Haripur · NP

Koshi Bridge

The Koshi Bridge is the long, low crossing that carries Nepal's Mahendra Highway over the Saptakoshi River at the Koshi Barrage, linking the Koshi and Madhesh provinces on the borderland with India. At 1,150 metres long and 10 metres wide, with 56 sluice gates marching across one of South Asia's most restless rivers, it is a working flood-control structure that has quietly become one of eastern Nepal's most atmospheric hangouts. Built between 1958 and 1962 under the 1954 Koshi Agreement and laid by King Mahendra of Nepal and India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the barrage is a monument to a Himalayan river that no engineering project has ever truly tamed. Today it offers travellers something unusual in the Terai: vast open water, flocks of winter birds, a famous sunset, and riverside restaurants serving fresh-caught fish.