I'm doing a long trip around the world and this little patch of Asia is causing a bit of a headache in terms of reaching it and avoiding planes. Ideally traveling by trains and buses would be optimal for me. Does anyone have any experience on this best way to cover this area and avoid planes? I'll be in China before hand if that helps. Thanks.
By plane
Hope this helps 🙂
feels bad man, I really like to view the scenery on my way to a destination.
I'm interested in a similar journey and I've read plane travel is dangerous in both Bhutan and Nepal. I'd imagine taking a bus would have it's own hardships but be safer.
Go to India, travel around there on a train (get as expensive tickets as possible, it's not worth it to cheap out) and go to Bhutan and Nepal from there.
Travelling in Bhutan is more or less a guided tour so you don't get many options there.
Plane travel in Nepal is kinda janky and dangerous, but there are no trains, and highways are even more dangerous than flying.
Expensive tourist buses that travel between Pokhara, Kathmandu, and Chitwan are pretty comfy, but the rest are a bit shit.
Any place worth getting to in Nepal requires you to get a jeep or something similar just to reach the point where you can start walking.
Don't linger in Kathmandu though, cause it's a dirty polluted shithole.
Cheers mate. Considering giving it a miss then if Nepal and Bhutan are going to be a pain in the ass, seems like North Korea will be easier than these places.
I'll recommend Sikkim and Darjeeling in India instead. Basically Nepali culture but with Indian infrastructure, so good roads and railway access.
If you really want to check Nepal off your list, you can go to India and enter through the land border. It's pretty easy.
Just stick to places in southern Nepal like Chitwan (for jungle safari) and Lumbini (if you're into Buddhism) so you avoid the bad roads and can take a bus everywhere.
Southern Nepal is a part of the Gangetic plains like North India, so road-wise, it's pretty damn safe.
Bhutan isn't inaccessible or anything, but it's more for a comfy but expensive getaway. It costs $200 daily just to be in the country, not counting how expensive the food and accommodation can get.
The China/Bhutan border is completely sealed so you can only enter through India. If you have a lotta extra cash laying around and want to see some monasteries with dicks drawn on them then it's not bad.
>Just stick to places in southern Nepal like Chitwan (for jungle safari) and Lumbini (if you're into Buddhism) so you avoid the bad roads and can take a bus everywhere.
lumbini is an overrated boring place unless you're a pilgrim.
also south nepal isn't really culturally disctinct. mostly indian culture and indian people but less crowded and cleaner.
roads are shit in south nepal rn too. all under construction.
butwal to chitwan is totally fucked and will break your back.
most of kathmandu to pokhara highway is under construction too.
only decent major highway rn is chitwan to kathmandu.
>under construction
Under corruption.
Applying European standards to Asian roads is futile, there's no point taking travellers a road is shit if you've got no frame of reference.
Cross overland to Myanmar from China. There's a new border that opened Myanmar-India, from India travel to Bhutan and then on from Bhutan to Nepal. Pretty simple.
Is Myanmar safe again?
I hear Nepal is all but inaccessible for foreigners other than plane
Its also dangerous as fuck to land in.
I went overland from India through myanmar recently, and wrote a bit of the wiki.
The violence in Manipur and the coup makes this considerably more difficult.
Bhutan is easy enough to reach from India, it's like lhasa with the guided tour situation.
I basically lived in this region and am happy to help
today i will remind them
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/mar/30/nepal-imposes-ban-on-mountain-trekking-without-a-guide
As for Nepal and Bhutan I'm not really sure because they're very mountainous. You can get into Myanmar by land from Thailand at the border towns though.