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Heading south over the low Chure Hills , the Rajpath, merged with the Mahendra Highway here, enters a strange landscape of stunted trees, wide gravel washes and steeply eroded pinnacles. These hills are the newest wrinkle in the Himalayan chain, heaved up as the 30-million-year-long collision between the Indian and Asian continental plates ripples southwards - less than half a million years old, they're so young that the surface sediments haven't yet been eroded to expose bedrock. Leaving the hills once and for all, the road passes Amlekhganj, the former rail terminus (now Nepal's main fuel depot), and 4km further on, the entrance to Parsa Wildlife Reserve . An annex of Chitwan National Park, providing secondary habitat for many of its sub-adult tigers, the reserve isn't developed for tourism. No food or lodgings are available, though the warden might let you stay in the government guest house if there's room (nominal charge). Visitors aren't allowed in on foot without a guide (who may also be unavailable). Accompanied by a guide brought from Sauraha, you could do day trips from Birganj and have the run of the whole place, but you'd need a vehicle to get into interesting habitat. The entrance fee is Rs650. The Mahendra Highway branches off to the east at Pathlaya , 3km south of the Parsa entrance, and Simara , another 3km south, heralds a dreary succession of factories and fields that continues all the way to Birganj. For obscure reasons of national security, Nepal passed a law in the mid-1980s requiring that all new factories must be built at least 10km from the Indian border, which is causing the major border cities to flare northwards. Simara has an airstrip (daily flights to Kathmandu, $44).
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