Gorakhpur Getting there & around

Getting there & away

Frequent (at least hourly) buses run from the main bus stand, about 300m south of the train station, to Faizabad (Rs 78, three hours), Kushinagar (Rs 29, 1½ hours) and Sunauli (Rs 56, 2½ hours) at the Nepal border. Buses to Varanasi (Rs 112, seven hours) leave from the Katchari bus stand, south of the main bus stand, but the train is a better option.

Touts are dead keen to sell you ‘through’ bus tickets to Kathmandu or Pokhara from Rs 395, but they are not a great deal with plenty of profit for the tout and no choice of bus on the final leg. There are no private buses to Sunauli – only local buses – and no through buses direct to Nepal.

Gorakhpur has direct train connections with Varanasi (2nd class/sleeper/3AC Rs 65/ 114/320, 5½ hours, four daily), Lucknow (Rs 73/126/357, six hours), Delhi (sleeper/3AC Rs 277/782, 16 hours) and Kolkata (Rs 292/823, 23 hours, departs 1pm). Counter No 811 serves foreign tourists.