So I could take a 1.5 hr flight from Delhi to Kathmandu, but when possible I travel overland to see new places in India and visit my leather tannery firsthand.
Its a mission of a journey that has taken me between 1.5 days to 5 days and can never be fully planned it seems! You have to get an overnight train from Delhi to Gorakhpur (12 hrs approx) then local bus to the border (3hrs) then rickshaw over the border, then its anything from 6 hrs to 13 hrs by bus to Kathmandu.
The first time I travelled overland across this route was from KTM down to Delhi in June 2003 when I left Nepal after five months teaching English in a rural community. That journey still makes me shudder when I think about sleeping on the rail platform as our train was delayed by hours in Gorakhpur, and then the 40 degree heat blasting through our non-AC carriage, which was full of Indians curiously looking at my friend Hannah's long blonde curly hair. Sweaty parched panic resulted in me having to jump off the train at one stop to find some bottled water, only for the train to start pulling off and some indian guy having to heave me onto the train from the low platform - funny in hindsight!
Since then, I have travelled up from Delhi to Kathmandu several times, always with far too much luggage - mainly first samples, supplies and presents for some of the kids of my producers. Last summer, on the border, I bumped into ten members of the Kandel family who I lived with in South Nepal during my 5 months teaching - I nearly choked on my masala tea with surprise! So with their insistence, I had another impromptu return to the village.
Also last year, I was stuck at the border for 10 hours, waiting to go in convoy with other buses because of a Maoist national strike, which is why I am apprehensive about our travel plans to get up to Kathmandu on Tuesday.
From today, there is a Maoist political strike nationwide in protest about the government, said to last 'indefinatly' until a compromise has been found. Though many of the strikes are non-violent, the transport strike stops people travelling on the main roads around Kathmandu at least, which affects all industry (with minimal work force as people cannot travel to work), export/import (eg, road freight from India) and of course, tourism, one of the country's main sources of income.
Check out today's BBC News report here
So fingers crossed for Tuesday!
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