Border towns.

A NOTE ON THE THRILLS OF HANGING AROUND  BORDER TOWNS

Border towns have the flavor of the little old American wild west towns-full of lawless characters taking advantage of the seldom-enforced rules-along this thin sliver of "no man's land' that exists along the international borders. Here is our adventya:

We arrived at te Nepali/Indian border at sunset'  a fine time to enhance the "thrill factor", as the darkness simplifys all sorts of illegal activities.  We got through Nepali customs with no hassle.  At Indian customs, however, things changed.  We were informed by the immigration official that we might have a problem leaving India, BUT for a mere 2,000 rupees, he colud "correct" this problem for us.  What could we say but "Thank you".

Decision time.   We could stay here in town for the night, or we could ride a local, high speed bus,(one that would have been taken off the road 40 years ago in the U.S.), with headligts the brightness of a half-dead flashlight, travelling at 50 or 60 miles an hour  dowm a narrow, pot hole- filled road strewn with rickshaws, bull carts, slow moving tail lightless trucks and many, many sacred cows. Yeah, you guessed it- we stayed.

Found us a Hotel-of sorts.  They were holding their local businessman's convention in the lobby area.  People were making very boisterous  propositions among the rowdy cheers. Nice sort of atmosphere for getting a good night's sleep.  Checked out th rooms. Passable, but in my 10 hours on a bus, I forgot to poke thw mattresses. Big mistake!   The clerk couldn't find the key to one of the rooms, so we locked all the stuff in one room and went off to find food at the only restaurant in the other hotel that the guidebook describes as "ghostly".  Off down the dark main street, wading through the mud, trash and always present cow patties.

 

We stopped at the only travel agency that was open and bought bus tickets for the "express" bus at 7:30 a.m., from which I learned 3 good lessons; the first, in places like this, expect 90 percent of what you are told to be lies, the second, always listen to my wife, who has far better intuition than I, and third, don't accept a receipt for bus tickets on an India Rail receipt book.

  Reached the hotel, a huge plain whie-gray building with an enormous cement arch gate, but only one tiny light dimly lighting up the doorway.  Wandered through large,  bare, dirty hallways to the reception, a desk, that's all!  No one there, so we made some noise and a man appeared.  "Are you open?'  "Oh yes".  "Do you have a restaurant?" "Yes".  He took us to a very large, totally barren room with about 15 tables and chairs. "Do you have a menu?". "No, but we can make you some rice and dal with chapatis and tea".  It was edible.  Expected to Scooby Doo and his gang burst into the room followed bu a ghost!  The acoustics were so good that you could make enough noise just by scraping your plate to make it impossible to carry on a conversation.   

Slogged nervously back to the hotel,  The clerk still couldn't find the key.  Hey, what if we take another room that HAS a key! Duh...  We did. The key didnt work.. I kicked at the door just long enough to get our neighbor to come help.  We broke in successfully, and I sat down hard on te bed-OUCH!!  The mattress was about the thickness of a sheet and a towel!  Not much padding on the rough boards underneath.  Ben found an extra blanket to put under us. It didn't help much. We decided to go "borrow" the mattresses in tht keyless room.  They were no different than ours, so we brought back all the blankets.  Better.  The blood splotches on the wall at the head of the bed annoyed me somewhat, but the "convention had ended. Mosquitoes weren't too thick. Slept some between the 400 or so town dogs barking, and of course, the midnigt rooster crowing. 

The next morning, the adventure continued.  The travel agency was open, but no one to meet us as planned. A couple big dudes helped us find the right bus, deluxe bus???, Maybe for midgets!  Ben and I couldn't get our legs in front of us in the seats!   Direct one-stop! (40 stops later we were there).  An "express" bus, only eight hours! How does 10 1/2 sound?

 After paying the ticket taker our last two 500 rupee notes, (no ATMs in border towns),and he handed one back because a small piece was  torn off the corner.  (Of course,  the tickets we bought at 4 times the normal rate were no good), the biggest, blackest of our 2 dude friends told me we had to pay a $10 baggage fee.  After arguing a bit, we paid, only to have him tell us that we now needed to pay HIM $50 U.S. forour tickets, or we would be kicked off the bus.I told him "No way!'  He ordered the bus driver to stop the bus. He did!  We were out of town, nothing but fields around, and the only other passengers were an older couple.  Decided to pay up.  Iw as still standing there nose-to-nose with that big dude, and somehow, I had the nerve to shake his hand, give him a smile, and  somehow thank him for the lesson, then tell him that what he was doing was not right, asked him to  stop, put my hand on his shoulder, and sat down.  He gave me a rather confused look, and slowly got off the bus.