Kakarbhitta & the Mechi bridge

Kakarbhitta is where Nepal's long lowland road starts. Kilometre zero of the Mahendra (East–West) Highway sits beside the Mechi river, and from here the road runs roughly 1,000 km west to the Mahakali river on the far side of the country.

A border town

The town lives on movement: trucks queueing for customs, jeeps to Ilam and the hills, buses to Kathmandu, and a steady stream of Indian, Bhutanese and Nepali travellers crossing the bridge to Panitanki. Siliguri, the hub for Darjeeling, Sikkim and Bhutan, is about an hour away on the Indian side.

Visitors who are not Nepali or Indian citizens need to complete immigration formalities at the offices on each side of the bridge.

What to see

There is no single monument here; the pleasure is in the bazaar, the evening aarti by the river and the tea country that begins just outside town. Many travellers use Kakarbhitta as the first night in Nepal before heading to the tea gardens of Jhapa, the hills of Ilam or west along the highway.

Nearby

The flat tea estates around Budhabare and Birtamod, the pilgrimage site of Arjundhara, and the ruins of Kichakbadh near Bhadrapur are all within an hour.