crossing over to nepal from Sunouli / gorakhpur

hallo all,

my 180 day stay expires on march 11 and need to get out of the country (and be back too). am in mumbai so thinking of taking the train to gorakhpur the to sanuali. have a few questions doubts

1) how long i need to be in nepal side & get back.

2) is the border security/immigration staff cooperative

3) do i need a nepal visa

4) is the route for a single woman ok??

5) any one has already done this & their experience.

thanks people a lot and if anyone is doin the same route around the same time, please do lemme know.

hi, i can't answer all your questions but i do know that you need a visa to enter nepal. however, its really easy to get this once you get to the border by filling out a simple form and handing over 30 dollars! i have never one the route myself but don't know of it being any more dangerous to single women travellers than other trips might be. just exercise your usual level of caution and you should be fine.

one thing you need to check out though is the border situation at the moment, i know that from february 17th one of the political parties in nepal is calling a closure of certain border points, so you need to check that the one you intend to use isn't one of them. let me know how you get on as i am making the trip from delhi to nepal in about 2 weeks!!

hy

thanks for your reply

what route are you taking from Delhi???

i am planning to leave on march 8 from mumbai towards nepal

r you sure that i would need a nepalese visa even though i stay there for a couple of hours.

thanks.

hi, i'm doing the delhi-gorakhpur-sanauli route from the 2nd march, gonna head to lumbini on the way to kathmandu to check out the birth place of buddha!!

in regards to the visa, i'm pretty sure the only place to renew an indian visa in nepal is in kathmandu, which is 10-12 hours by bus from the border and the process will take 3-7 days. bad news for you since you were hoping to only be in the country for a few hours, but good news because it will give you time to check out beautiful nepal while they're trying to sort out your visa.
you will need a lot of patience, it can be a long, frustrating process, i recommend checking out the thorntree forums on lonely planet for more tips about this.

i hope this doesn't interfere with your plans too much. if you need anybody to waste time with while you're waiting in kathmandu let me know!!

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntre...6&keywordid=68

hy

i actually don't need to renew my visa as i already have a one year visa expiring on sep 10

i need to get out of the country as i finish 180 days and get back inside.

so wanted to know how much time do i need to spend in nepal.

yeah am not sure of my route but will msg u if i come to delhi or katmandu.

bye.

ahhh sorry i didn't realise!! in that case i think you will still need to pay for a nepali visa as to leave one country you must enter another, and you can't enter nepal without a visa. not sure what the nepali side of the border is like, but once i find out i can let you know and see if there's anything for you to do there for a couple of hours. sorry i can't be more useful!!!

If you are going up to Lumbini you can get a 3 day free visa entry, so this means that you can get your Indian visa processed without having to get a Nepali visa to begin with. My wife and a few friends are heading up there tonight so this seems to be pretty accurate.

At the moment there is an indefinite general strike in Tarai (all border districts of Nepal), so it is not possible to proceed to Lumbini, except in a pilgrimage bus or cycle Rickshaw. The latter is rather dangerous, it seems. Buses to Kathmandu are still getting thru, but there is fuel shortage everywhere in Nepal, since fuel supply is not getting thru from India, its only source.

There was a bandh when I was there, but taxis were running. The hotel in Lumbini (there are only two, and it's the one run by Jupiter Sharma I'm thinking of) have a vehicle, or access to one, either way I've been in it- and might be willing to collect people from the border.

Hi

We're hoping to get the bus from Gorakhpur into Nepal in the next few days. Are there still problems or have things settled down a bit now?

Laura

Check the date of the last post of this thread, as well as recent posts in other threads by scrolling down to the bottom of the page. The situation seems to continue over the years, as the problem at the basis of the dispute is not resolved/resolvable.

the crossing was fine when i made it a year ago and there was quite a bit of trouble going on in nepal at the time, as far as i know the situation is much better than it was a year ago so i can't anticipate you will have any problems. a word of advice, make sure you have plenty of water and food, and both nepali and indian currency for the many stops you will make along the way. we ran out of indian currency and relied on 2 wonderful nepali women who fed us biscuits for the last 20 hours of the trip! enjoy!