Leisure & Travel

Equal Education for All Odyssey (contd.)EducationWorld‚s special correspondent Srinidhi Raghavendra recently completed a 18,700 km motorcycle odyssey to highlight the importance of education equity. In February he traversed the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal. Excerpts from his tour diaryEducationWorld‚s special correspondent Srinidhi Raghavendra together with Kishore Patwardhan under the aegis of Borderless Bikers, Bangalore was on a South Asian motorcycle odyssey from December 3, 2006 to April 15, 2007. The objective of the mission was to spread the message that the people of India and neighbouring nations need to demand Equal Quality Education for All. The duo traversed 18,700 km during their epic four and half month tour, zooming across 25 states in India and crossing national borders into Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The expedition was supported by EducationWorld; TVS Motor Company; Intel; and Cramster, Bangalore.In the May 2007 issue we featured Raghavendra‚s diary notes recording the duo‚s journey through the Hindi heartland states of north India. Given below is an account of their journey through the neighbouring Himalayan nation of Nepal.January 31, Crossover into Nepal. We started off early morning from Basti in Uttar Pradesh anticipating a delay at the Indo-Nepal border while Nepalese officials checked our travel papers in this Himalayan kingdom, now coming to terms with democracy. The route from Basti to Sanauli took us through some of the remotest villages of India. Our first stop was at Bansi ‚ a small town, where a bridge built across a wide stream is damaged and has not been repaired for the past two years. Luckily it hasn‚t quite collapsed and could take the weight of our motorcycles. Buses and heavy vehicles have to negotiate the shallow waters of the stream. Despite the arid remoteness of the region, roads, though narrow, were of surprisingly good quality. Another paradox we witnessed was that the latest models of mobile phones have reached even the most back-of-the-beyond villages of India‚s most under-developed state. Though living in thatched, sometimes makeshift huts, wearing dirty and tattered clothes, the mobile phone seems to be a ubiquitous accessory.We reached the Sanauli (India)-Bhairava (Nepal) border, one of the dozen legal road crossings between India and Nepal at 2.30 p.m. Sited just a stone‚s throw away from Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, Sanauli-Bhairava is a very busy border crossing, especially during summer when devout Buddhists from India arrive in droves. But despite being largely underdeveloped in terms of civic infrastructure, Sanauli has everything a tourist could possibly need ‚ money changers, travel agents, import-export agents, cyber cafƒ©s, hotels and multi-cuisine restaurants. This single-road town was a riot of colour and cacophony of sound as men and women in traditional costumes milled around the border, going in and out of the countries in a casual manner with minimal fuss and bother.As we pulled up in front of the ramshackle, tin-roofed, customs and immigration office of the Nepal government to purchase permits for travel on our motorcycles, we were surrounded by touts offering an array of services. Ignoring them, we…