Time to leave Kolkata, we decided to check out the Howrah train station where we will depart the following morning to Raxaul (the Indian/Nepal border town). The only difference was that we decided to take the passenger ferry along the river Hoogly.

On the ferry boat journey to the railway station I snapped photos of the view along the river including the Howrah bridge; a similar size to the Sydney Harbour bridge and was told by other commuters that it was illegal to photograph the bridge. You wouldn't have guessed it was illegal as I discovered later that every Tom, d*** and Harry were doing the same; see my photo of the bridge. On closer inspection when we walked over the bridge, there was a sign on the bridge to support this, oops.

The following day our taxi arrived to take us to the station, we tipped the young boy who was posted at the entrance of our floor, this put a beaming smile on his face. He would sit at a table at the end of the end of the corridor, quite often studying his school text books. His English was basic, but he was always eager to be of service. We discovered by accident that he also slept on the premises as it seemed most, if not all the employees do, quite often we would see them asleep on a mat somewhere on the floor. One evening Leigh asked the security guard who also was posted at the end of the hall (quite often nodding off to sleep), about how we could have some laundry done, his English was even more basic, next thing we knew he was dragging the young boy down to our room, it was obvious he had been woken up. We felt bad, but this is the way the life is in India. A decent tip at the end of our stay was well deserved. Of course we also tipped the security guard, I am still unsure who he was protecting us from, as we felt quite safe around Kolkata, there was no evidence of any violence.

We arrived at the station early and decided to eat at the cafe we had seen the previous day. We ordered and paid for a plate of fried rice and a couple of banana lassies, they would deliver this to our table. Leigh and I chattered away, the food seemed a long time coming, we had 15 minutes before our train would depart. Leigh enquired, if it was ready would they put it in a take away container we would eat on the train, yes the meals were ready and they would package them into take away containers. We waited and waited with 5 minutes to go we made a dash to platform 11 with our luggage in hand, leaving our meals behind.

We found our sleeper cabin, slid our luggage under our seats and sat down. As we did this the train was pulling out of the station. That was a close shave, the train left on the dot. The train was an overnighter, we would arrive at Raxaul at 8.30am the next morning.

We met a nice young man from Kathmandu, his English was good He had just finished a two year contact working in Dubai as a sales assistant. A lucky break, he saw an article by a Dubai fashion house looking for suitable Employees for their shops. Samir applied with several others, a guy come from Dubai to interview them and Samir was selected.

Samir told his story; he was here with his brother from Kolkata, he had met him for the first time a week ago. They were separated when he was an 11 years old when both his parents died. Samir's brother at the age of 12 ran away to India. Samir lived on the streets, and his younger sister was taken in by the grandfather. Samir taught himself English and survived on the streets by doing odd jobs. Now with 2 years of wages behind him he was determined to reunite his family; younger sister, older brother and grandfather. Quite an achievement.

The next morning our train pulled up at Raxaul station. This is on the Indian side; to cross the border we could walk several kilometers or take a rickshaw or donkey and cart, we chose the latter. It was drizzling but warm. We stopped at the Indian custom office (see main photo), we hopped back onto the cart to the Nepalese customs to purchase our visa for Nepal. Once we finished we continued our journey over the Nepal border by donkey and cart to reach the bus that would take us to Pokhora.

So far so good, this is where it gets interesting. Samir and his brother who had taken another donkey cart had stopped at a 4wheel. He shouted to us that he was told that there were no buses till 6pm tonight; as it would be a 9 hour journey we would be lucky to arrive in Pohora by 3 in the morning!!! We could hire a 4WD, Samir would also do this to Kathmandu. We negotiated a price with the man and paid him. We moved our luggage from the cart to the 4WD. All was fine till the 4WD stopped a couple of kilometers down the road in the main town and the man informed us that we would need to give him a further payment. We of course would not agree, Leigh got out of the vehicle and demanded his money back. Samir's 4WD and another 4WD carrying a missionary and his family were also pulled up. We have all been scammed, they have taken us for a ride (no pun intended). Leigh went for the police, I stayed in the car, the man claimed that he arranged for a bus to take us and it was about to leave so I would need to get out of his car and run for the bus. I had no intention of going anywhere until Leigh returned with the police. Leigh came back with two police in toe, the missionary and Leigh explained their story, and showed the police the receipt for payment. The policemen made them pay us back our money and escorted us to the bus that would take us to Pokhora. We all clambered on with our luggage, relieved to leave this town.

The 9 hour bus trip was also interesting, it rained, the bus leaked and there weren't any windscreen wipers, the drivers window fogged up. I was wondering if we would make it to Pokhora, but we did of course. A colourful trip, great views, locals boarding with chook in box or a sack of grain, large tin of oil, school kids, just some of sights.

We finally arrived in Pokhora at 7pm in the Monsoon rain. Hungry, tired and pleased to reach our hotel.

Thanks for following our blog, for your comments and the birthday wishes.

Lots of love from us both. X