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| Victoria Monument Kolkata |
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| Indian Road Hazard |
Crossing from Bangladesh back to India we were immediately back into the hustle and bustle of Indian roads. Kolkata was our first destination which was noticeably hotter than Dhaka. The western sector of Kolkata is being developed as a new town with sleek dual carriageways and interchanges, a very long elevated metro system under development and lots of new shiny offices, housing and shopping facilities. It could be anywhere in the western developed world. Central Kolkata has some very impressive colonial era buildings including the cathedral and the huge and over the top Victoria memorial. A very grand castle like building (now a museum) in the centre of some very large and beautifully maintained gardens. We spent a day strolling round the centre of town which is surprisingly clear of litter, visiting the impressive Howrah Bridge over the Hooghly River, as well as trying to visit some of the older buildings like the beautifully maintained Armenian and Catholic churches and the old synagogue. Sadly they were all closed. The old Parsi fire temple was hidden in the middle of a bazaar and very run down despite being listed as an important historical building.
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| Bodhgaya Temple |
A couple of hundred kilometers north west of Kolkata are some interesting historical sites, the first we visited being the location of Buddah's enlightenment. Bodhgaya has developed into a huge pilgrimage site with a large temple built on the site of the peepul tree, and dozens of monasteries from all the major branches of Buddhism. All very organised, but to my mind lacking in any sense of awe.
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| Nalanda Temple ruin |
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| Rural Bihar |
North of Bodhgaya we passed through Rajgir, claimed to be the oldest continuously inhabited town in India and was the capital of the local area in 500BC. It is an important location for Buddhists, Jains and Hindus so attracts many pilgrims. A few kms north are the ruins of Nalanda, founded in the 5th Century it became one of the main places for Buddhist learning, with three large temples and 14 monasteries on the site and some 10,000 monks and students living there. A hugely impressive and peaceful location. After an interesting drive along minor roads through rural Bihar we managed to find Barabar Cave, claimed to be the oldest man made cave in India it is actually three caves carved by hand into a large granite outcrop resembling a crocodile.
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| Barabar Cave |
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| Inside Barabar Cave |
The interior surfaces of each of the caves are highly polished giving them fantastic acoustics.
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| Rural Bihar |
After enjoying the countryside we headed to the hectic city of Varanasiand famed for its position on the Ganges with its ghats for cremations and bathing, and sacred to Hindus. Bustling with tourists we enjoyed an evening walk along the ghats where we saw the burning ghat, a remarkably efficient traditional system of cremating bodies on wood pyres. each cremation uses 200kgs of wood which has to be brought into the city on huge barges, and with 300 cremations per day (24 hours a day 7 days a week) requires a constant supply. Sunrise in Varanasi from a rowing boat was very peaceful, with the light illuminating the ghats and the city slowly waking, before we walked back through the tiny twisting lanes.
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| Varanasi Ghats |
With temperatures rapidly rising we headed north to Nepal. The roads to the border at Birgunj were awful, no more than muddy tracks in places, but clearly plans for new roads had been started, with various part completed bridges and bulldozed carriageways, but apparently abandoned some years previously. Evening thunderstorms were now a regular feature with spectacular lightning, and occasionally torrential rain, but it did cool the air.
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| Grey Langur |
Across the border in Nepal was a huge change, traffic became less insistent, and less dense, with people giving way and a much more relaxed approach to life. Driving through the Terai forests on the way to Janakpur on empty roads was lovely even catching sight of some grey langurs browsing in the roadside trees. A brief stop in Janakpur to see the extravagant 1912 Baroque Mughal Hindu temple on the location where Rama found Sita also brought home the severity of the 2015 earthquake, with several damaged houses in the town centre.
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| Himalaya Foothills near Paphlu |
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| Earthquake damage at Janakpur |
As we headed north we started to climb the foothills of the Himalaya, with some breathtaking views of the mountains as we crossed some passes. Wanting to try and see Everest from Nepal we headed north and east to try and get as close to Everest as possible by road. The roads are amazing, carved into mountainsides and twisting and turning up and down valley sides and running along some fine ridges to connect the villages. Sadly at Phaplu the road was blocked, so we turned round and camped on a ridge to the south, being rewarded with some fine views of mountains, but sadly not Everest the following morning.
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| Durbar Square Bhaktapur |
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| Bustling Kathmandu street |
With limited time before we need to be in Delhi we headed back towards Kathmandu, stopping at Bhakatpur, one of the best preserved traditional Kathmandu town centres. Here many of the temples were damaged by the earthquake, though most have been repaired. The amazing 55 window palace survived relatively unscathed. Durbar square in Kathmandu has not been so fortunate with several temples completely destroyed by the earthquake, and the many of the main buildings still not repaired. The lanes and alleyways of central Kathmandu are fascinating, and in places clogged with tourists. To the south of Durbar Square it is much more relaxed and we wandered through the old streets and squares with their numerous, temples stupas, water tanks and small shrines, most of which are still maintained and part of everyday life. We had managed to be in Kathmandu for the New year 2076 and passing back through the square we surprised to see animal sacrifices taking place at some of the temples.
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| Damage at Durbar Square Kathmandu |
From Kathmandu we headed south to Chitwan National Park near the border with India where the weather was much hotter. We headed to the sunset river view in the afternoon and were surprised to find hundreds of people watching a wild rhino grazing on the river bank just 10 metres from the path. We were even more surprised, as were the rangers when it decided to walk up onto the road and through the town to find some fresh greenery in one of the gardens. We were rewarded with more rhino sightings on a safari into the park, where we got caught in an afternoon thunderstorm and spent an hour in the back of a jeep holding a tarpaulin over our heads while the driver negotiated the flooded tracks.
After a few days of heat we are heading back up to Pokhara in the hope of seeing Annapurna.
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| Traditional house Kathmandu |
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| Rhino in Chitwan NP |
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| Gharial in Chitwan NP |
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| India wedding car |
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| Distant Himalaya |
