Internet Café, Kohalpur, Nepal, 07-01-08
Madam, welcome to Nepal!
Mahendranagar to Thakurdwara - Bardia National Park
(2 cycle days; 154 km; 332 m)
Mahendranagar to Sukhad (88 km; 161 m)
Sukhad to Thakurdwara (66 km; 171 m)

Mahendranagar is a small but lively town with incredibly friendly people, a few excruciatingly slow internet connections, plenty of delicious chowmein eateries, samosa, pakora and peanut sellers and an ATM machine dishing out Nepali rupees with no problems at all: Nabil Bank - just off the main road on line 3 - we think, but it's not too hard to find. I wander around entering little shops asking the prices of everything while Ali battles the sluggish connection. I pull quite a crowd of youngsters in one place and when I leave a guy asks why I have asked how much things are, without buying anything. I say that it's my way of finding out what the true price of products is. He replies "We are Nepali not Indians." I thought it summed up our first impressions of Nepal very nicely.

We end up staying in this quaint little place for New Year, though I was snoozing right up until...