Day 21: Lumbini, Nepal - Varanasi, (Benares), India

Early in the morning we reached the Indian border with Nepal. After a mere 5 hours wait we were in India.

Waiting at the Nepa;ese-Indian border
It is where the real traffic started. We spent the rest of the day reaching Varanasi, and we checked in our hotel past 11 pm, an hour ago from this post.
The roads were crazy by day time, really dangerous by nightime. Imagine a one & 1/2 lane where coexist your car, cows in every position, pedestrian, ox-carts, huge trucks, other cars, tricycle-taxis and about every imaginable means of transportation. By night time it is a nightmare. The high beam of the trucks blinds you, you do not see anything for few seconds and you know there are human beings very close to you, walking, sleeping (yes, on the road side), or bicycling. We did not kill anyone, and it is not by lack of trying.
We arrived nervously exausted at our hotel and it is why I do no upload any picture tonight, I will try tomorrow, time permits. (PS: Today I am trying but it takes too long to upload, and I have to go so I am uploading only very few pictures )

Day 20: Kathmandu - Lumbini (Nepal)

One day vacation in Kathmandu, and we took the road again to get close to the Indian border. After an almost eventless ride, if I except a 3 hour stop on the road that was blocked for an unknown reason,

JP & Jerome going down the valley

we arrived with enough day time It was the city of Lambini where the Buddha, named Siddharta Gautama, was bornto see the Ashoka pillar. That is a stone column, engraved in sanskript, that was erected on the 3rd century BC by the king Acoka to mark the place where Buddha was born and the only historical evidence of the existance of Buddha. U-Thant, former general secretary of UN, who was Buddist, dedicated a large piece of land where every Buddist country could built a temple in its own style dedicated to its version of the Buddist faith. The result is a very strange mix of styles that looks like a religious Disneyland without the rides. Bizzare!.
However the pillar is real and ther is a certain emotion that grabs you when you are in its presence.
It is too late and I am too tired to include pictures, I will do it a t a later time.