contain many saar trees and bodhi trees (part of the Enlightenment came beneath a bodhi tree) and a peaceful carp-filled pond. Again there is much chanting and circling of the temple, much colourful bunting strung around and across the trees, the scent of incense in the air and a hazy setting sun adding to the mystique. It’s a heavily atmospheric place when the low key chanting echoes around the hallowed walls.
We only get to see the town of Lumbini through the bus window, a great shame as it looks lively, interesting and, surprisingly given the short distance from the border, quite different from India. The evening meal we are fed is utterly delicious: with that teaser of a different cuisine and that glimpse of a tempting town, we vow to return to Nepal when we can do things…..well, properly.
Given the difficulties at the border, us non-Indians are given an instruction to rise and depart early the following morning on a minibus separate from the rest of the group. Understandable, but all in all our visit to Lumbini, and Nepal come to that, has been cut far too short. Surely the operators should either make this a 2-day excursion or drop it from the itinerary altogether.
From the place of birth to the place of death, from Lumbini to Kushinagar. A large misshapen brick built affair, Ramabhar Stupa, commemorates the spot where Lord Buddha was cremated, a place chosen by Buddha himself for that purpose. Nearby stands the Parinirvana Temple in which lays a splendid example of a reclining Buddha statue. British archeologist Alexander Cunningham had identified this spot at Kushinagar as the most likely place of Buddha’s death, orchestrating a dig which was to unearth remains of the original temple and fragments of the reclining Buddha, thereby giving credence to Cunningham’s claim. The new temple surrounding the statue and ruins, and restoration of the reclining Buddha, were completed by India’s Government in 1956.
Kushinagar itself looks to be yet another inviting Indian city as the lights come on to replace the setting sun, street food stalls start to smoke and steam and random men stop to piss in the gutter without even turning to face the wall. Everything is normal.
Discussion over the Dawdlers rumbles on and even Pretty Girl is getting agitated. Pretty Girl is a bright-eyed, businesslike young lady who has been a star of the tour so far, an interpreter between Hindi and English, helper of anyone needing assistance and finder of chai sellers whenever they are needed. We now learn that she is in fact an Indian expat living in Singapore managing a tour company there, and is here partly to see how other tour operators function. She assures us that the constant lateness is not typical tour behaviour and implores us not to be put off future tours. Well, after this, the jury is decidedly out on that one.
There’s two remaining stops now on the Buddha train, one final iconic Buddhist location and one which is India’s most famous sight.
26 Comments
wetanddustyroads
To be honest, if I worked at this border control, I probably would have abandoned ship too! My advice: Throw the whole bunch of Dawdlers off the bus … they can walk (and tour on their own)! Your visit to Nepal looks very interesting (a pity it was so short), but at least you got a beautiful photo of the sunset at Lumbini.
Phil & Michaela
A ridiculous border crossing! Those always-late people were pretty close to spoiling the whole trip for the rest of us, in truth…
Gilda Baxter
Border crossings are never fun, but this one really went the extra mile.
You do need to have a lot of patience.
Being an independent traveler like yourselves and not a fan of group tours, I feel for you. Would this experience put you off doing a future tour?
In any case, I am really enjoying your posts and enlightening information, I particularly appreciate how honest you are and not sugarcoating the difficult times.
Phil & Michaela
Thank you Gilda, well we thinks “warts and all” is how it should be told! We are very unlikely to do a tour of that size again. We weren’t sure about that anyway but we didn’t enjoy the hanging around, as you could tell!
Mike and Kellye Hefner
Whoa, what an experience, guys! After all the border hassle you should’ve gotten to see a little more of the country. I’m glad you’ve decided to go back, though the places and information you shared in your post are extremely interesting. It’s unfortunate that some people are so selfish.
Phil & Michaela
It certainly is, Kellye.
Toonsarah
Oh dear, what a nightmare that border crossing was! When you return to Nepal, as you must, I suggest you get your visa in advance. We did that and it was a simple 45 minute wait in the visa office attached to the embassy in Kensington and then a sail through at the airport. Not that that would have helped with the problems leaving India however, nor with the greater challenge of touring with the Dawdlers. They do sound worse than any we’ve encountered – you seem to have been exceptionally unlucky in that respect.
Lumbini looks and sounds fascinating. When we were in Chitwan last year an American making a longer stay at our lodge did an overnight visit there and came back with a very detailed account of all the different temples on the site.
Phil & Michaela
Well, there was a reason we didn’t do it on line but I won’t bore you with that bit. However, one of the American guys in our tour, Kuade, had done – and it made absolutely no difference. He had to join all the same queues and all the same rucks, the only difference was that he didn’t have to pay the 30 dollars. Despite having the visa, he still had to get the little sticker in his passport…and so had to go through all the other processes. He wasn’t best pleased about that! We’d definitely had enough our fellow passengers by the time we left that train.
Toonsarah
I can well imagine you’d had more than enough of them! And how disappointing for Kuade to have to queue just as long as the rest of you. When we landed in Kathmandu we smirked at the long line of fellow passengers in front of the visa purchase window and went straight through immigration with barely a wait at all!
Phil & Michaela
Oh shut up! 😂😂
grandmisadventures
If there is any poetic justice in the world, then Little Miss Selfie would have had to spend the night in that hotel and miss out on the rest of the tour. What a time of it you had getting into Nepal! But at least you were rewarded with some beautiful and incredible sites, albeit for a shorter amount of time than they deserve.
Phil & Michaela
Yes that would indeed have been poetic justice.
Monkey's Tale
Oh the joys of land border crossings. You really must make a return visit to Nepal though, Lumbini is not it’s best feature. Sounds like this may be your first and last organized tour? Maggie
Phil & Michaela
Pretty certain we’ll make it back to Nepal, especially after that one food experience. We certainly won’t be in a hurry to do a tour with a group of that size again.
Alison
The border crossing sounds horrendous, you must have had to dig deep for patience or do as Buddha says “be patient, everything comes to you at the right moment”. 😁
Shame you missed out on Nepal but as you said you’ve had a taster and will go back. Love all the names of the other travellers, my husband is a great one for nicknames
Phil & Michaela
Oh so are we, we always do it. I could tell you that also on that train were Mrs Eyebrows, Grandma, Coy Boy, Greenshirt, Squashedface and Doctor Chris.
WanderingCanadians
Sounds like crossing the border was a painful process. I think the thing that would have annoyed me the most is the lack of proper lines and all the pushing. What a hot mess. And the nerve of those Dawdlers to complain about having to wait!? The lack of self-awareness is just mind boggling.
Phil & Michaela
They were insufferable at times!
leightontravels
I think this article, in addition to previous articles, has hammered home that we will never ever take another group tour unless we ‘ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO’. Little Miss Selfie gave me a giggle, but I guess it’s less amusing when you’re actually stuck with her day in, day out. The border control experience sounds like hell-on-a-stick, but these incredible Buddha landmarks look utterly absorbing. Again, it’s just a shame that you didn’t get to spend as much time drinking it all in as you’d have liked. Loved the history of course, have just been looking up Alexander Cunningham.
Phil & Michaela
Cheers bud. I’d never heard of Cunningham either…
mochatruffalo
Such hilarious karmic retribution for the Dawdlers!
Latitude Adjustment: A Tale of Two Wanderers
Interesting…Statue worship.
rkrontheroad
Yikes, what a story… Happy to have flown into Kathmandu a few years ago (right before the pandemic) and had gotten my visa well ahead of time. You wanderers never know what you will come up against at borders!
Phil & Michaela
This is true!
Annie Berger
Had to smile at your vivid description of the goings on getting out of India and then into Nepal AND thank our lucky stars we also flew into Kathmandu and had an easy time going through passport control. You make taking a tour of that size a horror. What a disgrace fellow travelers can make lives uncomfortable for others – I hate to think how they must have appeared to the Indians and Nepalis.
Phil & Michaela
Not the best day of our trip!