Day 47-48

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Created on Sunday, 25 October 2015 04:11

21/22.10.2015 Kathmandu (Nepal) - Alipurduar (Indien)

The most stressful two days so far of the World Tour are behind us, but first things first:
After breakfast at the Grand Hotel, we left Kathmandu on the eastern route and got to see a breathtaking route. Often the Streets resulted in narrow and steep roads up and down, with fantastic views of the mountains of Nepal.

And even on these roads the bus roofs are still full of passengers.

After about four hours we reached the highway no. 1 in the 'flatland' and were happy about the quickly progress. Then suddenly a roadblock appeared and there were already waiting other cars and busses. According to the Information from the police station were at the track strikes and political protests, a continue was too dangerous and therefore not allowed. Around midnight all vehicles would be picked up by a police escort and accompanied through the region. All persuasion did not help, we had to wait.

So our time schedule (and the booked hotel) was gone, so we needed to improve. We decided to take a nap at dusk in the Deloreans and to control the border to the accompanying escort and travel on to India, otherwise the fixed Myanmar-date is in danger.

Accompanied by various vocal performances and flute music as well awaiting bus tourists and Indian techno from the neighboring local pub we tried to get some sleep.
At midnight no police escort was far and wide to see, but to demand it was always ‚Police is coming, Ten Minutes‘. Finally by 1am at night the lights of a vehicle caravan approached, but they didn’t stopped and drove by with 40 mph. All the waiting busses and the three DeLoreans needled in and offs we went the wild ride.
Indian or Nepalese bus drivers must have a suicidal gene whose driving style can not be explained otherwise: A two-lane road with oncoming traffic, three Delorean behind each other, then next to it in the left lane (! Left-hand traffic) a minibus on the second track, to the right a minibus overtaking coach, with a wheel already on the turf, and when it gets tough, even a native sheet metal bus elbows his way somewhere in between. And all this amid deafening all time honking with all vehicles involved.
So we drove 100 miles through the 'protest area', then the ride has been released without an escort. Another 50 miles further we approached the border India / Nepal, but thought ahead and still approved us one hour of sleep. Shortly before 8am we arrived at the border. On the Nepal side, the exit data was pure again entered manually into lists and after on the Indian side, the computer had failed, there was also there again everything in paper form. The main thing is we have the official stamp in our documents!

After another 120 miles and four hour drive we arrived at our hotel in Alipurduar.

Sleeping there was not yet, because first some smaller repairs for the Delorean had to be done. After an early dinner we finally fell into bed dead tired.

Translation by DWT-Translation Team