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Published: April 23rd 2009
Its a week now since I finished the trek, and since that time I've experienced a myriad of Nepalese transportation methods. As I mentioned before, leaving the mountain involved a jeep ride, a minibus ride and then a bus ride - with the final destination of Pokhara. The minibus ride was the one with the over-friendly seatmate. At first, because it was a very crowded vehicle on a bumpy dirt road, I thought that the many "touches" could be accidental. I was quite willing to give a benefit of the doubt and gently placed my small daypack between us as a buffer, at which point, the man told me, please not to worry, he wouldn't bother me. I then felt guilty as I had been thinking of him as a creep when instead he, like me, was just trying to stay on the seat instead of flying onto the floor of the vehicle. However, a few minutes later, his hand landed on a place where no bump could have placed it. I gave him a stern look and he asked, "permission?" Frowningly, I told him no, in what I thought was a rather authoritative voice. All was well for the next 20 minutes or so, which allowed me to refocus on the battle against road-sickness, but then the "accidental" feels started up again, with the bag providing only a limited barrier. Finally, he flat out grabbed my breast, at which point I quite loudly said no, grabbed his hand and threw it away. He asked, "just for one night?," at which point my no became loud enough for the whole bus to hear. This seemed to finally deter him as he shifted away in his seat. Much to my eternal gratitude, a woman at the front of the bus, who had gotten on late so had been perching on the edge of a seat with her baby, overheard all this and a few minutes later came back to my row and managed to squish herself between me and the gentleman. I have never been so happy to be completely squashed between sweaty people with a baby drooling all over me! When the minibus reached Beni, the end of the mountain area, I followed this woman and her family to a bus to Pokhara, where I made sure to get a seat far from my prior seatmate.
On the bus to Pokhara, a local one as evidenced by the fact that I was the only trekker on it, I had a seat in the second row. Now, the front of the bus is preferable, as much less bumpy, but the very first row or two is not a great location. This is because, as the bus travels along, the driver will pick up additional passengers along the way, either going to the final destination or somewhere in between. By the time these new folks get on, there are usually no seats left, so they generally end up standing near the front of the bus. So for about half of the ride, I had, in addition to my seatmate on the window side, one man perched on the arm of my seat and a woman who was sitting on the aisle had her head resting in my lap. Not so bad really except that it was close to 80 degrees outside, which meant a bit warmer in the bus. It was on this ride that the bus stopped for about 2 hours. Due to my poor Nepali, I think, but am not sure, that the stop was due to an accident. When the bus stops like this, most people get off and sit along the side of the road (bathroom breaks a few feet farther off of the road, usually right out in teh open). As we were sitting, I asked one man from my bus if there was an accident (i.e., I said the Nepali word for accident). He responded in English, yes, three months ago. Hmm . . . I'm thinking there was a miscommunication, but the lesson is, don't go on a bus trip without lots of snacks and water. Fortunately, I had enough, although several other passengers also offered me some of their supplies until they saw I had my own. Its great how friendly most people are.
Pokhara is a great place to visit. The city has a wonderful large lake that you can walk around, take boat rides on, etc. Along one side of the lake are several kilometers of stores/restaurants, aimed largely at tourists, of which there are many in the area. Because there are so many hotels, guest houses, you can stay quite cheaply if you are willing to be a 5-10 minute walk from the lake, which is still a nice area. You can also rent bicycles to explore the area, and the traffic (or comparable lack thereof) makes this doable, but I elected to spend the days walking. When I was leaving Pokhara, I was quite glad that I'd had prior experience riding a motorcycle, because the "taxi" to the bus park the morning I left was the back of the hotel owner's son's motorcycle, with me wearing my hiking bag. That would have been a bit nerve-wracking if it were my first ride. As I mentioned in my last posting, the ride back to Kathmandu, about 7 hours, was fine except that I was on the very last row of the bus. Not only is this crowded, but its extremely bumpy - I really don't understand why its so different, but it felt like we were on a dirt road full of huge potholes the whole time, despite most of the trip being on well-paved roads. If riding on buses here, I'd recommend carrying a sweater because, even though the buses are really warm, its good to have something to cover your knees to lessen the impact as they continually bash into the seat in front of you (especially if sitting behind a broken seat that keeps falling back into your lap!)
By the time I got back to the Kathmandu area, it was spring. Its in the 70s/80s during the day and no longer chilly at night. I spent several days resting - this meant, sleeping until 9/10ish, then walking a few hours to some destination in the city, staying a little while, walking back and getting in by early evening. A few times, when it was really hot, I took a taxi one way - this is perhaps the smoothest way of travelling. Its through the city, so no windy/mountain roads, and speeds are limited by the traffic. You do end up sitting in traffic for quite some time, but with the window open there is still a breeze so its bearable. After about 4-5 days back in the city, I felt ready to set out again - I had recovered my appetite, confirmed at the medical clinic that I wasn't suffering from much other than a "weak stomach" (the doctor basically told me that being sick a few times a day is no big deal) and felt up for another long bus ride. So I decided to visit Chitwan, a safari type area in Central Nepal, about a 6-7 hour bus ride from Kathmandu.
Typically, its recommended to get tickets for long distance bus rides at least a day in advance, but the bus park is really far away, confusing and hard to get to, so I decided to skip this advice. Instead, I found a tourist bus company with a phone number and called to make my reservation by phone. The price of my laziness is that the bus ticket will be $8 instead of $4, but the bus will (supposedly) have AC, the ticket price includes your lunch along the way and I know how to get to the bus stop! So yesterday, I took a cab from the house at 6:30 in the morning to go over to the bus office to pick up my ticket. I waited outside the wrong building for about half an hour and then made my way over to the right place. (While I was waiting in the wrong place, I was surprised at the number of soldiers guarding the area - it was only as I was walking away that I realized I was hanging out in front of the U.S. embassy - that explains why the soldier spent all that time chatting with me!) When I got to the bus office, just after 7, they explained that they had just called the house to tell me that the bus was cancelled - they learned that there was a bandh (a strike) near Chitwan and buses couldn't get through. I thanked them and started the 4-5 mile walk back. As I was going back, I passed another bus that was labelled Chitwan. I stopped to ask if it was really going and they said yes, denying that there was any problem with the road. I thought briefly about getting on, perhaps my first company had cancelled because they didn't have enough passengers and just said there was a strike, but I didn't have much food with me so didn't want to risk getting stuck somewhere so decided just to try again tomorrow. Turns out, that was the right choice - on the news that evening it was reported that a tourist bus and several other vehicles were torched on the road to Chitwan as they were travelling in violation of the bandh. The strike was described in today's paper as being of an "indefinite" period, so its probably good that I didn't go earlier and face getting stuck there. I know someone to whom that happened last month, and they ended up having to travel two hours on the back of a bicycle, with their bags, to get to an airport. One of the family members recently went to India, and his bus was also stopped due to a strike. He ended up walking through the jungle area, with his luggage, for two hours to get around the closed portion of the road, then had to ride on the top of a jeep for several hours before finding another bus. This kind of travelling is tough to do with language barriers!
So today, instead of riding an elephant to view rhinos and tigers, I travelled, via motorcycle, to a part of the city that I hadn't seen before with one of Jampa's brothers to visit a carpet factory. It was a really pretty area, but some sections of the dirt road were difficult to traverse due to construction - in some spots, there was only an area about a foot wide, with open canals on the side, on which to drive. A downside to riding in warmer weather is that the driver is no longer wearing a bulky winter jacket on which to hold onto with a death grip. Instead, I rode like a local, holding onto the back of the bike with one hand. Unlike the locals, however, my knuckles were white and I resorted to my early habit of closing my eyes at times and swearing softly under my breath. Lets just say that, at times, I think the earlier reminders to "driver slowly" with me on board were forgotten. That, and this brother must have been really good at geometry - he can measure the distance between vehicles quite well and we often drove between cars when I didn't think we'd fit through, but hey, I was always better at algebra than geometry.
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Jaimee
non-member comment
Oh my indeed!
Oh my! I was getting motion sick just reading this. You need a fly swatter to deal with annoying seatmates. A little "whack, whack" now and then to keep them on their side of the seat. That or a stun gun. That could be entertaining for everyone- liven up the trips a bit. Keep on traveling Ali!