After a border crossing together with a thousand goat that took forever, had to find a way to get to Kathmandu from the Nepalese border. In an incomprehensible attempt to save 70 dollars (i.e. an amount I easily spent on brunch in NY on a daily basis) decided to go for the local bus. Not sure whether this was an experience to or not to be missed...
After asking around and watching all other Westerners board fancy jeeps, three English speaking Nepalese boys proudly point at a colourful barrel branded Tata. "This is bus to Kathmandu, express, takes 3 hours, no 4, leaves at 11.30am. Buy ticket??" It was kind of hard to figure out in how many hours from then the bus was leaving...there is an odd time difference of 2 hours and 15 minutes between Tibet and Nepal. It appeared to be a 2 hour wait. Not to bad right...
The bus boy decides to give the Western people VIP seats 1 and 2 in front of the bus and the backpacks may be stored inside as opposed to on top of the bus. At around 11.15am the bus is still close to empty. This seems not so bad after all. Spoken to soon though...5 minutes before the scheduled departure time a disabled smelly homeless "intouchable" (member of the lowest caste) boards the bus along with 4 women in saris who carry over 30 big bags with blankets and duvets, 10 boxes with coffee machines and 12 unidentiefied boxes which they start storing in the aisle of the bus. Some other locals board the bus as well, all carrying some boxes or bags with shoes, peanuts, shirts, more blankets and the like. It is now 11.26am. All is fine still...just 10 people and a lot of cargo, that seems doable.
When the driver arrives, he first kicks out the untouchable and then all the cargo (must be stored on the roof). When bags are being thrown on top of the bus and the driver starts the engine, the other passengers arrive. Fairly quickly all seats are taken, more and more people board, the untouchable sneaks in again. Three pretty girls board...three guys have to give up their seats so the princesses can sit. By now seriously considering to spent that 70 bucks anyway, but canno longer access backpack. More people board...resulting in at least twice or maybe three times the number of people allowed in the West. The bus starts moving, pfeww, this is still ok. Then the impossible happens, 15 more people jump in and 6 guys hang outside. Their life is in my hands, as a little slap on their fingers grabbing a bar inside would make them fall off.
The smell is unbearable. Old sweat mixed with more old sweat mixed with the smell of goat, food and smoke. One lady smells so bad that it almost makes me vomit. An extremely dirty old man leans against us. The untouchable is drizzling on our headseat, his black fingernails grabbing our chair in an attempt not to fall. Well, we are moving at least. This is an experience right?!
To avoid the smell, I stick my head out of the window. To my great fear I look 300m down into the gorge and see the wheels of the bus around 1cm from the edge... the guys on the side of the bus float over the ravine. The road is very narrow so we move even closer to the edge when a car from the other direction passes us. Backing up for other traffic is even more scary. It seems they had a few landslides during monsoon season, so the road itself lies in pieces on the side and we drive on mud. When desperately looking for reasons why to have taken the bus and thinking of the sad little newspaper article "Nepalese bus drove in ravine, all passengers died, amongst them were 2 (reckless) Dutch tourists", my eye falls on a charm in the door opening: a bulb of garlic. Somehow this calmes my nerves.
After 1km the bus stops in front of a bunch of houses. More people board the bus. Amongst them a woman that smells like flowers. She neutralizes the smell of the dirty old lady. More of these please! Not so happy with the naked baby that is almost sitting on my lap. It starts raining outside. Muddy footprints are all over my backpack. One of the princesses who got sick is about to cover the mud with vomit though.
It is not all bad however. The scenery is beautiful. Bright green ricefields, waterfalls, nice villages. Also, the driver has a strict policy: no livestock (even not on top of the roof) & no smoking. A guy in the back of the bus that sneakily lights a cigarette is almost kicked out of the bus and a man with a goat in his arms and a girl with a basket of chicken on her head are firmly refused access to the bus. Around 200kg of potatoes no problem though...
The first 48km we stop at every house to pick up (and fortunately sometimes also drop off) passengers. What is the express part about this bus again?? When the smelliest lady steps out, there is a sigh of relief.
In addition to the countless stops to pick up passengers, there are at least 4 customs checkpoints. Most passengers have to step out and armed soldiers open or squeeze every bag. It seems odd. When crossing the border we saw many women carrying 12 bottles of booze around their waist onder their aprins, unloading them in front of soldiers and now they are checking bags in this chaos???
When close to Kathmandu, it appears we are indeed on the express bus: we skip village 48 of 52!
The promised 3 hours become 5. Obviously we did not bring any food and have only half a muddy waterbottle left. Due to the lack of proper accomodation the last part of the trip in Tibet, I am wearing my glasses which are by now covered with dirt, sealed off by smog and some rain.
When safely arrived in the hotel (after an endless hike in the rain from the busstop - a day later it appears that a shortcut would have taken only 5 minutes) I spot a sad little message in the Kathmandu post. Four tractors fell off that same road a day ago and 6 Nepalese farmers died.
A good thing to conclude though...friend of mine warned me that Nepalese and/or Indians might masturbate on me in the local buses (she heard about it)....well that did not happen!
Feel I have got to known more about Nepal in these 5 hours than about China in a month.
PS seemed that many of my blogs about Tibet were blocked by the authorities...will try to put them (back) online. After China finally free access to the web!
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Location:Bus from Kodari to Kathmandu, Nepal
