Heading to Nepal

My alarm clock went off at 3:30 this morning so i could catch our Jeep at 4:00 am and endure a long, bumpy journey to Nepal. We were all so tired but sleeping was nearly impossible, all of us crammed next to each other. Just as i started to nod off to sleep there would be a bump in the road that would send my head flying into the roof. I slept in 10 minute intervals for the first 2 hours of the ride then gave up. Ratha, the woman on my trip who came to India to fulfill her lifelong dream of bathing in the Ganges was going to do this today. Anand knew of a huge festival that was happening about 4 hours away and we stopped here for her to do this. The festival was huge but just in the middle of a little village town, thousands of people just get up and leave their homes for weeks to come to this one festival. The festival is due to the time of year that the people believe the stars are aligned in such way that it gives the most energy to the Holy rivers, thus the best time to come and wash away their sins and worship their gods. We pulled up and immediately a circle of people surrounded us, making it pretty uncomfortable and a bit scary because we didn't really know how people would react to us. As soon as we started walking they parted the circle and we walked through an isle of staring eyes into the main tent. We were shuffled into a back room where we were told to wait, all of us not sure exactly what the hell was going on. Some guys carrying guns and decked out in full army suits came and we were told they were or body guards... Apparently many of the people at the festival have never seen white people so they wanted us to have protection just in case they got too curious or rough? We were ushered to the river side as Ratha bathed in the water, and learned about a foundation that a guy had started and was promoting at the festival to help kids on the streets who are abandoned. We all decided it would be nice to give a small donation to this cause so in front of thousands of people sitting in this tent praying, we walked up to the front, where the man was praying and dropped money into his pile of flowers. He gave us oranges and grapes and banana's as his offering of thanks and told everyone of the donation we had just made and wanted us all to get up and say a speech. It was so bizarre! We just showed up to this festival and now we were hero's, famous, glamorous westerners coming to save the day! We each went up and told them our name, or nationality and why we loved India and the people clapped and cheered like we were rock stars. As our 5 minutes of fame came to an end we walked out of the tent, everyone was trying to touch us, get a handshake or wave from us, some even bowing to us! It was so out of this world we didnt know how to handle it.
As our jeep slowly took off trying not to hit all the people gawking at us we giddily reminisced about the whole experience. Anand was just as excited as we were, having never expected for that to happen. Our happiness was quickly shot down when we realized we still had a good 5 hours to go! We slowly made our way to the Nepal Boarder and dealt with our Visa's. I originally was going to cross the boarder alone without a group but am so thankful that i didn't because it was pretty intimidating and i wouldn't know where to go or who to trust. We arrived at our destination, Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha just as the sun was setting. Wish such a looooooong day of driving, it was so nice to have a hot steaming shower accompanied by a chilled glass of Everest Beer before passing out.