Pokhara to Limbini - from 4500m to 90m in 4 days

Day 12 - Pokhara (800m)-Limbini (90m)

(Link to larger map)

Another yummy Rosemary breakfast and our jeep to Limbini pulled up. The two of us, and Phillipa, Bharat and Expansion were off on a breakaway side trip while the rest of the group explored Pokhara (see Tim's sidebar).

Dutch Angle

The drive to Limbini was long (8 hours), hot, and dusty. By Nepali standards the road was pretty good, mostly sealed and not too scary. We wound from mountainside to pass to mountainside. In some places, landslides meant the road became a rough dirt track.

Quite wide. Quite well sealed. Quite straight.

After an hour or so we took a break at the "View point of Bhalu Pahad" - a lookout with a small shrine and a nice view of the valley below.

Point at something, Angela. It'll make the photo better.

Shiva, Parbati, Ganesh. Beautiful ceramics on the shrine here.

Lunch was at the Royal Iceland Restaurant & Bar. A small shack with the reputation of the best tea and rice pudding on the road.

Enjoying the rice pudding - Bharat, Expansion, our driver, and me.

Suddenly we came out of the mountains and the road became a flat, smooth, 4 lane highway (the H10), and we were sailing along at an unheard of 80 km/h. This road went for km after km - even with our aerial view the next day it was too long to see the end of it. There was lots of development on both sides, I thought we were in some sort of large town but it was strip development along the road as all the villages merged into one. This is one of the main arterial roads that links Nepal to India.

Is this really Nepal?

The H10/Lumbini road intersection and the H10 disappearing into the distance. (flash forward to tomorrow)

Eventually it was time to turn off to Lumbini, and off the direct route to India just a few km away. The road went back to being rough, potholed and muddy. But improvements were happening everywhere. We passed a massive new international airport under construction. The road was so bad because it was being widened - it seemed that one (local?) crew were forming up the drains, bridges and kerbing, and another (Indian) crew were coming later to lay the road surface. Big new hotels were springing up everywhere amongst the rice fields and paddocks. It was a similar story when we reached the Limbini site and began driving around its outer fence. A curious mix of farmland with new hotels, monasteries and shops. We were staying at the Siddhartha Guest House, an older place on the corner of the Limbini Gardens - just past Gate 5 and next door to a very palatial retreat with neatly manicured lawns and a feeling of lots of money.  Their entrance had been cut off by the widening of the road. It was owned by another friend of Expansion's - and running on a skeleton staff of the owner and two young men because everyone had gone home for the festival. Our room was enormous! Double bed, single bed, sofas and coffee table, bathroom with spa bath... we had time to settle in before tea and Dal Bhat dinner on the roof.

Lumbini is at just 90m altitude - a huge change from 4500m just four days ago. The mosquito repellant I'd bought in Kathmandu back at the start of the trip came out at last. Expansion sprayed a mysterious but (he said) super effective substance into our rooms before bed.

We walked down to Gate 5 to check out the environs and buy chippies from the shop. Chippies seem to be Angela's comfort food - her happy place is a comfy bed, chippies and good books on her kindle. And that's where she finished her day.