A French family of five has spent the past one month in a tent on the lawns of a temple in an Uttar Pradesh village, waiting for the lockdown to be lifted.

Pallares Patrice, a tourist in his late 40s, his wife Verginie, adult daughters Ophelie and Lola and young son Tom had begun their journey from Toulouse in France in the first week of February. They mostly travelled on land in their SUV.

Police said they had entered India via the Wagah border from Pakistan on March 1. They planned to drive across India and then cross over to Nepal before flying back to France.

But they were stopped in village Kolhua Sihonrwa in Maharajganj district, 360km east of Lucknow, on March 25, just 30km from Sonauli town on the Nepal border.

“They were unwilling to stay in a hotel, so they took permission from the priest of the Ram Janki temple in the village to erect their tent there. They have since been staying there,” Ashok Kumar Mishra, the local circle officer, said.

Initially the priest arranged for their food.

“We came to know about the French family last week and sent food grains and other eatables for them,” Mishra said.

“They are staying there comfortably. They can go to Nepal whenever the lockdown is over and Nepal opens the Sonauli border.”

Police officers said Pallares had told them that after being stopped, the family were initially at a loss how to cope with the situation. They later decided to face it bravely since they would have encountered the same problem everywhere. “We know how to live with the bare minimum (amenities) and explore the world,” Mishra quoted Pallares as saying.

The family have cordoned themselves off with the help of ropes tied to the trees around their tent to maintain social distancing.

Jasvir Singh, sub-divisional magistrate of Maharajganj, said the five tourists’ visas would expire at the end of April, so the district administration has written to the Union home ministry and the French embassy to have the visas extended.