It was an early start of 4:30 to start the 10 hour journey to the Nepal border. There was thick fog everywhere which was rather dangerous for driving, I was getting very anxious as I think the drivers ability to use faith as a tool for overtaking when he couldn't see more than a few feet in front of him was wearing thin. I'm not sure how we made it to the Nepal border with the dense fog, but we did, we even had a stop so that the bus driver could get a cup of chai to wake himself up as we spotted his head starting to drop...not good with the added disability of the impaired vision.
Border control was relaxed, especially the Nepalese side, the guards were sat around some s***ty looking tables eating monkey nuts. I reckon I could of brought anything in and they would have been ok with it. Nepal felt instantly quieter than India which I'm glad, the noise and excitement in India can be tiring, although I've only been here 5 minutes so we'll see if I have the same opinion when I get to Kathmandu.
We are only here overnight but we managed to visit the birthplace of lord Buddha. We weren't there for very long, I had a bit of explore, they had what looked like a chimney stack as one of the main attractions, not sure what it was all about but I took a few pictures. The other attraction was brick ruins propped up with some scaffolding, I think they were supposed to be ruins of the building from where he was born but I may have check with my guide book. I did manage to hear a monk playing One Direction through a sound system...poor b******, how have they managed to make this area of the globe.
Hotel is nice, very nice in fact, although had about 5 power cuts in an hour when we first arrived, they only last about 10 seconds so that is ok I can put up with that. The shower has hot water, which after India where running water was a blessing a hot shower is a miracle. The meal was a buffet, we were joined by some Buddhist monks. I think buffets are new experience to monks as they were filming their colleagues queuing and serving themselves with their iPhones. I later found out that there was some high up monk in the group, which would explain why they were filming him going for seconds on all you can eat Nepalese curry buffet.
We leave tomorrow as we are going to chitwan national park on a safari which im looking forward too a lot. I also get a lie in too, I'm up for 8:30, quality. I know the the national park visit includes a bike ride which I'm hoping isn't part of the safari experience as that may be a bit poor.