Since it had rained for the past few days in Bihar, the air humidity caused the hindrance to the airflow through the AC ducts because of the condensation on the evaporator pipes. Ok, let’s not get too technical about it. We had to switch OFF the AC to leave the condensation to clear off frequently.

               

 

As we entered deep into Bihar and got off the NH27, the state highway roads got worse by the kilometer and it was getting worse to worst. You could very well understand the state of the roads in the pictures. Our goal set to cross the international border into Nepal before sunset pushed us to skip our lunch and with the bad roads, the time was running fast but we moved slow. The last stretch to the Border was the worst road we encounter in whole of our trip. All this because of the detour we took to enter Nepal through Raxaul (Bihar) and not through Sanauli (UP).

As we were just 11 km to the border to exit India and enter Nepal, we did not know that these 11 kms is going to take us 3 hours to cross. It was around 2:30 pm we were just 11 kms away from the border but between the bad roads and the trucks that were moving towards the border. We did not have place to move and cross these trucks, which were stagnant. The police were stopping these trucks and we were witnessing arguments between the truck drivers and the cops.

Finally, someone gave us an idea to get into the field nearby and then bypass the traffic on the main road. In addition, we were able to move forward but this idea was useful in some places but not everywhere given the marshy roadside fields where we did not want to take any risk of being stuck with our 2-wheel drive.

As we reached the border, there was no checking at the Indian check post. We crossed the Indian check post and entered the no man’s land where there was no traffic with all Trucks left behind, it was close to 5 PM.

               

Now we were into Nepal with a sigh of relief that we crossed the Border into Nepal, I don’t know if Amit had been thinking of the mountain adventure challenge ahead but I was feeling accomplished that most of the trip is completed. Standing in Nepal, as waiting for the permit papers to be ready in that humid evening, I was “not” able realize the challenge or the courage that we were going to raise in the following day to finish the most difficult memorable part of the drive.