BE WARE!!! Kathmandu, Nepal to Varanasi, India overland warning/scam!!

Scams like these have been going on since years, decades really. It is masterminded from Nepal and is well reported many times over. Police and other authorities know about it and do absolutely nothing to stop it. They probably get a cut themselves.

When you buy a ticket for the "tourist bus" from Kathmandu to Varanasi you will be told that there will only be as many passengers are there are seats on the bus, one on each. And that is how it is when the bus pulls out from the bus station.

A few kms later the driver will stop to pick up some 5-6 extra local passengers. Since there are no seats for them they will sit on tiny stools in the bus aisle. From there they are in a perfect position to rummage through the tourists bags on the floor during the night.

Early morning, when it is still dark outside, the bus will stop to drop off the thieves, so that they will be well gone by the time the tourists realize they have been robbed.

There are many other scams with these buses too, like "your train ticket and booking to Delhi will be waiting for you at the border".

Unfortunate experience. It's a service that claims all the way from Kat to Var? I've found that in most countries, any companies that offer these kind of trips (country to country by bus), save China to Laos, is a scam. I wouldn't trust anything that offers multiple forms of travel, unless it's a very reputable tour company with the right certifications and has positive reviews on the internet or in a guidebook.

I've taken the bus from Katmandu to the border, crossed myself, then took a shared car with other travelers to Gorakpur and got a train ticket to Varanasi. I started in the morning, arrived at the train station in the early evening, and had enough time for dinner before getting on the train to Varanasi. The only thing I had booked for me was my bus ticket to the border. I found the bus to be very pleasant. It was crowded with people sitting in the middle, but that's just the way of travel in India and Nepal. For every bad experience, there's a good one. I fell in a pothole on my way to Pokhra on one of those buses and some guy helped tie up my sprained ankle, a girl went and bought me painkillers, then when we arrived in Pokhra, the bus attendant carried my bag for me across town and helped me get it all the way up the stairs to my room, then wouldn't accept a tip when I offered it to him.

This might prove a better option for people who want to travel by land, but don't want to deal with scams. The most you'll have to deal with is bargaining on the price of the shared taxi with the driver.

All in all, it's a good learning experience. It happens to the best of us at least once during travels and it actually convinces many people to start traveling in a local way, which I would say is a lot more fun!

Tough story, when people keep asking for extra money my advice would just be to say no and keep saying no, if they are all in it together they will know they are tricking you so won't be confused when you rumble them, they usually just give up and accept that you're not worth the hassle and wait for the next traveller to come aboard. Its all tactics, I doubt they would or could force you to leave the bus, and if they did, just demand your money back that you originally paid for the ticket, they would rather not lose that money so will just shut up and leave you alone. Be aggressive, these people don't want a fight, they are cowardly tricksters and will always back down in the face of loud confrontation.

The cross-border bus is always a bit of a risk, usually they terminate at the border and then 'arrange' for you to get across but it will always lead to additional fees. I got a ticket from Kathmandu to Darjeeling (worst trade of cities in the world) but it terminated at the Indian border and then I was told (beforehand to be fair, when i booked it) to go to a travel agent in the town who would give me my next tickets onward. He looked very unimpressed to see me and simply walked me to the border and got me onto a minibus/taxi which then waited for 2 hours while it filled up. He paid the fee for the taxi which took me to the train station in the town below Darjeeling but no further. In the end I had to buy an extra ticket for a jeep up to Darjeeling which was only 100rupees and then 3 hour drive. My advice would be to by all means book tickets through agents or hotels, but know you will pay 2x the price, its far cheaper to turn up to the bus station, ask for the name of the place you want to go then see what local people pay and pay the same. these buses won't promise things they cant deliver (they will be the SAME bus you will go on with a tourist ticket) but there will be people there to talk to. If I had asked if that bus went to Darjeeling id have been laughed at and told no, so id just have bought a ticket to the border, then done what I did above, only id have paid a lot less!!

Worst part of this trip was an IDIOT not he bus on the row to my left with his phone speaker on between 10pm and 4am full volume with Nepalese music, I threatened to throw it out the window in a sleep-deprived rage and he put it away. Oh and then arriving in Darjeeling, which was horrible.

There is no train you can take from Kathmandu, the only way to make the trip to India is by bus. There's a very easy way to avoid this scam. When you get to the border (Sunauli) walk about 500 meters into India along the main road, and keep an eye out on the right-hand side of the road for the government bus station. State governments in India offer excellent bus services (in this case, the buses will be run by the state transport company of Uttar Pradesh). The buses are marked with the acronym of the state bus company (in this case, something like U.P.S.T.C.): it's very unlikely that anyone will ever try and rip you off on a state bus in India. Buses run frequently from Sunauli to Gorakhpur, which takes about 3 hours. Once you're on board and the bus has started up, a conductor will come along and hand you a ticket for your destination (the price is usually clearly indicated on the ticket, but sometimes you'll be handed little bits of paper with numbers on them that you'll have to add up). It should cost something like 40-100 rupees, I can't remember the price and distance exactly. From Gorakhpur, you can continue onto Varanasi by train or bus. The bottom line for avoiding bus scams in India is: take GOVERNMENT BUSES.

state buses in india are fantastic, the ones i went on were what we would call 'local buses' in that they didn't have the bells and whistles of tourist buses, the seats were benches that didn't recline. but you won't get ripped off, a conductor has either ran electronic machine or just has paper tickets, never very expensive and some go on huge trips of several hours. they don't go on massive trips though in my experience, i don't know if they cross state borders. They are great for getting around individual states though

Government buses do cross state borders, and there are some truly epic long-distance journeys which can be done on government buses. In some states (Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka for example) the state bus companies operate luxury bus services, with AC and bucket reclining seats, making bus travel both effecient and comfortable.

Sadly, when people don't do their homework on traveling between one location and the next (specifically international borders) or, on scams that can be pulled, you will leave yourself open to being rorted.

Trying to save money without doing your homework will often result in costing you more money and frustration.

Thanks for all of the input. I have had some trouble with multiple changeover bus trips on a single ticket but this wasnt the case on this trip. We went point to point. Giora, this was the bus station you are referring to (the only one we saw in this town).

Ric we were sort of in a bind. We were the only backpackers on this bus and their only option for a score. The bus was stopped in the middle of nowhere with the gang of thugs (driver and conductor included) waiting for us to either pay up or get off (after 20 minutes of refusing to pay). Considering I had $2000usd hidden in my bag, my laptop, SLR camera & ipod there was no way we were going to risk getting off in the middle of nowhere (literally in a field with nothing in sight). There was every reason to believe they would just get off with us, hit me in the head with a bat, rape my gf and steal all of our stuff. It was an easy decision to not roll the dice on that one and pay up the $100.

Like I said, our local friends in Mumbai told us we were lucky to get out of there only losing $100 and that they themselves would never make that trip.

Im not trying to scare anyone into avoiding local transport or overland travel all together. All Im saying is that if we could go back and do it again we would have avoided this leg by an alternate form of transport (the train from the boarder, flight, share a cab...)

Hopefully the next backpackers going from KTM to Varanasi will see this and take the aformentioned risks into consideration.

OP, you don't seem to know what the difference between private and state buses are in India, but I'd chance to bet that you were on a private bus. Such scams as you describe really should not happen on state buses, at least from my considerable experience.