Through the Looking-Glass #9

Published December 5, 2006 in the Telluride Watch

I don’t need an alarm clock in the village. Before even the rooster crows, I hear the women of the house moving around, one milking the water buffalo, one making morning tea, one feeding her crying child.

Kate and I have spent only one night in Gerkhutar, and now we move on to begin our trek into the Nepali Himals. The road to Syaphru Bensi, from where we will begin trekking, conveniently passes near Gerkhutar; we only need to walk 20 minutes to meet the fork in the unpaved road that heads north. We thought ahead and booked our tickets from Kathmandu, although we would be meeting the bus in transit. Our hosts, the Pandey brothers, had an even better idea. They made arrangements with a restaurant owner in Dunge, where the bus stops for an early lunch about 30 minutes ahead of the Gerkhutar fork, to call the their house when the bus left Dunge. According to this plan, we could leave the house after the phone call came and still meet the bus with time to spare.

I spent the morning at the water tap behind the house with the Saili Bhauju (middle sister-in-law) while she and her niece washed the week’s dirty clothes. At 9 AM we moved into the kitchen for our morning meal of dal bhat, and sat on the front porch to wait for the call to come from Dunge. Conversation continued to focus on rural development in Nepal, and the efforts Ram Chandra Pandey has undertaken with other men in the village to help neighbors in more isolated areas. Saili Bhauju’s daughter sits on my lap and plays with my watch. Kate asks what time it is.

“Ram Hari Dai?” I ask. “Why don’t you think the restaurant owner has called from Dunge yet? Do you think the bus is late?”

“I’m not sure,” he replies, and he asks his younger brother to call the restaurant owner to find out.

One minute later, Ram Chandra rushes down the stairs and says, “Jaum! Let’s go! The bus has already left from Dunge!”

The stillness of the village has been shattered and the ten or so people sitting on the porch spring into action. Kate and I, along with our guide Shiva, grab our packs and start towards the front gate. The Pandey brothers mount their motorcycles and go ahead of us to head off the bus at the fork. The children begin waving goodbye and the Bhaujus begin their simultaneous obligatory and heartfelt requests of us to come visit again, but next time stay longer!

In 15 minutes, Kate, Shiva and I reach the fork in the road and Ram Hari tells us the bus had already started on the road to Syaphru Bensi. I climb on Ram Hari’s motorcycle, and Kate on Ram Chandra’s. Ram Hari has already sent one friend ahead to reach the bus first, and has sent another one back to Gerkhutar to retrieve a motorcycle to transport Shiva.

At 25 mph, across an unpaved rock- and dust-filled road, I am on a high-speed bus chase in Central Nepal. With a full trekking pack on my back and my daypack slung over my left shoulder, my right hand is desperately gripping the back of the motorcycle seat behind me. I am futilely holding a bandana to my mouth and nose to keep the dust out, but with every vehicle that passes us, I feel more grit in my teeth, more dirt in my eyes.

We continue on, and I wonder how long Ram Hari’s Honda Hero motorcycle is going to be able to withstand the combined 400 or so pounds of cargo over this roughshod road. Some potholes can’t be avoided, and the motorcycle bottoms out a handful of times. We still can’t see the bus in front of us. Every three minutes, I ask Ram Hari if we’ll catch up to the bus. At first he says, of course, of course. After four or five times, he begins to say he doesn’t know. Ram Hari slows the motorcycle down to ask another driver coming in our direction where he saw the bus going to Syaphru Bensi. “Oh, it’s just ahead, just ahead,” the man says. Ram Chandra and Kate, about 50 pounds lighter, overtake us and zoom on at a lightning speed of 30 mph.

The road rounds a bend and we start to see the telltale red dust hanging in the air. Just ahead, the bus to Syaphru Bensi has stopped in the shade and Ram Chandra is speaking heatedly with the driver. I will find out later that the bus driver had been told to stop at the Gerkhutar fork, but that our seats had already been sold to others, so they saw no point in waiting for us. For now, though, Ram Hari has pulled out his camera and asked the bus driver to take a picture of our group. Kate and I thank the Pandey brothers, and begin to climb to the top of the bus.

“What? You won’t sit inside?” the conductor asks incredulously.

We tell him, of course not, the view is better from up top, and besides, Kate says, “Wouldn’t you rather die on top of a metal box than inside a metal box?” The conductor doesn’t understand this, so we smile and climb up. The top of the bus is lined with steel grates, and the front half is filled with luggage covered by a tarp. Five or six boys sit on a metal box facing the front end of the bus, and they yell at us to come forward and sit with them. “Didi! Agadi aununa!” Kate and I nest ourselves among the backpacks just behind the boys and grip the steel rods tightly as the bus begins to accelerate. To our left is the Trishuli River, which we will follow for the next four hours on our way to Syaphru Bensi. The sky is clear and the sun is high. The air is clean and the mood is light. We all laugh, for the fun and to mask our fear. It has been four years since I have traveled on top of a bus on these rough Nepali roads. It has been too long.