Head Count: 84,986

The Skinny: Butwal is a junction city for folks traveling south to the Indian border, east towards Royal Chitwan National Park and Kathmandu, or to the western plains of the Terai. The downtown area is crowded, loud, and hectic, but the Old City on the other side of the Tinau River is a quiet, dark tangle of narrow lanes and foot paths.

What Thar Be: There is an impressive suspension foot bridge crossing the river between the New and Old parts of town. A busy market selling everything from clothes to vegetables to jewelry goes late into the night in a clearing near the entrance to the foot bridge.

Digs: Hotel Kandara: off to the right about 3 kilometres from Butwal's main chowk are plenty of questionably starred hotels at greatly varying prices. The Kandara gave us a room with 3 beds and shared bath for 300R. 'Twas a bit noisy, however, as the tape sellers across the street blared Hindi pop songs until midnight, and then started up again around 7 a.m.

Vittles: We found a good local place serving 25R chowmein and 10R aloo mutter pakora (a pea and potato spicey stew-like concoction) down by the late night market.

Hooch Factor: Unknown--we had leavin' on our minds.

Navigability: The streets were wide yet busy in the New City, but smaller and much less crowded in the Old City, with no real vehicles to speak of.

Sliding In and Out: We drove from Pokhara back east to Mugling, and then down south to Butwal because we heard that the direct north-south route through Tansen is very curvy and subject to mudslides in the monsoon. The drive from Pokhara to Mugling is beautiful and level, sealed, and in good shape. The route turns south at Mugling and cuts through a deep gorge, and then west at Narayanghat to a flat road skirting Royal Chitwan N.P. and into Butwal. From Mugling on, the road was sealed and well-kept.