How to travel from Varanasi, India to Kathmandu, Nepal overland?
My next planned stop after Sri Lanka was going to be Nepal. When checking flight tickets though, it turned out that it was not cheap to fly directly from Colombo to Kathmandu and so I decided to fly to Varanasi in India instead and travel to Nepal overland. There were a couple cheaper options to fly into in Northern India, but the reputation of Varanasi was so high, that I just could not miss it. Since I had the time available, I decided to stop in Varanasi for 3-5 days and enjoy the city. To see what I did in Varanasi, feel free to read my previous blog post – Varanasi – the spiritual capital of India.
In this post, I am going to describe how to travel by land from Varanasi to Kathmandu. There is actually a direct bus running between these two cities but it goes only every other day and gets fully booked already about 2-4 days beforehand. At least I was not able to book it anymore when I was in Varanasi. So what is the alternative?
1. TRAIN FROM VARANASI TO GORAKHPUR
I bought the train ticket (sleeper) the previous evening from a travel agent in the city for the price of 300 rupees (300 INR=3.76 €). I am pretty sure that I overpaid since the fee for the travel agent was already 100 INR and a ticket for just a seat would have been probably cheaper. I was running out of time and I bought the ticket from the first agency I visited.
The train departed from Varanasi main train station at 7.45 am and reached Gorakhpur 11.30 am. The ride itself was rather pleasant and scenic.
2. Local bus from Gorakhpur to Sonauli
The next challenge, after arriving at the train station in Gorakhpur, is to locate the bus station. Just ask some local taxi drivers and they will send you in the right direction. After exiting the train station, turn right, walk a couple of hundred meters until another intersection comes up and take a left turn. You will soon enough see many buses by the roadside. Having MAPS.ME on your smartphone is handy since it has the bus station marked on it.
It was not easy to find the correct bus to Sonauli. I needed to ask around from a couple of people because there is no bus ticket counter around. Finally, some guy helped to wait and find the correct bus to Sonauli. The ticket for the ride was 112 INR (1.40 €). The bus left at 13 pm and reached Sonauli 16.30 pm which made it a 3.5h journey (for doing 100 km) in tight conditions. Many locals were standing for the whole ride. I was squeezed tight in the back row.
3. Crossing India-Nepal border
Crossing the border between India and Nepal in Sonauli-Belahiya has definitely been the strangest border-crossing experience in my life.
The local bus drops passengers next to the busy road full of trucks and every other vehicle you can possibly see in India. Immediately I started walking in direction of the border. Some locals turned to me and told that the Indian immigration point is actually on the other way. Naturally, I thought they were trying to hassle me and take me to some random shop or whatever. But after walking for 2 minutes I decided to recheck the GPS and saw that on MAPS.ME the Indian Immigration is indeed more towards the south. I turned back and there it was – the locals were not lying. It was really strange though since there is just a random booth hidden away from the road. You really need to find it yourself to get checked out from India.
I also needed to wait in the immigration for some time since their systems were offline for 15 minutes or so. The booth itself was really basic.
As soon as you are stamped out you can take your stuff again and head towards the border. It is about 500 m but if walking is not an option then you can easily hire a rickshaw. Also, there are many shops and exchange offices next to the road.
Soon enough you will notice a gate from which you can pass under from.
After crossing the gate, keep to the right of the street and in about 50 m you will see a small building between the trees. That one is the Nepalese immigration office.
- SIM card 1300 NPR (10 €) for SIM card, 13 GB data, some phone credit.
- Exchanged INR to NPR. They also took coins.
- Bought a bus ticket to Kathmandu. 800 NPR (6€)
Absolutely no one checks if you have made the necessary procedures or not while crossing this border. You really need to stand up for yourself in order to legally enter Nepal. Be sure to do that naturally, not to get into any problems afterwards.
4. Bus from the border to Kathmandu
So I booked the local bus to Kathmandu from the same office where I got my other necessary procedures done. The price for the local bus was 800 NPR (6 €) and the price for the AC bus was 1400 NPR (11 €).
As it turned out the local bus was actually pretty decent. The TV was showing some Nepalese movies, all the chairs had fans and there were also power plugs present. The chairs themselves were pretty comfortable and reclinable. Totally different from the bus on the Indian side.
The departure was at 19 pm and we arrived in Kathmandu at about 10 am, totalling 15 h on the bus. The distance between Sonauli and Kathmandu is 270 km. They said it was going to take less time in the beginning. The roads in Nepal turned out to be awful and we were standing on the road for a couple of hours during the night time because there were some road constructions going on.
It is definitely less hassle to take the direct bus between Varanasi and Kathmandu but probably does not make as an interesting journey. The price for the direct bus is probably a bit more expensive than overall costs for bus/train hopping, but not by far.
Have a safe journey!
