India, Nikon and Me: Lucknow to Gorakhpur and Nepal, 6-7/11/2012

At 23,30 I was clutching my bag and waiting for the loudspeaker to announce the imminent arrival of my train to Gorakhpur and to make my way to platform 3. I had been on platform 3 for about three and a half hours. In that time I pondered on how a cow could have made its way to platform 3, as the distance from the rails to the platform was to high for it to negotiate and I could not see the cow walking up the steps to the adjoining corridor. I held my breath while I visited the station khasi and carried on pondering over this poser, while my eyes watered due to the high levels of amonia and piles of turds that formed a wall of contention, preventing the piss slithering down the hole and to flow out the "toilet" door onto the platform. While I filled my lungs with less fetid air, I watched a monkey steal bananas from a stall whilst the owner was in conversation with another vendor and suddenly I was iluminated ! The cow had to have wandered onto the rails and that platform 3 must have a slope. The cows round this shires must know that no one would have the balls to hit a cow! I was pleased that the solution to this puzzle was followed by the train I had been waiting for. I had to wait 2 hours for my berth to be "deoccupied" due to a typical indian administrative fuck up. Some thing very common(administrative fuckups) in india and one has to be stoic about it all, for when you sign up for a visit to india, administrative fuckups are part of the touristic package. I slept in snatches from 3am to 06,15 when the train pulled into the rather shabby Gorakhpur. I did'nt see much of it however, on this trip. More about Gorakhpur on the way out. In 15 minutes I had left the train, mounted a cycle rickshaw and was sitting right at the front of a bus about to pull out on a 3 hour journey towards Sunauli, on the indian side of the nepalese border. The journey involved passing a lot of fertile flatland dotted with bent over peasants. As the sun rose I munched on some samosas I had bought, conducting the transaction athrough the bus window and caught up on some desperatley needed sleep, till waking up half an hour before reaching Sunauli. Sunauli, like most border towns does not have a " raison d'etre". It is simply the last point before you leave a country and enter another, but there is something special about crossing a land border on foot and going through the entering and leaving formalities. The bus was stuck in an endless queue about 200m from the barrier, but the traffic moves at a snails' pace as the drivers of vehicles have to go into the government offices and go through interminable red tape and paying of taxes, before the barrier is raised and one more lorry leaves a space. On the sidewalks, files of tiny nepalese with enormous bulks hooked around their foreheads enter and leave either of the countries. I got off the bus and made my way to a small hut on the indian side, where my passport was stamped with an exit. I grabbed my bergen(the Lowepro being on my back) and walked 10m behind the manual barrier to another small hut on the nepalese side. Nepal ! In another little hut, but with desks and 6 functionaries walled in by piles of visa applications and passports from around the world. Having filled in the usual form, with attached photo( when you do such trips, make a point of taking several identical copies of passport photos, it saves not just money, but more importantly it saves time) and handed over $40, it took 15 minutes to have a sticker stuck on one of the pages : Nepal immigration, 30 day tourist visa until 0712/2012, issued in Belahiya. I was in Nepal and something in the difference of those 10m was clearly palpable. I had an ice cold beer, having bought my ticket to Pokhara, 8-10 hours, but only 187km away