Talk:Siddharthanagar

Greetings, I am Scott Justice SEJustice and a new member to Wikivoyage but a long time wikipedia contributer. I mean to draw out the Sunauli crowd to argue that they have it wrong. As for my bonifides, I am a US citizen who physically lived and worked in Bhairahawa for over three years in the 1990s and I continue to work there through an NGO based in Bhairahawa but am now a resident of Kathmandu. There has always been a confusion by tourists and their guides/books about Sunauli and Bhairahawa. The Government of Nepal did not help things when 4-5 years back they decided to set everyone right and begin to call Sunauli, Nepal by it's long forgotten and unused official name Belahiya. ANother aspect of the problem is the minor tourist mafia located in Delhi and Gorakpur who want to continue their monopoly over the busing of the lowend backpacker tourists directly to their friends/colleages the Kathmandu tourist mafia. They do this by telling the tourists for decades there is nothing to do or see in Sunauli and threaten anyone who trys to go there and tell the tourists otherwise. Accouding to my Bhairahawa hotelier freinds there is another emerging high end tourist Mafia who seek to control the quickly growing and higher end east Asian Buddhist circuit pilgrims/tourists who are whisked very quickly in and out of Nepal to visit Lumbini. Anyway, I intend to argue to keep this page "Bhairahawa" as separate and distinct from Sunauli. I would consider having it hyphenated with the less used Siddharthanagar. I will be visiting time to time to edit and prove to everyone what a nice place/area this is .....once you get out of Sunauli Belahiya. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) SEJustice (talk • contribs)

Welcome! Feel free to expand the page all you like, I agree they should probably be separate articles, and your expertise is much appreciated. Question though, before I change the opening sentence of the Sunauli article... is it untrue that both sides are generally referred to as Sunauli? When I crossed there that's always what I referred to it as. If that's the case, regardless of what should be, I think we should note that on both pages, so as to avoid confusion. What would a Nepali coming from Kathmandu to India refer to the border crossing as? – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 20:39, 12 February 2008 (EST)

Thanks cacahuate. Yes, agreed everyone/locals call both sides of the border Sunauli. Also FYI locals would also agree that Sunauli India side is more of a hell hole for travelers than Sunauli Nepal. But for shoppers who come to the border seeking cheap goods- Indian on the India side and Chinese/Nepali on the Nepali side - would agree that the Indian shop keepers are much more skilled business people and are much more friendly and helpful. (WT-en) SEJustice 01:06, 29 February 2008 (EST)