Ahh...Nepal

Goodbye India for now.
AHHH, Nepal.

India just pulls you in like there's a strong undertow.
You hold on and get pulled along. I feel the undertow the most when I'm on a bicycle rickshaw entering a rotary. You hold your breath and you get pulled in.
It's utter mayhem: people on bikes, cars, cows, rickshaws...horns and bike bells clanging. There's no semblance of order. But you miraculously come up for air.

In Nepal and cherishing the calm and quiet.
After a 10 hour bus ride out of Varanasi, with one flat tire, I've entered the Royal Kingdom of Nepal
Stopped in Lumbini and the Maya Devi Temple, birthplace of Buddha.
Currently in Chitwan National Park.
In the twenty minute walk from my lodge to town I am happy to report that so far the Nepalese honk their horns when they have to. I walked passed fields and homes with banana trees. Women riding bicycles with umbrellas in their hands, bicycle rickshaws, goats, water buffalo, elephants out for strolls, tractors...all in utter silence!
Ahh, Nepal.
The Nepalese are just beautiful people with open smiling faces.
Even the stray dogs seem happier here.