After spending about 5 day in Darjeeling, we did a jeep share with some travelers we met in Sikkim to head back to Siliguri and then make our way to Nepal.

The border between India and Nepal seemed pretty lax, to say the least. I’m sure we could have easily just walked by the one tiny outpost on the Indian side and the desolate Immigration Office on the Nepal side. In fact, part of me wishes we did, since our ‘Welcome to Nepal’ was met with a 30-day visa price of $40 USD, payable in USD – which we did not have, nor could get on the Nepal side – or in Indian rupees at the equivalent of about $60 USD. On top of that, the asshole at immigration tried to scam another 100 Indian rupees out of each of us, saying that it was an extra ‘application fee’ but could not explain why nor point to anywhere that mentions this fee. We did not pay this, nor did he insist.

We hung out in the border town of Kakarvitta for a few hours waiting for our bus to Kathmandu. On first sight, Nepal is not really what I expected. I guess I always pictured it as some very zen and spiritual place with clean mountain air and rivers, sherpas, goats, etc. Sort of like Sikkim. On the contrary, a lot of parts seem much poorer than Indian with even less infrastructure.