Note the little sign that says "Immigration Office". You walk into a pleasant little office with a green front yard, hand over a fifty dollar bill, and get your thirty-day visa sticker.

While leaving India I crossed paths with a German backpacker hippie bum in a sleeveless shirt and a do-rag. Why do whites dress worse than a street wino when they go to foreign countries?

The first step for the crossing was to ride the passenger train one stop from Tanakpur to Banbasa. Then I walked 4 km through squalid Banbasa village and its surrounding forests to the "barrage", a dam bridge basically. The border doesn't quite follow the river, so after you go across the bridge, you're still in India. Lots and lots of people hit me up offering a ride along the whole way, which was lined with market vendors selling backpacks as low as $2.50, among many other things.

However, I had spent the last of my Indian rupees on breakfast, so I had zero cash on hand and couldn't pay for anything. I got stamped out, then passed through two cordons of tough-looking police on either side of the border.

A young Nepalese guy on a bicycle started harassing me as I began the 6 km walk into town from the border area. He kept saying he wanted to buy a dollar bill, but when I agreed to sell him one, his demands quickly escalated. Now he was no longer interested in a dollar; he wanted ten dollars. I told him I'd sell him a dollar bill for 150 Nepalese rupees, but he wasn't going to "see" any larger bill. He kept making rude remarks under his breath before trying some other tactic of demanding my attention. At last he settled with pretending like he was going to buy the dollar, then refusing to hand over the Nepalese currency as we agreed to, instead demanding that I show him ten dollars. That didn't go over well. I started trying to grab the payment from his hand, at which he handed me the dollar back and I snatched it up while calling him a robber. Thereafter he returned to his village.

File: IMG20260512125009.jpg (2.37 MB, 4000x2256)

2.37 MB JPG

Later on I'll post a pic or two of the streets here in Mahendra Nagar. They are so much neater, wider and more orderly than the streets of India. Even the main road had a gravelled shoulder suitable for walking alongside. Construction projects are actually cleaned up here; the rubble and debris isn't strewn everywhere without a care like it is in India. Bureaucracy in general also seems less onerous. It took me barely three minutes to get a cell phone SIM and plan going. Hotel check-in was a breeze as well. The German was also trying to buy a cell plan, but it was taking him a lot longer for some reason. He was also lathered in sweat and appeared to be stroogling, while I had already pulled cash from an ATM, found a semi-upscale A/C room, showered, changed into fresh clothes and eaten a filling lunch. Due to having no money I refused most people's offers of a ride, but an old man came by and gave me a lift the last 2 km into town without expecting any money.

The afternoon has turned warm and muggy now that the sun has burned away the thick haze. Still not quite hot, only 33 C or so. I picked a random ATM and paid a 500 rupee access fee to pull twenty 1000 rupee notes (the fee is refunded by Schwab). Then I went to a different bank and broke four of the big bills for small purchases. Chinese food was a bad choice here; the flavors were very disappointing, and the 200 mL Mountain Dew bottle cost about $0.45 USD, which is double what they typically cost in India. Maybe soft drinks are more expensive in Nepal...my room is hardly a good deal either at 2500 NPR ($16.50 USD), but it has a modern A/C unit, good seating area and it's quiet inside. You can get rooms for much cheaper here; I just went for the first nice hotel I saw.

Some online sources said that printed passport-size photos were necessary for the Nepal visa, but the officials took a digital photo and did not ask for any printed photos.

>>2881439
>Later on I'll post a pic or two of the streets here in Mahendra Nagar.
Take some creep shots of the women and do some cold approaches bro. I only met a few Nepalese so never got a good gauge on them

File: IMG20260512185311.jpg (2.69 MB, 4000x2256)

2.69 MB JPG

>>2881442
So far I haven't seen young women loitering around in public here. Of course it is May in the flatlands, hot and sunny with an average high of 39 C. Who in their right mind would be standing around on the street (apart from the buxom ice cream vending ladies).

There's a lot of ethnic diversity here, but that's no different from India. It's hard to say what the typical Nepalese looks like - some are almost black, while others could pass for Aryan. Once you go up into the mountains, the phenotypes change radically as certain tribes strongly prefer to live at altitude.

There's a national park near here, Sukhlaplanta, but admission for foreigners is $10 USD. Not counting the taxi costs of getting to/from the park either...and then what? You go walking through the forest in the sweltering heat, or else pay even more for a tour of the park.

Currently waiting on laundry, so I've gotta stay in this city one more night before boarding a bus to some other place, hopefully cooler and more mountainous. This room has useless WiFi and no hot water, despite costing $16.50 USD. I've been dissatisfied with the value of Nepal so far, though the people are quite friendly.

File: IMG20260513111219.jpg (1.07 MB, 3072x1728)

1.07 MB JPG

1600 rupees for this A/C budget room with thin hard beds. 1000 for non A/C. That's $10.75 USD and $6.50 USD respectively. The A/C makes an awful squeaking noise, but at least it works. There's always something wrong with these budget rooms, but most of the time you can't figure out what it is until you've already paid and checked in. By then it's too late.

I don't see what you get out of this lifestyle. If I go somewhere its to do something, not wander around shitholes and back alleys having petty disputes with locals.

Probably some sex or drug thing you aren't telling us about.

>>2881598
>>2881602
It sounds like everything is a gouge there and India is better. Don't you have to pay $125 for the 90 day visa too

File: IMG20260513121642.jpg (2.95 MB, 4000x2256)

2.95 MB JPG

>>2881608
The population density is lower and pace of life is much slower here, which is probably its biggest appeal compared to India's relentless traffic congestion. It's remarkable how few cars there are on the roads of this city (9th largest in Nepal BTW). Traffic is nearly all motorbikes and electric tuktuks. People are graceful and don't have that brusque indifferent manner when doing business that they have in Indian cities.

Most Nepalese restaurants are grimy and traditional. No menu cards, no food photos, no branding. You eat what they serve and pay whatever price they tell you. Commonly they serve kanna sets, which are basically rice plates with dal, chicken/veg sabji, and an assortment of sides. Chapati are less common than in India. Typical non-veg price is 200-250 ($1.30-1.60 USD). I went to a nicer hotel restaurant and paid 350 for the chicken kanna set in picrel. A little overpriced; flavor was okay.

Another thing worth noting, alcohol is sold literally everywhere here in Nepal. Local restaurants have liquor in display cabinets, and there seems to be a liquor store on every block. Across from my hotel is a dance club, kek. I guess people here like to drink and have a good time.
>>2881604
To you, "going somewhere" is setting out from your home on a journey. That's why you need a list of goals to structure your limited time away from home. My travel life OTOH is nomadpilled:
>find a hospitable place to stay using public transport
>acquire essentials: shelter, food, water
Because most Third World destinations are shitty when you're living in a budget, I grow tired of them quickly. The constant change of setting is the principal mental appeal of the travel life, and public transport makes it very easy to move to the next town. If I stayed in one place for a long time, the lack of external stimulation would basically shut down my brain. I've always loved the idea of needing only a passport and a wad of cash to live free of others' expectations.

>>2881642
Youre not living though. Youre just existing in a state of transit. You make no long term friends, have no accomplishments, you dont really do much of anything except go from point a to b over and over.
Its truly hellish. Transit is always the worst part of visiting backwaters in the third world but its what you seek exclusively.

No, there is another explanation for this fixation of yours.

ATM fees are quite high in Nepal. One ATM demanded 500, the next 850, and the next 750 (about $5 USD). I withdrew a big wad of cash in anticipation of tomorrow's trip into the mountains; you never know when local ATMs are not going to work. $100 in local currency sounds like a lot, but it's only five days' worth of expenses.

As for a phone plan, 40 GB of data with 30 day validity cost me 600 NPR ($4 USD). The SIM card cost 100 NPR.

There are many buses going to Budar, a small village at 1250 meters elevation about four hours' ride from here. Might as well stop there for a night. For now I'm drinking some Gorkha premium Nepali beer in my room, because it's still hot and humid outside at 5 PM. The beer cost 275 NPR or $1.81 USD per 500 mL can. English proficiency is limited here, but eventually your point gets across. They never have the beer selection or prices on display in these shops, so if you're not familiar with what they offer, you have to ask a bunch of questions. But this is South Asia, not Poland. Nobody's going to get annoyed with you for asking fifty questions about beer offerings & prices like you've never bought a can before.

BTW I set out from Pune on April 3rd with the intention of flying out of Kathmandu on June 8th. You'd think that would be way too much time to cover this distance, but I've felt consistently pressured to keep moving forward since then. People think the world is small and easy to explore, but this is only true if you fly from one city to another. On ground level, the world remains vast and arduous to traverse. My Nepal visa is valid until June 10th, so I lost a couple days with a late arrival. No biggie; 28 days to get to Kathmandu allows for plenty of rest along the way. The flight to Bangkok was pricier than I wanted to pay. $239 for 2210 km is a ripoff in terms of cost per km, but there is no other option for leaving Nepal. The entire country has only one international airport.

>>2881651
Imagine flying across the world with a pocket full of simpbux just to simp for some brownie hole that might offer you a higher probability of hole access than the pink holes back home. LOL, couldn't be me.

There is literally no elaborate explanation. I got tired of living in a minivan that was on the verge of breaking down and decided to travel overseas instead so I could NEET it up in a real building with toilet and shower, and ride public transport to get to someplace new instead of driving. This isn't rocket science, unless you've been mindbroken into submission to your boomer parents and can't imagine a life without depending on them. LOL, couldn't be me.

Despite still having plenty of money, I have a plane ticket back to America coming up in July. So I'll have to go back and try my luck in some shithole like Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Life is a perpetual stroogle, so you might as well accept it.

>>2881651
It's a misdirection. He's doing this to post on facebook and have an alibi for his family/friends back home. He's flying to Bangkok in June and that's where the real fuckery begins

He's going to all of these random outcrops in India and Nepal just so when he goes home he can memory his degenerate romp in Thailand where he banged/gets banged by ladyboys continually for a fortnight straight.

Is Mt Everest base camp worth visiting if I don't plan to actually climb the whole mountain, just see it up close? Like is there anything to do in the actual town nearby?

Why are there so many Nepalese criminals? When they get caught they pretend to be Tibetan.

>>2881436
What is the Public Toilet Situation in nepal?

>>2881657
>Like is there anything to do in the actual town nearby?
>Town
*Village
This ain't a town, bro. Does it look like there's anything to do here?

The trip to base camp is something you do for the sake of the trip to base camp and to see the mountains on the way. I had a great time but if you're not someone who enjoys hiking through mountains then I dunno what you're doing in Nepal.

>>2881642
Lowland Nepal is the worst part of the country imo. Beeline to the Himalayas and enjoy the mountains.

>>2881805
Nepal is a lot duller and more uniform than India. English proficiency is limited in the countryside, and the people aren't very smart or literate either, so they struggle to understand the most basic ideas like "I would like to get a room". The food at the local dining shacks is pretty awful. They sure as hell don't know how to cook with spices like Indians do. Ingredients never seem to be fresh either, with customer volume as low as it is. Poor digestion is inevitable. Fuck, it's been six weeks since I last felt healthy and full of energy, ready to go climbing mountains every day. Eventually you forget what it's like not to be tired and out of sorts all the damn time.

Rooms are very cheap in these dull mountain villages. 1000 rupees per night seems standard for a room with attached bathroom. But this village Budar isn't worth a stay. There's nothing to explore in the vicinity for a foot traveler, nothing to photograph. Hazy hills covered in pine forest or hideous village shacks along the roadside, that's about it. No wonder everyone says "go to Pokhara".
>>2881716
Awful dirty shitshacks near restaurants where buses and vans stop for rest breaks. Public transport is very disorganized here. Bus parks are a free-for-all of drivers and vehicles, all going wherever they please. Getting information is a real pain; you have to state your destination to somebody random and then he asks somebody else, etc etc until word gets around to the right driver, and then they direct you to the vehicle which is going where you want to go. With the curvy mountain roads, vomiting is very common among the passengers.

Interestingly, electric vans are the norm here, even in the mountains. Every village has several fast charging stations.
>>2881662
South Asians are opportunists. Cash drawers are never left unlocked for a second here, because nobody trusts their neighbors. I don't trust anyone in this part of the world either, and the locals can definitely sense my wariness.

>>2881805
I like hiking, I'm just not in a position to climb the whole mountain. I'd do a basic hike though

File: IMG20260514194326[1].jpg (568 KB, 1260x1013)

568 KB JPG

Now I have a gigantic wounded spider hiding in my room; somehow I lost track of it when it was running away, and now it's out of sight. Will it seek revenge for my attempt to kill it once the lights go out?

Man do these villagers love to talk. Nothing else to do here, it seems. There's been non-stop chatter all afternoon and all evening outside my window, along with cooking fumes (that don't smell appetizing at all, despite my hunger).

File: IMG20260515123000.jpg (3.15 MB, 4000x2256)

3.15 MB JPG

Bus fares in Nepal are more expensive than India. A 50 km ride cost 350 NPR or $2.30 USD. In India it would've cost 110 INR or $1.25 USD. But Nepalese hotels never say "no foreigners", so you are free to stay wherever rooms are available. In fact, the bigger challenge here in the Himalayan backcountry is finding hotels and restaurants that offer acceptable quality for a tourist. Nepalese have so much less spending money than Indians do; stagnant prices and disinvestment is the norm.

My room here in Amargadhi cost only 600 NPR or $3.98 USD, a new record for cheapest room in all my travels. Bathroom is outside; there doesn't appear to be anyone else staying here. There's no electricity due to repair work. In fact, I haven't had a hot bath since I arrived in Nepal. Might as well stay one night and then move on to the next town, slowly making my way across the expanse of the country toward Kathmandu.

A bunch of ladies were selling Himalayan mulberries at the bus rest stop. A pint cost 100 NPR (about $0.65 USD). They seemed rather desperate for customers. In most of Asia I haven't seen much desperation for money, but here in Nepal people seem very needy. Lots of money gets wasted on alcohol, that's for sure.

Finally got to enjoy a great Nepalese kanna set last night, with hot roti and savory chicken and steaming dal and veggie sides. They charged 300 NPR per plate, but business was brisk because it was good stuff. While eating, a barefoot teenager stepped out of a transport vehicle on the nearby highway, walked into the restaurant, and grabbed my water bottle off the table for a drink. I reached out and grabbed it back out of his hand before he could drink any. He didn't apologize or show any indication of caring. This is the second local youth in the past few days who has tried to take something from me without my permission. While Indians strive to be likeable and deceitful as they attempt a scam, Nepalese seem more feral and resentful of white privilege.

>>2881953
>In fact, I haven't had a hot bath since I arrived in Nepal.
If the places you're staying at usually have electricity and buckets consider an immersion rod. In India they cost 600 rupees and were the MVP of my stay. It's how poorfag locals take hot baths if they dont have a geyser

File: IMG20260515174745.jpg (1.64 MB, 4000x2256)

1.64 MB JPG

>>2881963
Interesting, I've never heard of such a device before.

Today's hazy overcast morning gave way to a warm sunny afternoon, perfect for a walk in the pleasant community forest near the village, which sits on a mountaintop at nearly 1800 meters elevation. Nepali villages are ugly and squalid, but the people do a good job of preserving their forest greenery. All along the mountain highways you can see beautiful untouched forests.

Tonight's mountain rainstorm is gentle, with lots of lightning but no wind and no hard rain either. May is usually the month with the most clear days in the Himalayas, but the stormy weather pattern that started back in March for northern India has continued to sweep through again and again. Funny how the forecasters were calling for failure of the rains due to El Nino. But instead, swaths of South Asia are being deluged with rain during the height of the dry season. Temps are also much milder than expected, especially in the hilly regions.

>>2881652
>ATM fees are quite high in Nepal. One ATM demanded 500, the next 850, and the next 750 (about $5 USD). I withdrew a big wad of cash in anticipation of tomorrow's trip into the mountains; you never know when local ATMs are not going to work. $100 in local currency sounds like a lot, but it's only five days' worth of expenses.
How do you fund all this shit if you just transit around thirdie countries all the time?

File: IMG20260515164122.jpg (3.23 MB, 4000x2256)

3.23 MB JPG

Ridiculously flimsy supports for this mountainside shop. Despite the poverty, there are numerous vendors of jewelry, gold and women's clothing in these small hub villages. Nepali men slave away overseas to send money back home so their women can live a comfy idle life, gossiping with neighbors all day and going shopping every weekend. Same as in every Third World country. The migrant laborer men get exploited to the max while they are away from home, then when they come back home it's their turn to loaf around all day gossiping and drinking tea while their women do all the work of maintaining the household.

There are many posters by visa agencies promoting "Work and Study in Japan" to Nepali villagers. All the young men are infected with the greed bug: they all want to work overseas and make money, then come back and buy a new motorbike. They don't seem interested in starting a street snack stall or otherwise trying to make it in their home village. Too much work for too little money.

>>2881983
>There are many posters by visa agencies promoting "Work and Study in Japan" to Nepali villagers.
I'm surprised it's not Australia you're seeing on the posters. I work in immigration and yesterday I had to approve 20 fucking 'skills in demand' visas for barely literate Nepalis working as cooks. Like, I appreciate that the hospitality sector is a big part of the economy these days but the public accept these existence of these visa categories because they think we're bringing in nurses and aged care workers, not fucking fry cooks.

nepal seems like those tiny countries that exist unnecessarily because of some political european mistake 100 yrs ago, because next to india it doesn't seem all that different from any other indian state with its own ethnic makeup and local language, it has little natural resources to fend for itself and practices the same religion as the rest of india even though its the home of buddhism

File: IMG20260516125223.jpg (3.79 MB, 2256x4000)

3.79 MB JPG

>>2882111
Nepal sure as hell doesn't feel tiny when you're on the ground and it takes four hours to cover 60 km across the rugged terrain. Today I went from 1800 meters elevation on a mountaintop ridge down to 450 meters elevation in a river valley. Hot and sunny down here in Dipayal, but the village looks quite pleasant, and my A/C room with minisplit unit, desk and attached bathroom cost only $9.95 USD per night.

There's a big cultural difference between Nepal and the Gangetic plains, but Uttarakhand does feel similar to Nepal in many ways. From what I've read, the Nepalese mountain kingdoms always maintained their independence from whoever was ruling North India. Their scarce resources made them unattractive to British colonizers, and the Mughal invaders likewise failed to subjugate the mountain people.

Yes, I got off to an expensive start in Nepal's big border town. But prices in the Nepal interior are significantly cheaper than in India. Food quality and taste is the biggest disappointment compared to India; the rooms are okay, if spartan. Hotel managers here are genuinely glad to serve a guest, whereas in India the hotel staff treated foreign guests like crap. I hated feeling like a beggar going door to door asking for a room, getting either refused a room or charged an inflated price like I was a nuisance instead of a guest.

Nepalese highways are in much better condition than I expected, barring a few landslide zones. The construction is very consistent in its quality. Traffic is much lighter than you'd expect given the remarkably high population density of the country (over 500 people per square mile in one of the most mountainous countries on Earth). Every village is full of people, but they just loiter around all day doing village stuff. Encountering horrible traffic in bumfuck nowhere India, you can't help but go "Jesus Christ, why are all these pajeets constantly zooming around in such an awful hurry?" That's not the case here.

File: IMG20260516150144.jpg (4.16 MB, 4000x2256)

4.16 MB JPG

Okay, Dipayal is kinda cool. It has this suspension bridge strung high over a gorge. Lots of teenage girls come here for selfies, even climbing the steep staircase in the midday heat. The boys seem to prefer splashing around in the rushing river below.

File: IMG20260516150914.jpg (3.78 MB, 4000x2256)

3.78 MB JPG

The highway to Dipayal descended from the mountaintop to follow the Seti river down to the village, but Himalayan rivers take winding paths through steep hilly terrain and do not make good routes for roads as a general rule. To continue eastward, the highway climbs into this pastoral valley before climbing upwards across the hills through dozens of switchbacks. Then it descends downward to Sanfebagar in the Budiganga river valley. Extremely arduous and slow travel is the result. It's still interesting to see the forest change as you go from higher altitudes to lower altitudes, but travel here is definitely an unpleasant ordeal. Transport vehicles don't depart until they are completely crammed with people. Thankfully, the human crush eases as the journey continues and people hop off at their villages.

File: IMG20260516150218.jpg (3.93 MB, 4000x2256)

3.93 MB JPG

From up high it's clear just how tiny even these principal Nepal mountain villages are. The map is covered in villages, yes, but very few of them have that economic magnetism which drives uncontrolled population growth. That was definitely not the case in Himalayan India, where the market-hub villages along the highway blanketed hillsides and spread out for kilometers in every direction along the roads. Indians would rather crowd together in appalling slums for a chance at success than relax in their comfy village homes somewhere far away from money and jobs. Nepalese as a general rule haven't caught on to this hustle culture yet.

File: IMG20260516150700.jpg (3.24 MB, 4000x2256)

3.24 MB JPG

More unappetizing food lacking in flavor and freshness has been featured for today's diet, along with loose, vile-smelling bowel movements. The chewiness of the chicken in every dish I've ordered here indicates that it has been sitting for days in a fridge that barely cools before it got cooked and served. Yes, the food is properly cooked, so it doesn't make you sick outright, but the bad quality still has an impact on digestion, and the lack of flavor reduces your willingness to eat sufficient calories. Today I ordered a $3 USD chicken pizza, but despite taking an hour to prepare, the crust was completely dry and devoid of good yeasty flavor. Barely any cheese on top, and no tomato sauce either, only a smear of that yucky orange sauce that is served with everything in Nepal (be it pizza, momos, chow mein, breakfast paratha, etc.). And you're supposed to dip it in ketchup that looks fake as can be. Spices? Forget about spices. Nepal doesn't use a tenth of the spices that India uses.

>>2882159
>Lots of teenage girls
What phenotype? Standard north indian or chinky?

File: IMG20260517182218.jpg (3.37 MB, 4000x2256)

3.37 MB JPG

>>2882180
There's a big range of ethnic phenotypes here, from dark-skinned fuzzy wuzzies to people with eyes like Xi Jinping. But there is much less Dravidian admixture than in northern India.

Smartphones are not universal here, but they are still very common, because Nepalis like all South Asians love to be constantly talking on the phone with each other. Can't help but wonder how many of the girls have remote boyfriends they videochat with and periodically ask money from. You see quite a lot of single young women in random rural villages with nice clothes and facepaint, their phones perpetually in their hands. Where do they get their spending money from? They clearly don't herd goats or harvest wood for a living. The e-simp economy has enabled a lot of pretty village girls to live a comfy life without having to peddle their ass in the city.

80 km to Sanfebagar was a tiring trip, although I was had a lucky seat placement and was not squeezed in like everybody else. This time the van filled up to the brim with sixteen passengers and stayed that way for the entirety of the journey, which involved about fifty phone calls to the driver and twenty different stops along the way.

Sanfebagar itself is an ugly riverside village, with some really old buildings on its ratty streets. So many people, so little commerce going on. There is a disused airport right next to the village; as if people would spend a bunch of money to fly to this hot dirty shithole, kekek

File: IMG20260517175542.jpg (2.84 MB, 4000x2256)

2.84 MB JPG

The abandoned airport's control tower in picrel. Villagers were cutting grass by hand all across the airport grounds. Some chatty boys came over from their cricket game to say hi and ask some questions. Kids sometimes ask me for money here, but these boys didn't.

Travel burnout has definitely caught up with me after five plus months on the move. Nepalese want foreigners to enjoy their country, but I haven't found much about these untouristed parts to be enjoyable. Bed time is the best part of the travel day. Fall asleep to dream of fun roadtrip adventures with (imaginary) friends in America, feeling on top of the world, then wake up and realize that you're poorfagging it in Nepal instead, with months of weary, solitary onward struggle to look forward to. Such is the life I've chosen, both abroad and back in America. On the bright side, six weeks in Thailand should be very restful and restorative.

Today's fish curry kanna plate was pretty good, served at one of the nicest restaurants in the villages for 300 rupees. A different eatery had sliced potatoes sitting out in the sun on a filthy back porch, next to a bucket of discarded food swarming with flies. Evidently after sun-drying, they marinate the potatoes in some kind of sauce and serve them raw as a side dish? Previous kanna plates had some crunchy potatoes like that. Hardly a surprise that diarrhea resulted. Daily probiotic capsules seem to fix the unrest within a day or two.

>>2882365
what are you gonna do in Thailand? come to malaysia bro lets fuck shit up

File: IMG20260517125838.jpg (2.28 MB, 3072x1728)

2.28 MB JPG

I don't want to overexaggerate the ugliness of Nepal. The market villages are ugly, but the green hills and forests of the countryside are quite beautiful on a sunny day. You see, it takes affluence to enjoy a natural aesthetic. Wealthy people go for a weekend or a holiday in the hills and brag on Instagram about how they so enjoy unwinding in nature and letting the stress lift off their shoulders. But from a poorfag perspective, both as a tourist and as a local traveler, the rugged terrain is merely an obstacle that makes everything difficult. Instead of feeling blessed to be in the hills, you begin to feel stuck in this labyrinthine hellscape of steep slopes. Transport vehicles pass by so seldom, and they are always jam-packed. You are completely at the mercy of the driver...though to their credit, the fares charged are consistent with the distance covered, at NPR 6 per km.

The next village with lodging, Mangelsen, is 37 km away on the side of the mountain...easy to get to. But after that is a 130 km stretch of rugged mountain & river road connecting Sudarpaschim to Karnali province with no sizable villages for the entire stretch. Is there even going to be shared transport options along that route? Who knows. Hitchhiking is hardly an option when there are close to zero private cars roadtripping along these hilly highways. You can only hope a coach bus shows up and covers the distance you need to go in order to continue eastward.

File: IMG20260517181008.jpg (3.58 MB, 2256x4000)

3.58 MB JPG

>>2882367
I already completed the overland traverse from Bangkok all the way down to Johor Bahru. It's a seriously long journey, though still much easier than traversing these goddamn Himalayas.

Would rather visit Nakhon Ratchasima and Ubon Ratchathani, check off a few new provinces. Continue living cheap, eat good food for a change, stroll the flat wide roads of the provincial towns, and forget all about chasing rugged scenery. Hopefully those rural provinces still have cheap weed easily available...

>>2882378
You could have got weed easily from the nigerians in delhi. even if you get caught if you pay the cops 1000 rupees or so they let you go

>>2882391
Nope, the weed-smoking Nigerians are few in number, and they're also very suspicious of strangers. They're not hawking or smoking joints on the sidewalk in India, that's for damn sure. And even if you do get a connection to a seller, they're going to price-gouge you. I'm not such an addict that I'd pay $15+ USD for a gram of hydroponic skunk weed that is going to stink up my hotel room and get me in trouble. Most Indians smoke village weed that smells like a burning brush pile and has maybe 2% THC content. I passed by quite a few people smoking in public in India.

Nepal also has a cannabis culture, with the stuff growing wild in many hilly areas. Decades back, there used to be hash shops in Kathmandu before the US government pressured Nepal to outlaw the herb. Villagers remain very discreet about their cannabis usage. I haven't seen anyone smoke weed in public here, nor has anyone offered weed to me. There are also a surprisingly large number of police in Nepal, mainly standing at traffic checkpoints on the edge of villages. Evidently it's to curb drunk driving. One hardass policeman at a checkpoint started searching my bag as I entered the country, but I casually told him it only contained laundry and he lost interest in pawing through my dirty clothes.

>these slums arent dense enough
>the men arent brown and sweaty enough
>women are on their phones
>my feet hurt

Sounds like slumtard ran out of gay indian cocks to suck and is feeling a bit catty after a few days without dravidian spooge lubing his cheeks.

>>2882564
Ah, yes. Another day, another fantasy about gay buttsex with sweaty unwashed Indian guys

>>2882367
>come to malaysia bro lets fuck shit up
What are you doing in Malaysia to fuck shit up?
>nothing bro

>>2882553
hash is the best, that sucks

One week in Nepal is complete!
>Total spending: $132 USD or $18.95 per day
This is the lowest first-week spending figure of any Asian country I've been to.
>Lodging: $62.50 or $8.92 per night
Room prices are very low here, especially if you go for the cheaper options with cold water, no A/C, or hallway bathroom.
>Food: $339 or $5.55 per day
Same cost as India. But I did skip meals on several occasions. The mountain roads can leave you feeling sick, especially if the driver is a hellraiser.
>Transport: $14 to cover 286 km
Almost twice as expensive as India per km. It also sucks a lot more. Overcrowding, random departure times, etc. Hours of bullshitting and phone calls before departure and all along the route are the norm. The Mahindra I rode today didn't even have benches in the back. The driver was an asshole and after two hours of bullshitting around he abruptly took off in the wrong direction with my luggage in the back. I rushed out into the road to stop him, but a fellow passenger convinced me not to stop him. "In ten minutes he'll be back, he's just picking up some guy on the other side of town". Nearly an hour goes by, and a coach bus passes through the village with seats available, but I can't hop on board because I let the guy drive off with my bags like a cuck. Lesson learned; keep your bags by your side and never trust these fucking drivers.
>Laundry: $7.30
Ripoff pricing, but at least it was ready in 24 hours.
>SIM card and phone service: $4.60 for a 30 day plan with 40 GB of data
Very easy to get, stores all over sell SIM cards. Data speed is trash, barely usable for the simplest tasks at times.
>Beer: $3.60 for two cans
Mindblowing how prevalent alcohol is here. Every single restaurant and most shops have a liquor cabinet or a beer fridge. But drinks are not cheap here. Even soft drinks cost double their price in India.

A room with attached bathroom here cost only $5.30 USD. Picture can't upload because the Nepal Telecom network is refusing to give me 4G coverage here in Mangalsen. This OPPO phone takes awful photos anyway, much worse than the old Motorola despite its four cameras.

So far, none of these villages are worth more than a single night's stay. Which means tomorrow will be a sixth consecutive day of travel through these hills. Human habitation on every hand, from the highest hills to the river-bottom valleys, terraced along the slopes. At night with so many lights strewn across the hillsides, you really get a sense of just how populated the region is.

Lack of trust has made it difficult to be friendly with the locals. In fact I've become more wary here than I was back in India, just because so many of the guys look like scruffy unemployed drunks, whose friendly mannerisms toward a white guy mask a fierce desperation to get their hands on some of that American money. Nepal is a low-crime society, but it is also a low-trust society, where keys are never left in a motorbike parked on the street.

File: IMG20260518191243.jpg (2.97 MB, 4000x2256)

2.97 MB JPG

Anyway, this was Mangelsen, a hillside slum built on ten different levels. There was a government palace on a hilltop that was rebuilt after the communists attacked and destroyed it back in 2002. Thick wildfire smoke has been plaguing the hilly areas lately, ruining the vistas at sunset. There were still quite a few people hanging out.

https://kathmandupost.com/sudurpaschim-province/2026/05/08/achham-palace-rebuilt-after-maoist-attack-remains-unused-14-months-after-inauguration

To continue onward, it was necessary to walk 2 km uphill to the far edge of town, where a Mahindra left for Karnali province with the usual load of people crammed in anywhere they could fit. The townspeople offered to bring me on a tuktuk, but I declined.

File: IMG20260519172103.jpg (2.21 MB, 4000x2256)

2.21 MB JPG

After climbing up to 2100 meters elevation, the Mahindra descended to 650 meters at the crossing of the frothy, fast-flowing Karnali River, which marks the boundary between Sudarpaschim and Karnali province. Making some progress at last! The village of Rakam, with hotels and restaurants aplenty, was located 6 km upriver of the junction, but the transport vehicle was headed downriver. The locals offered a tuktuk, but I refused and flagged down one of the minibuses passing by. A 19 year old daredevil drove it like a maniac with his laughing friends. They asked 100 rupees for the short ride, but I told them 50, and since they were impatient to continue on, I handed over 60 and they took off.

Roads are awful in this area, evidently due to a recent flash flood that destroyed the pavement in every water crossing and also trigged many mudslides. The Karnali river highway sees a huge number of transport vehicles passing along it. I'm thinking about ascending to Jumla district, which is closer to Tibet than India. With the thick haze ruining the vistas, is it even worth going all that distance trying to get a glimpse of some snowy peaks? Besides, the highway turns into a dirt trail up there. Yes, there are endless backcountry villages and trails to explore up in that high terrain. But I just don't feel up for a trekking adventure deep into the mountains, where I will have to endure cold weather and rain, climb steep rocky trails, eat awful peasant food and sleep in a filthy shack or tent surrounded by quiet staring children and old people. Travel along the principal highway is difficult enough.

File: IMG20260519173340.jpg (2.85 MB, 4000x2256)

2.85 MB JPG

The truth has been revealed. I'm not one of those Real Travelers. The Himalayans offer difficult adventure far beyond my comfort zone of short bus trips, short day hikes, and plenty of time spent relaxing in the room.

Tonight I'm ready to chill in a comfy A/C room with a big soft mattress and a water heater for a change...even if it is the most expensive room available out of the dozen hotels in the village at 2000 rupees per night. Why, that's only $13 USD per night. None of the other places of lodging in this village had A/C rooms, and the beds all have thin pads instead of real mattresses.

The cave-like gloom of windowless restaurant shacks with grimy cooking setups, rank odors and flies swarming everywhere has made it difficult to get a good appetite going. At least a few owners have renovated their joints to be bright and clean and cozy inside. Some of them even have printed menus. If you're starving and unsure what to eat, momos are a good option. They are popular with locals, so they're always freshly made, and quite tasty as well.

>>2882624
>especially if you go for the cheaper options with cold water, no A/C, or hallway bathroom.
This guy...

File: IMG20260519170739.jpg (2.86 MB, 4000x2256)

2.86 MB JPG

Nepalese have no more concept of aesthetic beautification than Indians do. South Asian development is simply hideous. But at least my fourth-floor room faces away from the highway to look out over a pastoral gully. Nice and quiet up here. Rarely do you get plagued with noise in Nepalese villages. Even the street dogs don't seem to bark as much as their Indian counterparts, and hotel keepers are happy to give you a room facing away from the road if that's what you want. Earplugs haven't been necessary so far here.

Quite a few guys here approach me for a chat, though I respond with neutral indifference and don't show any desire or appreciation for overtures of friendship. They always seem perplexed as to the purpose of my journey across their country, particularly along this difficult route. In their mind, tourists are supposed to be enjoying themselves in the company of friends or a woman. They are supposed to hire private transport and go straight to the tourist destinations, where they can spend money having a good time. But I'm determined to do this journey my own way, village by village to Kathmandu over the course of four weeks, following the principal highways on Google Maps and getting a glimpse at the travails of daily life in this land of endless hills.

>>2882907
Nothing wrong with that

File: IMG20260520112332.jpg (2.67 MB, 4000x2256)

2.67 MB JPG

A typical plate of Nepalese momos, eaten in a windowless restaurant so dark (even with the one dim lightbulb on) that flash photography is necessary. Price for a plate of ten ranges from 120 to 180 rupees. These were 120 and their flavor was lacking. Today was a day of eating cheap crappy food. One restaurant here offered a chicken kanna set for 400 rupees, ready in an hour or so. Half an hour later I saw them burning the feathers off a freshly killed chicken in a fire. That chicken plate wasn't going to be ready for a long time.

Regarding the darkness so prevalent in the village shacks...glass windows are still a luxury in the mountains of Nepal. Wooden shutters are the norm for houses, if they even have windows. Many don't.

>>2883134
>Half an hour later I saw them burning the feathers off a freshly killed chicken in a fire. That chicken plate wasn't going to be ready for a long time.
I used to go to one of those butchers where they kill the chicken and chop it up in front of you. It takes like 15 minutes from live chicken to meat

>>2883134
are vegtables or daal going to make you shit too? also have you seen anything cool to do with hinduism and buddhism?

File: IMG20260520162457.jpg (4.56 MB, 4000x2256)

4.56 MB JPG

Today's journey took me 85 km up the Karnali Highway, a road through a horrible endless gorge that nature destroys with floods and rockslides faster than man can repair it. It's called Nepal's deadliest highway, and has been featured in several documentaries. A branch of the Karnali River rushes alongside through bouldery rapids of extreme violence, sometimes right next to the road, but more often far below it on a treacherous dropoff that is constantly needing reinforcement. The road surface is more rocky sections than pavement, though repairs and paving are underway everywhere you look. At some points, the bus had to squeeze past gigantic overhanging shelves of rock, leaving only a foot to spare on the dropoff side.

To help defray the costs of construction, the government of Nepal fixes very high fares for bus travel. My fare from Rakam cost 1600 rupees or over $10 USD - that's triple the rate of my first bus ride here in Nepal. The high earnings from this route incentive a huge number of transport vehicles to make the difficult journey. Despite the poverty of the mountains and the high bus fares, demand for transport remains extremely high, as the highway is the only connection to the capital city of Sukhet for hundreds of thousands of mountain dwellers. Every transport vehicle is jam-packed with people and piled high with merchandise on top.

During past years like 2010, people starved to death when mass flooding wiped out the Karnali Highway and made it impossible to bring goods into the mountains short of trekking for dozens of kilometers along footpaths. For some reason, nobody uses burros or mules up here. All packing of goods along footpaths is done on people's backs, with a strap around their forehead. Women carry heavy loads more often than men do.

>>2882909
>>2882624
Anon can you talk about your extreme passion for ... frugality? noh8 but the amount of scrutiny that is shed on what I would consider extremely cheap ($9!) rooms is totally foreign to me. Is it because of long-haul traveling + small budget, are you saving for something... or do you just love da struggle lol

>>2883146
he's dutch

File: IMG20260520191041.jpg (2.85 MB, 4000x2256)

2.85 MB JPG

Nagma village was where the ride ended, so that's where I'm staying. Don't forget to segregate your trash as you throw it off the side of the hill! Cardboard boxes in one area, glass bottles in another, plastic in a third. The slopes all around the village have been denuded of trees; a surprisingly rare sight in a country where wood cookfires are still the norm.

Despite being 2000 meters above sea level, temps have barely dropped after dark - a heatwave must be underway. A quick check of weather in Delhi reveals that it's a very good time of year to be at altitude.

Nepal for all its faults is a very hospitable country, much like Laos. Search for hotels on Google Maps and you will get a "no results found" error, but don't let this fool you. If you zoom in to the maximum level in any highway village, you will see many places of lodging appear. There are even more hotels IRL than the map shows. A far cry from many other countries, like India or even Thailand, where sizable villages will have very few places of lodging, making it essential to plan ahead and pick a town with lodging options to spend the night in.

Here in Nepal, it's considered obligatory for hotelkeepers to offer food to their guests. But the cheap hotel restaurants inside the lobby always smell stale and yucky, and they look completely unpatronized as well.
>>2883142
Loss of appetite, bad digestion and low energy is part of travel in highly impoverished places. As long as I don't get outright food poisoning, it's okay. Part of the struggle that is life.
>religious stuff
Everyone has the dots on their heads up here, but I saw a lot more ooga booga temple activities in India. Indian temples were also much larger and more conspicuous with their colorful spires. Nepalese shrines look like a dumping ground for random knick-knacks, and temples are inconspicuous.

File: IMG20260518183857.jpg (3.36 MB, 4000x2256)

3.36 MB JPG

>>2883146
In India - the country with the world's fastest rising hotel prices - I was a frugal bargain hunter always hunting for a deal and protesting when they tried to charge me $16 USD for a basic-ass non A/C room before offering $13 USD like it was some kind of special deal.

But I'm not a bargain hunter in Nepal. The same basic-ass non A/C room with attached bathroom is offered upfront for $6.50 here at any property you go to. Reasons are several:
>lack of local spending power, i.e. most fornicators can't afford rooms
>lack of prosperous Indian businessmen and corrupt babus who pay inflated rates for rooms without a care
>glut of hotel supply in every village due to past hopes of a tourism boom in Nepal - versus a dearth of hotel supply in India
>stagnant tourism economy in the Nepalese hinterlands - versus every scenic corner of India being flooded with Instagram pajeets
>steadily devaluing currency, which ensures that USD price declines over time if the market fails to justify room rate hikes
It's the perfect combination of factors keeping room prices depressed in rural Nepal. Hotel prices aren't affected much by the supply chain dynamics which jack up prices of food and transport even in an impoverished remote area (one could say especially in an impoverished remote area). Hotels in areas with tourist potential are a long-term investment which may not make bank for decades. Construction costs are sunk costs, forgotten over time. ROI may be very low for years, but what if traveling the Karnali Highway becomes an Instagram fad among foreigners next year? At least that's what every hotel owner hopes. Renting $5 per night rooms is still better than sitting on a stack of Nepalese rupees in the bank and watching it lose value on a weekly basis.

HOW COOMING IN NEPAL? NEPAL COOMING GUIDE? GUIDE FOR SEX IN NEPAL? THANKS

>>2883146
>$9 room
>cheap
lol. ngmi

>>2883146
Not him but I've been interested in cheap rooms as well. I love basement bargain rates for good purchases and sometimes feel like I'm almost getting something for practically free. I used to be a gigabrokie who slept outside sometimes and hitchhiked around. I also backpacked around parts of SEA in hostels.
Now I'm not anywhere near that financially constrained, but I still have those habits and that perspective from a lifetime of poverty.

File: IMG20260521101903.jpg (2.11 MB, 4000x2256)

2.11 MB JPG

Simple Nepali breakfast for 150 rupees (99 cents). Add a foamy glass of raita (buttermilk) for an extra 50 rupees. Then it's time to cover the last 32 km to Chandranath, the seat of Jumla district.

File: IMG20260521132243.jpg (3.6 MB, 4000x2256)

3.6 MB JPG

The most rustic-looking ATM I've ever used...but it promptly dispensed the withdrawal limit of 20000 rupees for a 625 rupee access fee, so my cash worries are gone.

Chandannath is located in a spacious and reasonably flat valley deep in the mountains at 2400 meters elevation. It is the largest town in the area, but it doesn't feel crowded because it is not hemmed in by steep terrain like everywhere else I've been in the past week. After eight consecutive days of travel to this last outpost of civilization, it's a good place to rest. Tibet is only 75 km away as the crow flies.

File: Screenshot_2026-05-21-13-(...).jpg (1.09 MB, 2178x979)

1.09 MB JPG

Himalayan travels so far - most hotel stays show up as yellow pins. The big detour down to the lowlands was unfortunately required to access the Nepali immigration office in Gadda Chauki.

Chandannath is the end of the designated highway, bumpy and rocky as it is; beyond are only primitive roads leading to hundreds of remote villages scattered all throughout the high Himalayan region of Karnali province. I'm tempted to hardshipmaxx and delve further into this most remote region of the country...but with only 17 nights remaining until my departure flight, Nepal time is rapidly running down, and there is still a whole lot of country to cover until Kathmandu.

File: IMG20260521113109~2.jpg (2.19 MB, 4000x2256)

2.19 MB JPG

Villagers arguing over who gets to ride to Jumla Bazar. The back rows got so full that the driver ended up sharing his seat with a passenger, kek. But I had the front passenger seat to myself, which was comfy. Foreigner privilege is definitely a thing here. Foreigners get priority attention and special help just for existing in Nepal.

File: IMG20260521131325.jpg (2.49 MB, 4000x2256)

2.49 MB JPG

>>2883199
$8.50 is the deluxe room option. At that steep nightly rate you get such luxurious amenities as a handwashing sink, upholstered walls, window screens, a padded chair, a table and a thicc mattress.
>>2883155
Can't help you there, pal. Some unmarried village women seem interested in me, but I don't feel any attraction toward them. Human intimacy is disgusting desu. It's all I can handle being crammed shoulder to shoulder in a minibus.

File: IMG20260521173730.jpg (3.11 MB, 4000x2256)

3.11 MB JPG

Went to a cafe and ordered a plate of chicken wings. Sorry we don't have chicken wings, only chicken rings. Same price. They eventually bring me a plate, but instead of nice meaty pieces of chicken, they are fried bread rings blended with tiny scraps of chicken. I complain, but eat them anyway because I was very hungry. The guy behind the register tries to get the girl to charge it as a full plate at 350 rupees, but because I complained, she charges it as a half plate at 185 rupees. Okay. I then order two sausages, which in the picture looked fat and juicy as a Lao or Thai sausage. Instead I get tasteless hot dogs that seem made of 50% wheat flour. Gross. Lastly a muffin, which was completely dried-out and also devoid of flavor. And this is at one of the nicest eateries in the village.

I swear, Nepali food is worse than the Philippines. At least in PH you can satisfy your fastfood chinkslop cravings with some lumpia, pancit or fried porkchop - greasy and indigestion inducing, but laden with MSG deliciousness. Nepalese somehow manage to make everything taste either flavorless or downright awful with their artless use of spices.

Everyone tries to overcharge me in Karnali province too. A water bottle with an MRP of 20 rupees is offered for 50 before dropping to 35 when I protest. A chicken kanna plate is offered for 500 when the typical price is 250-300. Twice now I've been highballed with room rates at cheap hotels. And the dishonesty goes beyond mere ripoffs. Can't leave a water bottle unattended on the table for ten seconds without some boy walking in and stealing it. I hit him on the arm and made him give it back to me. Ironic how a couple weeks in Nepal is giving me the jeet fatigue that five plus months in India failed to induce. People are friendly, but instead of fondness I'm feeling only annoyance.

>>2883370
Squad

>>2883428
damn glad I skipped it desu. Or maybe kathmandu is better

Head to some of the trekking hotspots around Annapurna, accommodation is free in a lot of the tea houses provided you take your meals there.

Food is basic but filling, Nepal seems to have a shortage of ingredients outside of major cities, assume this has more to do with the difficulty of transporting goods into the more remote areas so be cautious of eating things where freshness is a requirement to avoid sickness, i.e. meat.

If you are looking for a more cost effective way to get your alcohol fix ask for 'raksi', similar to sake it's distilled from fermented rice or grains and is quite enjoyable warmed.

File: IMG20260522113614.jpg (3.28 MB, 4000x2256)

3.28 MB JPG

>>2883531
A local guide I met yesterday strongly recommended Mustang district in Gandaki province for scenery, which must be the area you are referring to as it is near the Annapurna Conservation Area. The highway going to Mustang district from Pokhara seems very straightforward, ascending a scenic dammed river valley hemmed in by snowy peaks before achieving the 4600 meter elevation of the Tibet Plateau on the border with China. Pokhara is a major foreign tourist destination. Nepal's most aesthetic city or something like that.

Ripoffs are prevalent, but far from universal. Many shops and eateries charge fair prices. Yesterday I bought a cold bottle of 5% ABV Barahsinghe dry hopped pilsner for 450 rupees; the printed MRP was 430. Ironically, all the shops trying to charge me 500 for a 350 bottle of Tuborg Strong didn't even have their beer in a fridge.
>I put in freezer, five minutes wait, it'll be cold, okay?
Uh, no. It takes hours to chill a bottle of beer from 26 C ambient temp. Anyways I'm not a fan of the strong beers; they give a Steel Reserve tier buzz that hits hard and leaves you feeling yucky afterwards.

Jumla district is charming to a degree; the roads are awful and the creek running through town is strewn with foul wet rubbish, but the old stone houses with their blue angled roofs have a unique Himalayan aesthetic. People are curious and a little shy. Education levels are surprisingly high, and most people understand basic English words. You can't rush things here; everything happens at a slow pace.

The climate at 2500 meters elevation has been feeling like Colorado in summertime. Clouds billow up in the afternoon warmth, but dryness will persist for a few more days according to the forecast. My room temp is currently 80 F in mid-afternoon. A little warm for sleeping in the evening, but past midnight it cools off nicely with the windows open. No mosquitoes up here.

File: IMG20260522113704.jpg (3.28 MB, 4000x2256)

3.28 MB JPG

>>2883433
Kathmandu is much wealthier than the countryside, a proper world capital city. Street View makes Kathmandu look well-kept and orderly, not like your typical Indian city at all. There are sidewalks and parking enforcement as well, so the roadsides are very neat, and parked cars don't obstruct the traffic lanes. But it's still a city, with all the indifferent attitudes and traffic noise that urban life entails.

Tranquil Jumla is more my kind of place. The low ambient noise level is greatly appreciated after all those months in India. There's not many places in Asia where you can pick your altitude like you can in Nepal. Do you want to stay at 400 meters? 1400? 2400? Or how about 3400? No special permits required in Nepal for outlying regions, unlike India. And the tourist infrastructure, while sub-par, is still 100% serviceable. You can get a place to sleep, and a hot meal, and a ride to the next town no matter where you are on the map.

It takes both skill and luck to pick out the decent food here. Add to that taste buds which gradually adapt to a lack of titillating flavors. This morning I even found a cafe serving real cheesecake and moist banana bread. Of course you have to temper your expectations with cheap food. If you are paying 50 rupees for the chicken on your chicken & dal rice plate, guess how much chicken you're going to get? 50 rupees worth, which is barely a mouthful. 350-450 rupees ($2-3 USD) worth of meat is what it takes to satisfy protein cravings.

Yes, I would recommend visiting Nepal if you are a budget traveler who wants to escape the tropical heat...but I wouldn't recommend going village to village across the entire freaking country in 28 days. Pick one province that interests you and explore it at a leisurely pace, starting from its principal city. Ask locals for recommendations; they will be happy to direct you to the places worth visiting.

>>2883553
>Ripoffs are prevalent, but far from universal. Many shops and eateries charge fair prices. Yesterday I bought a cold bottle of 5% ABV Barahsinghe dry hopped pilsner for 450 rupees; the printed MRP was 430. Ironically, all the shops trying to charge me 500 for a 350 bottle of Tuborg Strong didn't even have their beer in a fridge.
Ask for some chang, should be much cheaper than any imports. Raksi too

>>2883559
What are the advantages of Nepal over India? Seems the same thing but more expensive

>>2883584
Biggest advantage for foreigners...
Nepal doesn't have that pesky C Form requirement for foreign hotel guests. Some parts of India are really bad. An entire street of hotels, and all but the most expensive $40/night property refuses foreign guests. It's very common for the better budget hotels in India to have no vacancies as well, even if they do accept foreigners. Of course, such hassles are forgotten as soon as you luck into a good room and decide to stick around a while, but every time you go to a new place in India, you'll have to go through the same bullshit. By contrast, arriving in a new place in Nepal is very relaxing. You know there are going to be plenty of rooms to pick from.

Also, is Nepal really more expensive than Kashmir or Himachal, or the tourist-trap mountain villages of the west coast states? I'm gonna say no, it isn't. India is infamous for ripping off tourists during high season, so much so that Indians were flying to Phuket to save money on their beach vacation - even as Westerners gripe about Thailand becoming too expensive.

Room rates, restaurants, shared taxi transport, you name it. All of it costs drastically higher in a destination with tourist appeal than it does in an ordinary Indian city. And the food often sucks in those Indian tourist restaurants too. That's why they always sit empty until a huge group of touristcattle descends on the place and orders a slew of mediocre overpriced dishes.

Go to a bar in most Indian cities and they try to charge you $4 for a bottle of beer. Same as they do here in Nepal. The only area where India is markedly cheaper than Nepal (comparing equivalent regions) is in public transport, because India has an incredibly extensive government-run transport network. Nepal's transport is private and barely regulated.

>>2883730
>Go to a bar in most Indian cities and they try to charge you $4 for a bottle of beer. Same as they do here in Nepal.
Seems somewhat unlikely, unless you're going to extremely touristy places
>In 2025, the average monthly salary in India is approximately ₹28,000, which translates to about $337 in USD.

File: IMG20260522121947.jpg (4.14 MB, 4000x2256)

4.14 MB JPG

Rice planting underway in a tiny hillside field. The men plow with the water buffalo, while the women plant the rice shoots and the children bring them over.
>>2883739
I'm talking about a 650 mL bottle, not a 330 mL bottle. A bottle of Tuborg which sells for 250 Indian rupees at the liquor store will sell for 350 rupees at a typical bar, which is basically $4.

Anyway, I washed up at Manma this evening, high on a mountaintop overlooking a long terraced slope of agrarian villages with the awful gorge of the Karnali River at the bottom. Yesterday's thundershower brought cooler temps and a temporary reprieve from haze to the region. Leaving Jumla I even got a glimpse of several snowy peaks in the distance, steaming in the bright morning sun (or maybe it was the wind kicking up the fresh snow). First sighting of snowy peaks in Nepal, and it lasted about ten seconds before the road curved and they disapppeared from view. Now the haze is back, ruining the vista like it has all throughout this trip.

I stopped by a family's second-story house on the edge of Manma. Their kitchen had a table for guests to sit and eat. They cooked a delicious full meal with both mutton and chicken options in a very primitive setting...a wood fire on the floor. Dishes placed on the floor for serving. The owner's daughter gravitated to me, being awfully bold and chatty, even putting her hand on my knee and asking me to take her to Thailand with me. But she was 14, in 9th grade, kekek. Her parents seemed to be encouraging her, while also acting a little cagey and avoiding eye contact with me.

The kanna plate when it was finally ready was quite delicious with great flavor. There was also Nepali cherries, cucumber, veg sabji and homemade chutney made with fire-roasted tomatoes.

File: IMG20260522114434.jpg (3.79 MB, 2256x4000)

3.79 MB JPG

The girl (whose name was Sauri, sounded like sorry) thought I was angry with her, but that's just how my face has been for months now. Ready to endure whatever hardships arise, mind on my money and money on my mind, perpetually on guard for any shenanigans, always second-guessing people's intentions, avoiding any emotional reaction to stimuli. What was I supposed to do? She even said that I should marry her. Maybe her parents were merely embarrassed, but my mind immediately assumed some kind of sextortion scheme was being attempted whereby I would fall for her youthful charms, take her back to my room and then be confronted by a bunch of angry village men the next morning demanding I pay her father a large sum of money.

She naively seemed to think I would offer some kind of escape from the drudgery of a villager's wife, which would ruin her doll-like looks, but I told her outright that I did not want to be stuck working to meet a wife's lofty financial expectations. She stopped being so flirty after that, but her parents called her out for dinner and we all chatted via translator app some more. Overall it was a pleasant evening with good food, good company and the warmth of a smoldering wood fire. I didn't make any wrong moves, but as usual, there is a feeling of missing out on life by being so wary and averse to any kind of entanglement with other humans.

File: Screenshot 2026-05-22 201524.png (1.85 MB, 1354x661)

1.85 MB PNG

This is the route I intend to take across the country. Many more long days of travel are ahead.

>>2883750
you are definitely the best writer on this board (other than me)
its just weird you have such a near-purely antagonistic relationship with the locals
and I dont get why everyone here only goes to asia and stays for months at a time

>>2883752
my dude like pick another country you hate less
you are gonna eat this same meal 50 more times before you leave

>>2883751
You dodged a bullet. Age of consent is 18 in Nepal. You could have been jailed, extorted, etc
Or she could have genuinely liked you and wanted to fuck without motive. Women are coomers too. But that's outside your risk profile I think

>>2883753
It's not antagonism, it's the norm in public interactions here, particularly when they involve business. South Asians can be very curt and argumentative, but at a low level. (Yes, videos of brawls go viral, but for such a huge population, nasty arguments involving insults and violence are surprisingly rare.) Their mannerisms are merely an assertion of self-interest and a test of wills in a culture where you can't point to any rulebook and say "but the rules say you need to do this!"

Yes, people who approach with friendly overtures expect them to be reciprocated, and are disappointed when I remain aloof. But as a general rule they tolerate my personality as it is, realizing that my life hasn't been one of pampered ease, optimism and trustfulness.

The American style of fake niceness and smiles when she's thinking "ick, an incel" or he's thinking "this guy is a real weirdo" doesn't exist here.
>why does everyone go to Asia
It's significantly cheaper than any other continent, while also being incredibly vast and diverse. It's the only continent where non-Abrahamic religions and non-Romanized languages remain dominant.

File: IMG20260524080311.jpg (3.29 MB, 4000x2256)

3.29 MB JPG

Manma perched on top of its ridgeline at a cool altitude. View is from my hotel balcony. Rooms here ranged in price from 500-1500 rupees. I went for a 1200 ($8) room with a desk, large windows and plenty of space inside.
>>2883762
There was definitely a financial motive. Five daughters and one son in the family, everybody very poor, men being invited into their family kitchen to drink alcohol, eat dinner and socialize. You have to wonder, did she offer her company to men on a regular basis? I told her that living alone meant no drama, no expectations, and no demands on my time and energy from people in my life. She replied and said that that was a very bad way to live.

>>2883848
>I told her that living alone meant no drama, no expectations, and no demands on my time and energy from people in my life. She replied and said that that was a very bad way to live.
The thirdie family unit is a fascinating thing, generational households where they're all jockeying for position constantly in order to be one of the ones who get to sit around doing nothing

File: IMG20260523151923.jpg (4.53 MB, 4000x2256)

4.53 MB JPG

Random stretch of Karnali Highway at a point where the road dips almost to water level. People who complain about legroom on airplanes should try to ride a bus in Nepal. They are built for 5'6" manlets. In India my knees were usually pressed against the seat back, but I still fit. Here, I don't fit in the seat row at all. One knee has to stick out into the aisle, while the other leg is wedged at an angle against the seat back. It's all an exercise in endurance.

So much freaking baggage on the bus, and nobody wants to put anything on the roof, so passengers had to step on the seats and clamber over piles of luggage to get to the back. This last 92 km ride down the Karnali Highway was among the most arduous of all my rides so far. One section of the highway skirts several gorges to climb up a steep ridge and pass through a mountaintop village. WTF, couldn't you route this bitch along the river? Why do we have to go zig-zagging all the way up here only to go back down to the river?

Stubbornness wasted my time today. A bus came by two minutes after I finished eating lunch, but because it wasn't going to Dailekh Bazar, I declined a ride. Two hours' wait for the next bus (which traversed the exact same route) gave me plenty of time to berate myself for being a dumbfuck who turns down a perfectly good ride. Nope, there are no buses from Manma to Dailekh Bazar, which is located along an alternate road to the Karnali Highway. So I had to stay in Dungeshwar, a confluence village located down in the sweltering river valley...or else bump on through the darkness for three more hours on the way to Surkhet.

File: IMG20260524171211.jpg (4.9 MB, 4000x2256)

4.9 MB JPG

The confluence of a smaller waterway with the Karnali River usually provides enough space for a squalid little village. This one had particularly bad roads and hideous-looking shacks. Selling cheap food and snacks to travelers is how they make a living. Naked boys bathing in the sunshine are a common sight; the teens and adults are much more modest and avoid unclothing themselves in public. Chickens roam the restaurant floors as freely as the flies do; nobody chases them away. BTW Nepal is the most fly-ridden place I have ever been to. Swarms of flies everywhere you go in the summer season.

File: IMG20260524203736.jpg (2.75 MB, 4000x2256)

2.75 MB JPG

This 350 rupee chicken kanna plate at my hotel was downright delicious, and even now the delectable cooking smells are pervading my room. The cold bottle of beer was also offered at the locals' price of 350 rupees, as was the bus ride to this village and the room I am staying in, which cost 800 rupees ($5.30 USD). Nice to be spared the tourist surcharge for a change...though there were still several attempts to charge a higher price when it came time to pay. The hotel owner touched her lips to the 1000 rupee note I handed her and then wouldn't give me back my change. She kept trying to distract me by talking about dinner, but I insisted she honor the room price her son quoted me. We were at an impasse, but her son returned and ran the numbers on a calculator, so she relented and forked over the dough. When paying for dinner, her daughter gave me too much change before realizing her mistake and grabbing it back. Evidently she didn't realize that white people are anal about fairness and would insist on getting the correct change even if the error was in their favor. Nepalis OTOH are opportunistic. I left my half-full water bottle on my seat in the bus and somebody stole it. That's like my fourth water bottle so far that has been snatched by a random. BTW not once in all my India travels did anyone steal my water or any other item of mine.

It's quite hot down here by the river, which is why I wanted to stay up in Dailekh Bazar (1400 meters elevation versus 600 meters here). But this is where I ended up as dusk fell. 86 F in this cheap-o room at 10 PM, fan whistling overhead. Tomorrow there remains a 66 km stretch of highway until Surkhet.

>>2883988
>Two hours' wait for the next bus
What do you do while waiting?

>>2884008
Same as the locals do. A little phone scrolling if there is data signal, but mostly watching village life and traffic pass by from whatever shady spot is available.

This property had a Samsung washing machine on their back porch, designed for Third World usage. You pour buckets of water into the tub, add detergent and turn on the agitator. Then you turn a dial to drain the tub, pour some more buckets of water in for the rinse, drain it again, take your dripping wet clothes out and put them in the separate spin drum to wring out. Laundry was hung on a line and dry in four hours, and remarkably, no payment was required.

Only 13 more nights left in the country after tonight, with at least 750 km to go until Kathmandu, taking the most direct route along the lowland plains to Pokhara and then continuing onward to the capital city. No rest for the wicked...

>>2883993
Im reading though some of your posts, but I feel like youre a magnet to shitty situations.
You skip national park because of 10dol tickect...is writing here about that a part of your mental gymnastics regarding you being cheap?
Like I get this type of travel, but its its probabably not like you cant pay additional few dollars to expirience something more.
Its a difference between living frugal with cash and just being overly cheap.
I visited Nepal like 11y ago and I remember it being best 3rd world destination when it comes to locals being helpful, smiling, without any scamers or similar trash, way better than idnia or ceilon. Dunno if it changed so much, but I think it have more to do with how, when and with what mindset do you travel mate.

>>2883762
>Age of consent is 18 in Nepal
Anywhere you go outside the US the legal age is 18. As a citizen of the land of the free you are being watched everywhere you go and that is the legal limit you are allowed.

you should or should've visited meghalaya or nagaland, least traversed place by tourists, also rains a lot so would be a relief from the heat

>>2884177
They set that law to save face. They have no jurisdiction and no way of enforcing it. Local AoC is a much riskier thing to trifle with.

File: IMG20260525143526.jpg (3.44 MB, 4000x2256)

3.44 MB JPG

>>2884174
It's not even shitty situations, it's just the ordinary routine way of life here in middle of nowhere Nepal.
>being overly cheap
My daily budget has consistently averaged $20 per day throughout South Asia, so yes I dislike anything which skews that average off course.

Dungeshwor has treated me pretty good. Drank two bottles of beer for my b-day, then met a guy who shared some weed on his family's rooftop before trying hard to rope me into his online gaming scheme.
>without any scammers
Uh, okay. The minute I tell people I'm from the USA I see their eyes light up with greed here. The young guys - who affect a ghetto style of dress and listen to rap music - all crave a pocket full of American dollars more than anything else in the world. You must've stuck to the affluent scenic parts of the country where business is brisk enough that everybody is prospering, and you yourself are likewise prosperous enough to drop ten bucks here and twenty there like it was pocket change, not giving a whit about overpaying. Why scam somebody and risk a nasty argument when you can just charge them 50% extra for routine services and they will pay up without demur?

File: IMG20260525150325.jpg (3.45 MB, 4000x2256)

3.45 MB JPG

Dungeshwor temple in the center. Nepalese temples are very unassuming. They blend in with their surroundings.
>>2884186
Meghalaya is also at elevation, so it stays cool. Nagaland is torn by insurgency and as such is a restricted area for foreign tourists. Special group permits are required to visit.

File: Screenshot 2026-05-25 234522.png (41 KB, 895x508)

41 KB PNG

Breakdown of two weeks' spending in Nepal

>>2884246
I was in kathmandu, went all the way to chitwan national patk and done some treking around pokhara and in the region.
Ive been to popular places as well as going through literal mudhouse tier villages with few houses or stuff like brick and oil factories (which were run down buildings in the middle of field). All in all, I think the problem isnt about you being in more ghetto parts of nepal but maybe about you really looking the part of a hamburger that just need to be scammed friend.
Like I said, i didnt had any bad expirience with locals, moreover ive been asked to accompany village chef on elephant because they had bread festival and thought it would be cool to have whiteman with them, kids being overal great, showing some deserted stupas and posing to photos by giving them stuff like pen, not to mention of numerous locals that were super nice and proposed stuff like tea on the trek. All of them smiling despite living in poverty.
From what Ive heard from locals the worst places are most popular ones- like temples in kathmandu with scammer touts, which I havent run into.
In comparison to smth like srilanka it was haven, because on lanka i was swarmed by locals almost every way I went. I could make a comparison to all other 3rd world countries and the only other one that I thought was on par regarding locals was syria (before the war).

>>2884282
sri lanka has a lot of scams? did you coom there?

>>2884188
All someone has to do is report you and you're fucked.
And small portable cameras are everywhere.

>>2884331
How can they report?

File: IMG20260525174739.jpg (2.79 MB, 4000x2256)

2.79 MB JPG

>>2884282
LOL, nobody has tried to scam me for the money in my wallet, though many have been hopeful about getting sponsored for a visa...as if I have jack shit for connections back in America. Even the online gaming dude mainly wanted an American face (with a real Facebook profile, which I don't have) to market his hustle to Americans.

Overcharging is not scamming because you are still getting what you paid for. Someone like you who is careless with money obviously was paying extra, there's no question about it.
>hurr durr it's only 30 cents, it's only two dollars, back home so much more expensive blah blah blah
If it doesn't bother you, fine. But you can stop pretending like I'm getting scammed here in Nepal when my daily spending is less than $20 USD even with outsized transport expenses.
>>2884331
Nobody actually knows who I am in these villages. Even the hotel doesn't take down my name or number. But yeah, nothing happens in a village without everybody knowing about it, which is why coomers always shy away from the rural places (even if they are full of poor young women who are open to the idea of marrying a white man).

File: IMG20260526185838.jpg (2.5 MB, 4000x2256)

2.5 MB JPG

Surkhet is definitely prosperous, though still thrice as tranquil than an equivalent Indian city due to superior planning (wide roads with designated parking space and walkway space alongside). The girls here don't even glance at me...unlike the village girls longing for a husband, these bitches only want bfs with motorbikes.

A bunch of umbrella-wielding touts mobbed the bus as I was stepping off, excitedly asking if I was going to Kathmandu or Pokhara while holding multiple umbrellas over my head. Their crowding and shouting was a little intense, so I became a loud American for a change and told them several times I was staying right here in Surkhet. They then dispersed, and I set out to find a hotel. For some reason I chose to stay at the first property I encountered, despite the squat toilets, thin beds and general dankness of the rooms. The 1500 price for A/C sounded good, but there's no power to run either A/C or fan.

In Nepal, people have large battery banks connected to an inverter system that they use to keep lights working when the power is out. Sometimes the ceiling fan still works during a power outage, but not here. Here the WiFi routers are run on the inverter.

After a walk around town in the hazy 33 C evening, dark clouds rushed in at dusk, kicking up huge clouds of dust and sending shopkeepers into a panic of slamming shutters. Then the rain poured down as the thunderstorm passed overhead. A few gusts of cool wind dropped my room temp from 31 to 28 C. But now it's doubtful that power will be restored any time soon.

>>2884469
Nepal bitches mid af

File: IMG20260526181152.jpg (2.79 MB, 4000x2256)

2.79 MB JPG

The main commercial street of the city. Development rapidly diminishes as you go away from it, and the outskirts of the city look downright rural. The Bheri River flows through its own gorge 1000 feet below the level of this large pocket valley.

Tomorrow I intend to travel a few hours to another bowl in the mountains, which is even larger than this one and contains the two biggest towns of Lumbini province: Tulsipur and Ghorahi. It's quite a boring route to a boring place, but time pressure means that big parts of the country have to be passed over to have any hope of relaxing and exploring at leisure for a few days at the end of the trip.

File: IMG20260527123932.jpg (2.49 MB, 4000x2256)

2.49 MB JPG

>>2884472
Lots of young women don't wear facepaint, which makes them look more homely. Plus, the average skin tone is quite brown.

Today's ride went through some low hills and across a couple rivers to get to the edge of the great South Asian plain at Kohalpur, Lumbini province. The city is situated along the principal east-west highway of Nepal where it meets the Karnali Highway, which runs north from Nepalgunj on the Indian border all the way up to BFE. While the backcountry of Nepal is impoverished, these lowland cities are wealthy enough that Indians cross the border to work in Nepal, because the pay is better and the stress is much less. The locals are pretty darn lazy here. Zero hustle culture whatsoever. I went to several Nepalese restaurants and none of them would cook me any food - at 12 noon. They all rose from their screenrotting slumber, gave me annoyed looks, complained in Nepali to each other and then said "no food".

But then I found an Indian restaurant, and the place was packed. Strangers sharing tables, a barefoot 11 year old bussing roti and clearing dishes, a hurried waiter jostling my elbow and spilling some masala on the floor, the 55 year old owner posted up at the register and promptly telling me the cost of every item like they do in India. The food was full of flavor, and the roti were made from scratch and cooked in a real tandoori oven, not taken from a package and reheated on a griddle like so many Nepali restaurants do. The fact that it was 36 C in the restaurant didn't matter one bit to anyone.

File: IMG20260527132506.jpg (2.58 MB, 4000x2256)

2.58 MB JPG

Good riddance to last night's sweltering in a smelly cheap room with no fan or A/C, mosquitoes buzzing in through the open windows which let in a breath of cool night air befouled with stale cooking odors. Today it is time to choose luxury - or what passes as luxury in a small Nepali city.

Online, a standard room at Hotel Maxx with free breakfast costs 6000 rupees ($40 USD) on multiple booking platforms. Pay at reception for the room only, and it costs 2500 rupees ($16.50 USD). Located on a quiet back street in a newly developing part of the city. The sidewalks are still dirt & gravel, but stacks of bricks everywhere indicate that soon it will be a nice modern city neighborhood. The forests of Banke National Park extend all the way to the huge ultra-modern bus terminal at the principal crossroads, hopefully good for an evening stroll through the woods.

In 16 nights' stay in Nepal, I've covered 204 kilometers from my starting point. What an achievement! There remains 500 km of travel to get from Kohalpur to Kathmandu, 620 km if going along the Pokhara Highway. 12 nights remain to cover this distance.

>>2884699
These villages are filler episodes. Fast travel to Kathmandu and spam cold approach and study their responses

File: IMG20260527203435~2.jpg (2.83 MB, 4000x2256)

2.83 MB JPG

There are no faces on Nepal currency, only animals. Most people don't have wallets here, so they shove wads of money in their sweaty pockets. The last batch of currency was issued in 2019, evidently, so most of the smaller bills in circulation is limp and ragged. But unlike India, where everybody refuses damaged cash, vendors in Nepal accept rupees no matter what condition they are in.

File: IMG20260527164129.jpg (5.33 MB, 4000x2256)

5.33 MB JPG

Tough to find the trail starting point...you were probably supposed to enter through the park office, but I snuck around the compound, did some crashing through the undergrowth and eventually came out on the main trail (which connects to several outlying neighborhoods). Lots of game and wildlife to be seen on a casual stroll, including a giant lizard which gave me a good jumpscare after I failed to spot it from very close by. There was even a crash followed by silence in a brushy area near the trail, like a leopard had jumped out of a free to hide. Usually deer and monkeys can be heard or seen running away, but this creature did not reveal itself.

Suspiciously, there were very few large trees of any value standing in a designated national park. Only a whole lot of deformed, crooked and ugly trees. 99% of the good timber had been logged at some point in the past, with only a few relic trees remaining.

36 C summertime heat aside, the lowland i.e. Terai region of Nepal is surprisingly pleasant to visit, much more so than the hilly regions IMO. Due to the stony infertile nature of the soil, vast regions of gently sloping hills (on the edge of the world's most heavily populated plain, no less) are completely devoid of human habitation or cultivation, and have been preserved as forest. The flatland towns are spacious and placid, apart from the constant honking of buses and trucks passing through. Pedestrians and bicycles predominate. Municipal governments make meaningful efforts at public improvements. Outlying town streets are unpaved but orderly, with large houses sitting on pleasant lots. Everyone is outside on a warm evening, minding their own business. Restaurants, hotels, transport - all have a great selection and competitive prices. Price gouging seems absent. Bus fares down here are barely a third of what I was paying up the Karnali highway.

File: IMG20260527165849.jpg (2.51 MB, 2256x4000)

2.51 MB JPG

These berries are edible but pretty tasteless, with large pits. Villagers sell big bags of them to passersby for 100 rupees. Bayberries are also commonly sold by swarms of vendors at stopping points in the mountains. They have a strong sweet-tart flavor but also have large pits relative to their size, and you have do to a lot of mouthwork to scrape the fruit layer off the pit before spitting it out.

The king of Nepali berries is the aiselu or Nepali golden raspberry. Sometimes the bus stops for a long time in the mountains, and you see villagers scrambling up steep hillsides in search of delicious raspberries. They are so good that you simply must eat them as you go.

File: IMG20260527185344.jpg (3.12 MB, 4000x2256)

3.12 MB JPG

This paneer khana plate was so delicious. All the different unique flavors blended together amazingly well, and the hot ghee poured over the rice made the good taste endure to the very last bite. The people were kind and even comped my water bottle and dhau drink (a homemade milk curd beverage). Price 400 NPR or $2.70 USD. Straightforward bus ride followed by a long nature walk, then good food and relaxation in a comfy hotel room...that's how every travel day should be.

>>2881436
I wanna do Nepal mydelf, but I'm not sure if is going to be a little India

File: IMG20260528130205.jpg (4.53 MB, 4000x2256)

4.53 MB JPG

>>2884895
Nepal's principal lowland highways cut across countless miles of unpopulated, forested Terai plains. Now go drive across northern India and see the endless commercial activity, the rude impatient drivers, the lack of any protected nature. The contrast couldn't be sharper.

File: IMG20260528181815.jpg (3.56 MB, 4000x2256)

3.56 MB JPG

This market town Lamahi and its environs remind me so much of a Thai valley town. Trying to walk down to the nearby river, I ran into a cul-de-sac with a big beautiful garden and got to talking with one of the local guys, who married a California white girl in 2020. His cousin's wedding is tomorrow. We smoked a whole bunch of Nepali homegrown cannabis, and he offered me some tasty homemade cooking before bringing me back to town on his cousin's motorbike before my hotel closed its shutters at 10 PM. (Nothing is open at 9:30 PM here, except maybe the bus park food stalls.)

My new friend wants to build a rural homestay in his village. There used to be a road running through, but the neighbors couldn't agree on its boundary and now it is closed. The court battle has been running eight years...but I told him he has something great here. A dead-end street with a sizable open space surrounded by houses, half of which is occupied by a beautiful garden designed by his ex-wife (who lived off and on in the village for a few years before moving on to the next thing, breaking his heart).

Seeing as his village is only 3 km from the city, as the locals call Lamahi Bazar, it's easy walking distance. Keeping in mind my last wedding experience, I think it's better to stay in town and head down there in the late afternoon, versus counting on my friend to provide me a place to stay in his house. He says he'll host and feed me for free; I insisted on being a paying guest, but he wouldn't name a price even after several attempts to do business.

No prices on display, coupled with reluctance to name menus or prices upfront. Nepali people are introverts, so hawking their wares doesn't come natural to most of them. They think the welcome is more important than the details of doing business. This part of Nepali business culture annoys me. Overall Lumbini is a pretty honest province, content and tranquil.

File: IMG20260528152842.jpg (3 MB, 4000x2256)

3 MB JPG

Major civic improvement/beautification ventures are underway all across rural Nepal. Supposedly the new government's doing? Most people are supportive of the new PM.

File: IMG20260527195930.jpg (3.79 MB, 2256x4000)

3.79 MB JPG

Yellow boi didn't jump until I stroked his back. Then he leapt 1.5 meters.

File: IMG20260529132448.jpg (3.21 MB, 4000x2256)

3.21 MB JPG

We had a great time smoking bowl after bowl of Nepalese village weed in picrel before cracking open some warm beer. Despite all the drinking at the wedding, nobody was getting loud or obnoxious. Only small music speakers were playing. Water bottles filled with raksi were passed out freely and drunk by everyone. The spirit was surprisingly smooth and paired well with a dinner of succulent meat chunks, including pork from one of their pigs. Damn it's been so long since I last ate pork, and this was some seriously good pork.

The next morning I suddenly woke up with a headache in the second-floor public sleeping area of the house around 8 AM with the overhead light on, wearing a shirt from my dirty laundry bag that said "HIGH". My guestroom door was unlocked, but the cash in a bag on the dresser was safe. It's been a long time since I've drunk enough to wake up with no recollection other than a vague memory of me keep saying "no grabbing, okay, just show the way" when my host kept trying to pull me by the arm.

Nobody else in the village speaks English. There is also a feud underway with the other half of the village; they have closed the road passing through the area because they can't agree on what the right of way should be. The court battle is endless.

File: IMG20260530171952.jpg (2.54 MB, 4000x2256)

2.54 MB JPG

There is a tremendously long non-vehicular suspension bridge near here, crossing a major river which is very low right now. Next to the bridge is a hip cafe for private group dining. I went there to eat, as everyone had worked so hard cooking yesterday; today was time for a break from kitchen work. Their food was okay. Crispy chicken pieces and yet another plate of chow mein.

Nepalese women do work harder and longer than men as a general rule. The most arduous construction site jobs are often taken by middle-aged women. During the wedding, women work all day to prepare for the celebration, while the men lounge around drinking, smoking and talking. Cannabis use is very prevalent in these villages, but the cannabis is not sold for money, only shared. I enjoyed it a lot.

File: IMG20260530154303.jpg (3.3 MB, 4000x2256)

3.3 MB JPG

Hangout rock in the shade of a rambutan tree on the edge of a deforested, flood-prone plot of riverside land. You definitely don't feel hemmed in here. The gray clouds have been scudding by all day, but rain remains absent.

Tomorrow I will head on. It was a great experience of Nepalese hospitality; everyone went above and beyond for the sake of a random foreigner who wandered into the village on foot. I have offered to pay on several occasions, but if my host really doesn't want to accept money for giving me the room, I will not force anything on him.

File: IMG20260529163650.jpg (3.35 MB, 4000x2256)

3.35 MB JPG

A view of the village from the rooftop

>>2885661
>>2885659
>>2885658
kino af

File: IMG20260531091906.jpg (3.4 MB, 2256x4000)

3.4 MB JPG

Goodbyes around the house (interspersed with rips of the bong) took all morning and all afternoon, then half the evening was spent down on the street corner. A thundershower broke overhead and left the air so humid and cool. The 3 km walk back was perfect, and I returned to the same room in town as before. This time I'm taking a chance that their 500 rupee chicken plate is actually as good as you would expect at that price.

My host Sanam basically keeps his house as a public house, where anyone can hang out in, stay for free, etc. Boys from Kathmandu visited for the wedding and hung around the house all day. In the nighttime some of them took our bong and went out to smoke by the tractor.

Seven nights remain in the country with the start of June tomorrow. The trip will skip Pokhara. I want to see more of the Nepali Terai, and also reduce the number of future destinations to these four.

>Butwal, Lumbini
>Dumkibas, Gandaki
>Bharatpur, Bagmati
>Kathmandu, Bagmati

File: IMG20260531173130.jpg (3.93 MB, 4000x2256)

3.93 MB JPG

This is one of the few places I've been to in months that felt worth a return visit. Maybe the people who say that going off the beaten path sucks have a point.

File: IMG20260531185349.jpg (2.27 MB, 4000x2256)

2.27 MB JPG

View from my hotel rooftop
I chose to respect the local culture and only share weed with friends while in the village instead of transporting it as a personal stash to the larger cities. The police are currently very vigilant in Pokhara and Kathmandu, looking for people selling weed and other drugs. This means very high prices for tourists.

File: IMG20260601140046.jpg (2.56 MB, 4000x2256)

2.56 MB JPG

Butwal is a city of nearly 200K located right where the mountains meet the plains. The border here is just a line drawn across the plain, giving Nepal a good piece of flatland.

People are friendly to a white guy here, and traffic while heavy is not aggressively impatient. I talked at length with two locals, one the owner of a chain of bakeries and the other a manager of a cafe. One wanted to go to America to work, the other bemoaned the flood of young people leaving Nepal in pursuit of money instead of trying to create opportunity at home. Most people here hate change and trying new things. Even when the bakery owner used his expertise to craft all kinds of delicious European-style pastries, nobody wanted to eat them for fun. He eventually shrunk his business down to birthday cake orders, because those were a very dependable line of business. All the same white-bread flavor with the same perma-fluffy icing. Yuck.

They gave me the deluxe balcony room at Hotel Fortune for $13 USD in rupees. Very nice room in a quiet location, the kind you hate to leave after only one night. Due to use of A/C, accomodation has averaged $12 per night here in Lumbini, as opposed to $8 in Karnali. However, 395 km covered in the Terai region cost $15.50, as opposed to $35 spent to cover a far more difficult 347 km in the hilly areas.

Total Nepal spending for three weeks comes to 58410 rupees or $386 USD. Not counting visa fee or ATM fees. I got a $16 ATM fee refund from Schwab for last month.

File: IMG20260601190447.jpg (3.11 MB, 4000x2256)

3.11 MB JPG

The city's Hill Park was the first urban nature park I've encountered in a long time. Cutting trees is not allowed, even to clear the view at viewpoints, so this is the best you can get from anywhere on the hill. There were lots of people out climbing the hill in the 32 C evening. I only made it halfway up before stopping with a pounding heart and sweat pouring from my face. Shit, down in Maharashtra I'd climb hills 5x longer under the blazing 34 C sun with one bottle of water. Where did that stamina go?

You use sickness or long bus rides as an excuse to start taking it easy. After a while, you realize that you are perpetually taking it easy, finding a place to sit everywhere you go when you are out walking in the city. That's not good. Next you'll start wanting to drink beer every evening. This is how foreigners decay in Asia when it's hot and humid outside.

File: IMG20260601142630.jpg (4.48 MB, 4000x2256)

4.48 MB JPG

Always so nice to find a hotel that is tucked away someplace secluded, even if the street is busy with traffic. Butwal's streets look like an improved version of India, with parking regulations posted and covered gutters acting as sidewalks. But outside my balcony is no traffic or commercial ugliness, only peaceful greenery.

File: IMG20260601140540.jpg (2.84 MB, 4000x2256)

2.84 MB JPG

This is where I stepped off the bus. Yucking hell, what a first impression of the city

Something like five days nofap had me randomly popping a boner while walking toward a popular public park wearing a thin pair of khakis. The women and girls kept looking at it in passing, but then they would get shy and wouldn't meet my eyes. Supposedly South Asian women have the lowest libidos of any women, IDK if that is true.

>>2886230
I used to jab women with my boner while talking in India. No one ever cared. But if you hug it's the end of the world

File: IMG20260602210611.jpg (2.6 MB, 4000x2256)

2.6 MB JPG

Is this provincial Thailand? It sure looks and feels like it at 9 PM, with the temp hovering at 30 C and the shopfronts mostly shuttered already. I passed the people responsible for ensuring the cleanliness of the street. They were dragging a trash bin around, picking up every piece of litter from the roadside. Kudos to Nepal, they've really made a lot of social progress in these lowland cities. Yeah, the petty overcharging still annoys me on a daily basis. But these people are doing great things with the limited funds they do have, working together to build up their country. That's more than can be said for many other shitholes which have rapidly rising GDP but still look atrocious everywhere you go.

File: IMG20260602191113.jpg (2.52 MB, 4000x2256)

2.52 MB JPG

Even the riverfront promenade with the Buddha and the vendor stalls had that Southeast Asia feel. The ethnic makeup of the majority of people here also looks very Southeast Asian.

Local names here are inconsistent; this place is called Narayangarh, even though on the map it looks like part of the city of Bharatpur. (Methinks nobody here likes to use the name Bharatpur because Bharat = India, and this is Nepal, not fucking India).

Like every Terai city I've visited so far, there are vast spreads of unfenced government land very close to the populated areas. This is a huge plus for long-term visitors to Nepal, because it means that nature is always accessible via footpath. There are not many other countries in the world which have thousands of hectares of undeveloped public lands starting right outside thriving, populous cities. While there are some thicket areas, much of the forest is open to cross-country passage. Once you've had to deal with the threat of tigers, Westerners shaking in their boots at the thought of encountering a black bear will seem laughable. If you run across a bear, it's by accident, he didn't hear you or something. If you turn around and spot a tiger, it's no accident at all.

File: IMG20260602172710.jpg (3.14 MB, 4000x2256)

3.14 MB JPG

$16.50 might be overpaying when you can get a humbler A/C room for $10. But it's nice to have a big-ass picture window with an expansive view across the Narayani River into Gandaki province, which I completely skipped over. The towns along the lowland highway in Gandaki were unappealing strips of roadside commerce. Ironically, Gandaki is the most-touristy province in Nepal, but the southern lowlands are completely separate from the northern hilly and highland areas where all the tourists go.

The highway to Kathmandu travels up a fork of the river almost all the way to the city, which is 140 km away and 1200 meters higher. That means a high temp of 31 C instead of 38 C. Enough to forgo the A/C surcharge.

A local family served me a tasty chicken khana plate for only 200 rupees. I handed the lady 300, but she would only take 200. Also a beer shop in the touristy riverside area sold me a beer priced at 315 for only 300. With time in a city, of course the frugal foreigner will pick out the best-value places and refuse to do business with the others. But that takes a few days' stay. Otherwise it's simply a matter of luck.

File: IMG20260602120132.jpg (2.63 MB, 4000x2256)

2.63 MB JPG

This Nepali pizza was one of the best I've had in Asia, despite its weird black sauce. The chef blended Nepali flavors with Italian herbs to make the sauce before adding grilled chicken and green pepper. Cheese was too light, but still delish. Price of 400 NPR ($2.65 USD) was okay, given the rather grimy and overheated ambience of the restaurant. Usually such pizzas are served in a nice modern cafe setting.

Everyone of course wants to hear effusive praise of their country from a foreigner. Nepalese are not given to criticizing each other. Even if they pay 250 for chicken khana themselves, they will back up the owner and tell you "500 is the correct price" when you are inquiring or disputing a price. In India the other customers would happily tell you the price they pay and then tell the owner to give you that price. The most careless driving behaviors are met with calm responses and no judgment. You do your thing, it's all good. Next to me on the bus, a mother spent 300 rupees on snacks and drinks for her spoiled little boy, only for him to vomit them all over her pants leg. She doesn't even yell or get angry at him. She just says "oh son" in Nepali, tries to pat it dry with some spare laundry, then sits in a choking reek of spicy snack vomit for the next four plus hours of riding while he lays on her belly. If the restaurant staff screw up, nobody scolds. It's just one aspect that differentiates Nepalis so much from their Hindi Indian brethren, who are known for their strutting egos, short tempers and frequent harsh words any time they are in a position of power.

>>2885885
that owner must be gay that house it too nice to be owned by a str8 person

>>2886320
He built the house and garden for his wife, a white girl from California that he fell in love with when they met at a cafe in Pokhara...he was the barista. A lot of the construction was funded by her money. They were together from 2020-2025, but three years in his brother failed the Army exam and committed suicide after going berserk and waving a knife around. Then his mom hanged herself after her favorite son was gone.

The relationship lasted for two more years after that episode, with the old house being destroyed, this new house being built, and her flying in from America on a regular basis. Then she pulled a typical white-woman stunt. She sent him a divorce letter to sign and that was that. They never spoke again. Now it's basically a public house. The door is never locked; anyone can wander inside, crash out on the floor mat, smoke some weed, get some food from the kitchen where his aunt and sister dutifully prepare meals for all the lazy guys. They're actually not 100% lazy, they just work hard when they feel like it and relax when they feel like it, unbound by any timeclock or wagecuck boss.

BTW female and male hangout spaces are strictly segregated in a Nepali village. However, my friend's American wife would smoke weed with his father and otherwise ignore the village traditions. The other women would nag her about having a baby and settling down to be a housewife; evidently she couldn't take it anymore after a certain point.

File: IMG20260603171605.jpg (3.08 MB, 4000x2256)

3.08 MB JPG

With five nights left to go here, I've taken a little detour to Gorkha in Gandaki province. It looked good on the map, located on a hillside at 1100 meters elevation at the end of a spur road which connects to the Pokhara - Kathmandu Highway (known as the Privithi Highway). No A/C required here; room temp is 80 F at 8 PM.

Part of the reason my early Nepal travels were so bleak was because I was staying at roadside villages that existed solely to serve yucky slop and cheap rooms to weary road travelers. Such places are not worth more than one night's rest, but the roads were so bad that I spent too many nights in such places. This part of Nepal is more populated and better developed than the far western provinces, so the towns are more pleasant, soulful and interesting to explore. There is a young white backpacker couple staying in this hotel. Other than them, I haven't seen any foreigners lately. So much of Nepal is barely visited by white tourists.

File: IMG20260603160244.jpg (1.82 MB, 3072x1728)

1.82 MB JPG

Recent rains have left the hills here looking lush and tropical, with humidity moderately high as the heatwave broils the plains. The mountains and forests definitely have a cooling effect in excess of their altitude; while the denuded, parched farmlands of Uttar Pradesh have been seeing temps up to 47 C, the highest temp I've experienced in the Terai lowlands has been 38 C, even though altitudes are the same. Yes, it's still hot, and everyone suffers when the bus is stopped due to the lack of breeze.

This is the view from my $6 non A/C room with a large three-paned window. No squalid bugbox room for me! It's 140 km from Gorkha to Kathmandu along one of Nepal's busiest highways. On the plus side, buses are very plentiful and fares are cheap. Unlikely as it is to occur, if you meet a Nepali soldier here and crack a beer with him, you can claim that you drank a Gorkha with a gorkha in Gorkha.

File: IMG20260603122801.jpg (2.6 MB, 4000x2256)

2.6 MB JPG

Been hunting this Nepali dish for a long time - so many restaurants refused to prepare it. It's called kheema noodles. The meat preparation is similar to Indian kheema, which is typically served with paratha flatbread, but the resulting product is not quite the same. The girls worked hard in the sweltering restaurant to make this meal from scratch. The crispy bits of chicken blended with umami-laden black sauce tasted so delicious when mixed with the chewy noodles. Cost, only 200 rupees or $1.30 USD.

File: IMG20260603183311.jpg (3.21 MB, 4000x2256)

3.21 MB JPG

This buffalo fry was also laden with amazing spices. Chewy, but so delicious. The local eatery only charged me 200 rupees for this generous portion of "Indian beef". Lately the food has been a complete turnaround from early in the trip; the flavors have been intense and artfully combined in almost everything I eat. Many prices have been lower than expected as well. Even the 40 cent slices of banana bread in the bakery were baked with cinnamon, cloves and other aromatic spices.

Everyone says you have to try a Thakali thali when you visit Nepal. Historically, the Thakali people were a small band of elite traders who brought salt from India's distant shores up through their gorgeous mountain country onto the high plateau of Tibet. A journey whose difficulty is only matched by its profitability. Evidently they have a very distinct cuisine; being on a trade route, they must've been able to make use of spices from far away. Just like the famous Rajasthan thali of India, touristy restaurants charge a hefty premium for a Thakali khana set. Plenty of ghee is used to enhance flavor.