Darjeeling to Kathmandu
Darjeeling speaks Nepali, and so does the town on the far bank of the Mechi. Between the tea ridge and Kathmandu's old cities runs a short international border you walk across, bags carried behind you.
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07:30
Bags go in the car after breakfast. About 90 km of road drops through Kurseong to the plains, skirts Bagdogra and runs the last 22 km west to Panitanki. We aim to reach the river by 11:00.
Photo: Kiran Sankar Das / Unsplash
The bridge
Indian guests have no formalities on the Indian bank. Other passports first take an exit stamp at the Raniganj immigration office. A porter takes the bags, and the far end of the bridge is kilometer zero of the Mahendra Highway, 1,028 km long.
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Kakarbhitta, 142 m (470 ft)
On a US passport you buy Nepal's visa on arrival here: US$30 for 15 days, US$50 for 30, US$125 for 90, paid in dollars with a passport photo. Then move your watch: Nepal runs 15 minutes ahead of India.
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Bhadrapur
A Nepal-registered car covers the 21 km to Bhadrapur, where Buddha Air lists five flights a day. The 14:05 turboprop lands in Kathmandu at 14:50. Take a right-hand window: heading west, eastern Nepal's snow peaks run along that side.
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Not a lost day
Door to door, the crossing day runs from about 07:30 to 15:30. It is long rather than hard, and nothing is rushed: a slow border simply moves you onto Buddha Air's evening flight.
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One-way rule
An Indian e-Visa lets you leave India at Panitanki but not come back in there, because it is not an e-Visa entry port. So we route foreign guests from Darjeeling into Nepal, and home by air from Kathmandu.
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Planning
From Tiger Hill, on the clearest mornings, Everest shows as a small white point far to the west. Give Darjeeling three nights, cross the Mechi, and the next morning it can fill the window of the Kathmandu mountain flight.
Photo: Shomitro Kumar Ghosh / Unsplash