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Clumped around the junction of the Mahendra Highway and the Rajpath, HETAUDA is still a staging-post on the India-Kathmandu route, but whatever romance it may once have had has long gone. Indian trucks rumble through with fuel and bulk goods for Kathmandu, while buses stop here at all hours: it's a restless, transient place. Prostitution is common, helping make the city a link in the transmission of AIDS from India to Nepal. Among Nepalis, Hetauda is probably most famous for its cement plant, whose output has built many of the Tarai's factories and concrete bazaars, and its industrial estate, responsible for much of Nepal's prodigious beer production. In fairness, though, Hetauda isn't all industry and ugliness. The local council has tidied up the central crossroads area a bit, and as part of a general beautification drive has even banned the use of plastic bags in the city. Tributaries of the Rapti River run peacefully along the town's southern and western edges (bearing Hetauda's industrial effluents to Chitwan, unfortunately), and much of the surrounding area is dominated by sal forest. The centre of Hetauda is Mahendra Chowk , a four-way intersection with the Mahendra Highway coming in from the west, the Rajpath from the north, and the two of them merging for a time along the highway heading south. The intersection's eastern spoke is at present only a local road to Makwanpur Gadhi, 17km distant, but it's eventually supposed to be extended all the way to Tika Bhairab in the Kathmandu Valley. When (or if) that happens, Hetauda will become an even more important junction, and its industries will get a lift by gaining better access to the capital.
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