Day 80 - Chitwan to Lumbini

As part of the package that we booked with the Wildlife Adventure Resort, a bus fare to and from Chitwan was included. The resort (or lodge as I've been calling it) organised our bus ticket and dropped us to the bus station just before 9am.

The bus station is just a large field of short grass, continuously mowed short by the goats in the area. While waiting for the bus to leave (it was 20 minutes late) a pregnant goat came up to me looking for some affection, after I obliged with some head rubs, she got up on the seat next to me and sat with me until it was time to go. I felt a bit sad saying goodbye to her. I hope she has a good life.

The bus to Lumbini was not a tourist bus like we had taken before, but one of the local bus's and considerably less comfortable. We were 'allocated' seats that we changed until we found some more comfortable ones with slightly more leg space. The weather was hot and humid but the trip went uneventfully.  We did see 2 trucks carrying heavy loads that had tipped over as they went round a bend! The drivers here are mental, always speeding in questionable looking vehicles and taking a lot of risks to overtake each other. It's no wonder that we have only seen the results from 2 incidents while we've been in Nepal.
While in a traffic jam I managed to get a photo of one of the trucks from India, they have all sorts of patterns, stickers, fake flowers, pom poms and streamers hanging off the front of them! They look quite eccentric as they drive past you.

We arrived at Lumbini, but 50km's away from where the hotel manager told us the bus would take us. As soon as we got out of the bus with our packs, we realised we were very far from the hotel and from where the temples are. Luckily a swarm of tuk tuk drivers noticed us and were very helpful. We realised another silly problem, our hotel was named after the prince who became the buddha and that there was 2 hotels named this exact name as well as lots of restaurants and shops. The tuk tuk driver who eventually took us to our hotel was able to ring our accommodation and confirm which one it was.

The town of Lumbini is a heavy mix of India and Nepal being right on the border and a place of pilgrimage. It was also the first time in Nepal we had seen a lot of obvious poverty, beggars are attracted here by the holy sights & the heavy foot traffic.

We checked into our hotel on the third floor and then went up to the fourth floor for some lunch/dinner. I learnt a valuable lesson this afternoon, raspberry jam does not go on a savoury veggie burger! hahaha lucky I could drown  out the taste with some hot chilli sauce.

Our hotel room was okay for what we paid for, the main features being air con, the cold shower and WIFI, though 2 of those features only worked when the power was cooperative. We have never experienced black outs like the ones in Lumbini, it was happening every hour and for just long enough to loose the WIFI connection and for the room to start to get hot again.
Later that night we were looking for a powerpoint and found that the TV was directly wired into the powerpoint and the wires were held in place with toilet paper!! No wonder there's so many blackouts with this type of electrical security. We pulled the tissues out & used the powerpoint appropriately, as it was destined to be used.

- Alli