Day 1 - The Bus Trip

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Getting to the start of the Langtang Valley treks is not easy. It's only 121km but it's 8 hours of mainly gravel, single lane that winds up mountainsides with many hairpin turns carved out of the hillside, no guard rail and what looks like a thousand meters straight down. If you have ever watched the TV program Worlds Most Dangerous Roads you get the idea.

The only modes of transport is the three time daily local bus or a private jeep rental for $150. Wanting to experience local, and being cheap we took the bus. What a trip!

A third world "local" bus is a of junker of a vehicle with bald retread tires that transports everything from chickens, sacks of rice and salt, lumber and at least 10 times the number of people that there are seats for, all the while stopping every 10 minutes for locals to clamor off and on. Other then no chickens that we knew of, ours was no exception. The most important feature of the bus was the 10 year old Nepalie boy whose job was to hang out the passenger door (no door, just an opening) and through banging on the side of the bus and signal the driver, two bangs on the side of the bus to stop for passengers, three to start, and most critically no stop banging when the bus got too close to driving off the cliff.

When we got to the terminal we thought the bus was already over full, but thankfully Kalu had booked up the two seats back from the door. After he ejected the people sitting in our seats we squeezed in with our back packs our laps. There we people sitting on the arm rests, on the floor, and hanging out the door. Once we got outside of Kathmandu , more and more people got on. Once the bas was jammed the roof became the seating of choice. The challenge was that at the numerous police and army checkpoints the bus had to stop before the checkpoint came into view, everyone on the roof clamours down, walks through the checkpoint, the clamours back on top 5 meters after the checkpoint. Roof riding is not allowed in Nepal. At various times we had a baby on Anette's lap, an old gentleman with a dirty wet bag draped over us, various people in formal wear on their way to wedding hanging over us,a car sick young female trekker German with her head on Ken's knee and a Canadian girl from Toronto vomiting at our feet.

Apart from, depending on your adventure travel view point, and incredible introduction to Nepalese life, or the worst ordeal imaginable, it was very scary, peering out the window and seeing the river far and straight below. The only saving grace was the concept of our children telling our future grandchildren how their parents died would be much more dramatic if we died in an overloaded bus driving off a Himalyan mountain cliff then being killed by a drunk driver in the city on the way to work.

One fellow actually fell off the roof of the bus. The bus was rocking heavily going around a corner over the road ruts. We saw something fall past the windows, a couple people screamed and the 10 year old started banging fiercely. The driver slammed to a stop and was about to jump out to see, when the young fellow who fell off came jogging back, no worse for wear, and clamoured back up top. Thankfully he fell off on the hillside side. if it had been on the other side they would be still looking for his remains.

While it was definatly a life experience, the happiest point of the trip was getting to our destination. We will be digging into our wallets for the $150 for the private jeep back.

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Photos

The Bus Terminal
The bus sure looked full to us even before we got on.

In our seats finally
We got the best two seats on the bus

Loading sacks of rice
The local grain merchant had a dozen or so bags of rice and salt he loaded into the isle and dropped off a bag or two at numerous stops

Roof top riders
According to some the best seats are on the roof. If the bus goes over the cliff you best chance of survival is to jump rather then being stuck in the bus.

The rice merchant
This fellow had an violent argument with the driver over the fare for him and his rice when he went to get off.

The 10 year old "capitan" of the bus
The boy who seamed to control everything

More Road
An example of some of the road and the challenges for the driver.