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| Small village street |
No competitive sections today. The real competition was battling the Indian bureaucracy to let us out of the country with our cars.
The 100 km drive from our hotel to the border was easy and beautiful. The roads were straight and well maintained. Since we had come down out of the mountains and we’re on a big fertile plain, lots of agriculture going on.....corn, rice and row crops.
The border crossing was not so pleasant.
I’ve made lots of border crossings in my life, but I have never seen one in the last 30 years that was not based on computer records.
Well at today’s crossing out of India at Bambara each detail...name, address, country of origin, Passport number, visa number, etc. has to be entered manually in a big log book....it took forever. Same when we got to customs, everything entered in a log book.....make and year of car, VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), license plate, car owner, etc. The lines were long and it took us two hours to accomplish. So then we thought we were on our way to NEPAL, only to be stopped by Army Security who went through the entire process again; recording all the info again in giant log books.....another 45 minutes of wait time.
Expecting a repeat on the Nepal side, we were pleasantly surprised that the Nepalese were efficient, quick and pleasant. Ten/fifteen minutes and we were off on our 150 km drive to the Tiger Resort in Bardia National Park.......home to tigers, elephants, deer and all sorts of creatures, none of which have we seen yet.
For those who like to work on imponderable problems, consider that Delhi is 12 and 1/2 hours ahead of LA and Nepal is 12 and 3/4 hours ahead of LA. Why?
Early to bed tonight as tomorrow is the longest drive of the Rally....about 522 km.