Bardia National Park

Day 32 – Rudrapur to Bardia National park Nepal – 25 Sept 2018

Even if we planned to leave our stay in Rudrapur by 8.30am, we finally left at 9.10am which was still fine for us to meet the target. The road was pretty good and we reached the border of Banbasa (Indian border) at 10.55am. The road was along the banks of the Kali river/Sarda river, and we finally could see the Banbasa Barrage/canal built on top of the river which connects the two countries. Rickshaws and cycles were seen often crossing the bridge, and the place seemed to be the hub for several small scale businesses between the borders.

the procedures of entering to Nepal in own car. 

1. As you reach the check-post, there is a small toll box (which may go unnoticed easily), and you have to get a yellow coloured ticket costing INR 40/-, from the person sitting there. We are still at the Indian side of the border. 
2. The border is marked with the Banbasa barrage and the border opening timings are that of this bridge’s opening timings. 
3. Just before the bridge, we have to make an entry with the Indian Police, by showing the vehicle RC and other personal details. They will do a vehicle checking and let you go if everything is fine. 
4. Now proceed to the bridge and show the yellow ticket and you are allowed to enter the other side. However, Nepal check-post is a little ahead from there.
5. After the bridge, you can see the immigration office on the right side. Indians can show any of our ID cards, and fill the details required. The lady sitting there was very friendly and really excited to know that we have come this far to enter Nepal. 
6. Once done with the immigration process, the Indian customs office is on the way and they are for sure looking for some bribe. I noticed few customs officers sitting beside the road and talking to each other. I slowed down the car expecting them to stop me and ask something, but nobody showed any interest and I kept going. Suddenly I heard whistle sound from behind and when I checked through the rear view mirror, the police guy was asking me to stop. I took the car behind and stopped near the customs office. He started talking rude to me telling I didn’t stop purposefully. I told I didn’t notice and there is no reason I wouldn’t stop if I had seen it. Then one of the officers came and took me inside to fill in details. He behaved friendly and after filling in required details, another officer came and started checking the car in a way to find something inside our car. He couldn’t really find anything against us and finally asked to pay 100 rupees as entrance fees. I paid him 100 and we kept going. 
7. The last thing at the Indian side is the BSF check-post. They removed all the bags from the car and checked thoroughly. And of course, they were surprised to see too many luggages and souvenirs inside the car!
8. And finally we have entered Nepal. However, there are lot more things to be done at the Nepal side now.
9. First thing you encounter is the border security of Nepal. We made entry there, and they checked the bags again. The funniest part is that the security officers were trying to sell us Nepal currency. I didn’t take it as I knew Indian currency is easily accepted in Nepal. 
10. Just after this, there is a building on the right (called Bhansar, the customs office in Nepal. Ask this name in case you have trouble finding the building.). This is where you take the customs permit to stay in Nepal. The fees will depend on the number of stays and the type of vehicle you are travelling in. We paid 3000 NPR for our stay of 10 days in Nepal. Our actual stay in Nepal was only for 8 days and I took extra 2 days to be on the safer side. Because, extending the stay in Nepal will cost you more and if caught without proper documents, it will be more difficult to get out of it. Once this is done, we got a receipt with all mentioned details and amount paid and the number of stays mentioned properly. 
11. Once the customs part is over, there is a police outpost where we had to pay a total of 150 rupees to the traffic police. 
12. Six kms ahead from there, there is another police outpost where we have to make an entry. One thing to note is, there is very regular checking on the way throughout and better to keep all the documents handy always. You will also be required to make entries at different check-posts if asked. 
13. Next in the list is the RTO permit which is the last one to be done. 200metres ahead of the previous police outpost, we have to take a right turn onto a small road for the RTO office. It will be good to ask the police guys for the “Yathayath Vyavastha Karyalay”(RTO). Trying to ask for RTO didn’t help me and finally one person understood what I am talking about. This place might take some time depending on the crowd. We showed the customs receipt at the “Savari Shakha” and after filling certain details, he gave us a temporary number plate which is nothing but a sheet of paper. I was expecting some kind of number plate getting stuck to our car. However that was not the case. And that was the last formality to be done before we can drive in Nepal for the next few days. 

And we are in Mahendranagar now, also known as Bhimdatta or Gudda Chauki. The time is 12:47pm. It took us almost 2 hours to finish all the procedures and finally get going in Nepal. And we are now travelling on the National Highway H01, also known as Mahendra highway, which runs from the western border to eastern border of Nepal, parallel to the Indo-Nepal border.  We felt as if we have time travelled back to our childhood days, where the roads are surrounded on both sides by green fields, and people travelling on bicycles, and the environment looked completely untouched by commercialisation. The road is single lane, but a smooth and decent one. One major thing we noted as soon as we entered Nepal is the use of bicycles. And please be extra cautious while driving on these roads as there are lot of people on cycles including kids and women. We had not carried any additional international SIM card with us, the plan was to take a local sim after entering Nepal, as we read somewhere that it is possible. However,  after visiting couple of mobile stores, we soon learnt that it is not possible to do the same. This came in as a shock for us, as we had not really prepared for a travel without Google Maps, but luckily I had offline maps loaded as back up with the destination set to Bardia. The navigation in the car was expected to work only for locations within India.

It is 150 kms from the border of Mahendranagar to our stay in Thakudwara of Bardia National Park. As per our calculations, 4 hours should be more than enough to travel this distance. There were no lunch options on this road and after starving till 3PM, we decided to eat at a small shop in a place called Bauniya Bazar. We were the only people in the restaurant, which was on the first floor of a lonely building, and sometimes it really looked scary. We quickly gulped something, and resumed our journey. Soon we reached Chisapani, with its landmark bridge over the Karmali river. We stopped to take a moment to enjoy the emerald green water of the river, flowing beneath the engineering marvel. The road from there took us through the Chisapani Wild life sanctuary, amidst thick oak and pine forests. The speed limit rule in Chisapani is interesting. As you enter the forest area, the forest guards issue a timesheet with the vehicle details filled. Seeing the Indian registration, they explained us the rules clearly –  the rule is to not cross the forest before the allotted time, rather to avoid speeding of vehicles in the forest area. The time sheet is then checked at two different check-posts to make sure we have driven at maximum 40km/hr, based on the checkin time, and they took the sheet away from us at the last check-post. 

After a comfortable and relaxed drive we finally reached the entrance of Bardia National Park. The maps showed, 15 kms more to our stay and the time was 4.30PM and we were happy and relaxed having reached the place before it got dark. However, all plans drastically turned upside down in the next few metres. The route that map showed had to cross Karnali river, but the bridge construction above the river was just work in progress and the river had enough water which made driving across impossible. There were several people waiting with their vehicles at the banks of the river, including transport buses, expecting the water to lower soon. We soon learnt from some of them that , usually the river never has water in it and people just travel through the river without any difficulty. However, the rains that had affected us in Manali and then even on our way to Rudrapur has caused problems here too. That has resulted in water to flow through dried up sources too. I got very confused, not knowing what to do. There is no way we are gonna find any accommodation at the place we are in now. And the accommodation we booked was found with lots of difficulty. Since our phone had no coverage, checking for any alternate routes to the destination was not possible as well. The moment I got out of the car, people started coming to our car seeing the number plate. They started explaining the situation in their own language without even me asking anything. Even if i couldn’t understand most of it, I could make out the situation. In between people started asking where we had to go, and I replied Thakudwara. Few started suggesting that I could cross without problems if the vehicle is 4×4. Some people told that the water might reside if we wait for sometime, which I felt like believing initially but then soon stopped making much sense. The focus of the entire crowd started being on us. That is when one person came to the front and asked us whether we are from Kerala. It was a relief, I soon told “Yes, but we live in Bangalore”. Then he started telling he has worked in Bangalore before and started speaking in Hindi. He explained the situation pretty well and told us that there is an alternate route to reach Thakudwara which would be 30kms from here. That was a surprise and relief for us. If there is a route which is only 30kms, I did not even mind using that. I got all required information from him and we soon took a U-turn to find the new route to our destination. 

But the 30kms that came after that was not at all easy. After traveling for 6kms, we took a turn to a place called Oreli. After the turn, the roads started deteriorating and finally ended up being dirt tracks. The roads were filled with loose pebbles which stopped us from driving fast. I increased the speed a little and we could hear the stones banging the car’s body and underbody and that was scary. We kept going very slowly and patiently and when it became dark we had 10 more kms to go. As it got darker, we realised we were driving through the scary roads of the National park without any lights or proper roads. Once in a while there came small bazaars or towns, with very few old people sitting at the front of one-room shops, chit chatting, which was a relief in the dark.

And then when we were 5kms away from our stay, we started hearing a very bad rattling sound from the right front part of the car. It became very prominent and scary that I was forced to stop the car in the middle of the jungle. I went out and checked the underbody for anything stuck and also checked inside the bonnet for anything bad. Everything seemed to be fine and when we continued to move, the sound was still there. This one seriously started bothering us and I even started thinking of the possibility of getting any support for the car in the remote village. After sometime I could confirm that the sound was from the front wheel and it would be mostly some stone scratching the disk plate. Since the brake was working fine, we kept on rolling slowly as our focus was to get into a secure place for night, and finally after asking multiple people on the way for the route, we reached our stay by 7.20PM.  After a pretty adventurous drive, we have reached our first destination in Nepal now. Situated on the banks of  Karmali river, our stay was a decent hut done in traditional Tharu style, with mud floors and traditional furniture, offering us a complete village feel. The crickets whistling outside gave us an idea that we might be on the sides of a long stretch of farm fields, but the deadly darkness blocked our view. After a good dinner at the garden restaurant of the stay, we headed back to our hut to sleep. However, the rattling sound that came from the car kept on bothering me the whole night.

Day 33 – Bardia – 26 Sep 2018

Continuous adventures on the road from last three days made us bit lazy to wake up early in the morning. The climate was very humid, I got up very nervous thinking about the rattling sound that came from the front wheel, the previous day.  As we stepped out of the cottage, we were amazed to see the never ending stretches of green paddy fields, and villagers walking over the bunds separating the fields, probably those are the shortcuts connecting both the ends.

The landscape and climate looked very close to what we had back in our hometown in Kerala years back, and this gave us a very nostalgic feeling. First thing I did after the breakfast was to go and check if the sound is still coming from the car and unfortunately it was still there, very prominent. After my initial attempts to trace the source went in vain, I felt this needed some serious attention and hence took off the wheel and tried to roll it. I finally found that the metal piece behind the disc has bent and that was scratching the disc creating the disturbing noise. Mostly hit by a pebble. I straightened it, rolled the wheel again and the sound was gone. That was a moment of relief. I put back the wheel and did a test drive and that was job well done!

Once the sound was gone, focus shifted to the extreme dirt on the car, due to the previous day’s drive on the slushy roads. We soon found a comfortable place in our stay to park and wash the car. As daughter and  myself started cleaning the car, wife dumped the stuffed up laundry bag – including the washed wet clothes from Manali which we couldn’t dry there due to the heavy rains – washed everything, and dried at the very spacious laundry area near our cottage, with the long clotheslines under the hot sun.

Afterwards, we went to visit the Bardia National Park area. However, we didn’t go for the Jeep Safari as this was not the best time to spot tigers, and just had a quick visit to the near-by crocodile and rhino breeding centre. More than exploring the wilderness of the National Park, our aim was to explore the local villages and culture. We just drove around the narrow village roads in search of something to eat. Finding a place for lunch was pretty difficult in this place, however we could see small stalls attached to houses serving minimal food. We enquired in one of those shops, but they told it will take minimum one hour to prepare lunch, hence we moved further. Finally we reached a bazar, where few people were sitting on the wooden benches of a tea stall, chit-chatting, and decided to join them. We had a street style noodles and tea from there, and spent sometime talking to the villagers. The village was very serene and peaceful, and a simple drive would make you feel guilty of what you have lost to commercialisation in your own hometown. 

In the evening, we just went out walking along the banks of the Karnali river, we could see people rafting on the comparatively less tides of the flow. We reached a nearby open grassland, where kids were playing football. As we sat there watching them play, more and more kids came rushing to the place on bicycles and joined the game. It reminded me of my evening footballs right after school time! We too played there for sometime with our daughter, and then decided to have a quick visit to the elephant breeding centre nearby. Daughter was super excited to see so many elephants, and to learn how they were taken care and fed. As it got darker, we soon headed back to our stay, after a very relaxed day amidst the untamed wilderness! The serenity of the paddy fields soaked in the bright sun, and the authenticity of the remote village did a replay in our dreams that night!

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