Our trip from Kathmandu across the border to India was along what is supposed to be a major highway... well, a fair amount of it was paved. A 30km stretch was crossed by numerous landslides and sections where the road had collapsed into the river! Needless to say we crawled through the traffic jam that resulted, trying to ignore the drop to the water below that was alarmingly close to our wheels. After a night in a typical dusty border town at Sunauli, we crossed the border and caught another bus to the town of Gorakhpur, famous for its annual plague of flies! We had to wait for the night train to varanasi, so we hired a retiring room at the railway station. Very cheap, and lots of geckos, mice and mozzies to keep us company...