I hate busses

After my last post I went straight to Varanasie train station to start my journey to Kathmandu. It was 10pm on a Sunday night, I arrived in Kathmandu at 4am on Tuesday.

I was advised my my guesthouse owner to go to the station at 10 for my 12:30 train because the tuk-tuks are hard to find after ten and triple or quadruple their rates, I took his advise and got a rickshaw to the station two hours before my train was due to leave. At the station I saw two guys who had been on my train into Varanasie (you tend to notice other white people in that environment) so I got chatting to them. Otto and Matti are Finnish guys who are travelling for four months across India, Nepal and Thailand. We compared tickets and found we were in the same booth on the same train so formed a kind of defensive perimeter it the surreal environment on an Indian train station at midnight. After about two hours sitting on the concrete we heard the first announcement for our train, saying it would arrive at platform one. We lugged our bags out onto the platform expecting it's imminent arrival, and waited....after a while we sat on the platform edge, trying to ignore the rats we waited some more. Eventually the announcements started trickling in again, the train would be a half hour late, then an hour. We moved back inside and waited more, a very unhelpful American girl told us the train was going to be four hours late but when I pointed out the chart she was looking at had a different train number she told said
'doesnt matter, its the same train'.
'No, it's another number and its got a different name because its a different train going to a different place'
'Oh'

Eventually our train got in about two and half hours late, one hour after the announcement saying it was arriving now. We reached our destination of Gorakpor (closest the railway goes to the border) nearly five hours late (after a two hour stop in the middle of nowhere which was never explained) but we didn't care so much because we were in sleeper carriages and were perfectly comfortable snoozing in our bunks.

Otto, Matti and I emerged into Groakpor and after the usual hassle of touts and ticketsellers bought seats on a bus to the border for fifty-five rupees. The two and a half hour trip took four hours, the bus had twice as many people as seats and the two tallest people, myself and six-foot-five French guy, were made to sit next to eachother. As the bus arrived in Saluni the rickshaws raced along side the moving bus trying to secure our business to take us from the bus station to the border. Telling us alternately that is was 'many kilometer away' and 'one and half kilometer' we decided to walk, it was about 200 meters and we were out of India and in no-mans-land.

An hour of filling in forms, changing money, and securing visas later we walked into Nepal. Much to my disappointment it looked the same as India at first. Then I noticed a few little differences, the people looked a little different - more like Thais than Indians. There was less noise, the shops and restaurants were back from the road rather than built right up...little things. We had planned to be in this town in the early morning to get a tourist-bus up to Kathmandu in the daylight but by now it was about 2.30pm. Knowing we had a 12 hour drive infront of us I insisted on looking at the bus we were to take and checking the seats folded back before we bought tickets. I didnt want to spend the night on windy mountain road in a cramped, crowded minibus. The seats seemed okay, and we were promised we would actually get one each (you've gotta ask here) so we parted with a few hundred rupees and went to get some lunch/dinner before the departure, confident of an comfortable ride to Kathmandu. We were so wrong.

As soon as we boarded the bus we knew something was amiss, there was a driver and a guy who seemed to be a conductor of sorts. As far as I could tell his job was to tell people where to sit and yell at everyone...constantly. He yelled at people to get them to sit where he decided, he yelled at the driver, he yelled at people at the bus stops - and it stopped without explanation every ten minutes or so for the first two hours - he yelled when it was time for the bus to go again. Picture the demeanor of a hard-faced army Seargent who's been stripped of his responsibility and given some humiliating, petty task, that was the yelling man.

Our bus lurched away from the border and very slowly got out of the towns. It may have had folding seats (I was very proud I checked them before hand) but they had very worn padding and the bus had no suspension at all. My butt ached after twenty minutes, and I knew the arse-crunching, bone-jarring ride of the angry-mans bus would last another twelve hours. Again I was wrong.

Nepal has some problems which I dont fully understand with a Moaist insurgency. There's been an on-and-off civil war for ages. Its mostly off at the moment but one of the consequences (I dont know how they connect or who's on what side) is these rolling strikes they have across the country. Without warning shops and offices are ordered to shut and roads are blocked. I learnt this while our bus, along with every other veichle on the road that night, sat in a non-descript village in the middle of nowhere while an angry mob, who I could hear but not see, cordoned off the road infront of us.

The thing about these strikes is that they are completely unpredictable, they can happen anywhere at any time and last for an hour or a couple of days. Everyone got off the bus and milled around, smoking, being yelled at and buying from the roadside vendors who appeared with popcorn, fruit and paan (like chewing tabacco, but made with lime past and beetle nut, it's a national obsession back in India where the tin-foil wrappers clog every street). No one had any idea how long we'd be there. I'd heard a story from a middle-aged British woman in Varanasi that she'd been caught in one that lasted for twelve hours. There was nothing that we could do, the lights on the bus went out so I couldnt read. We just waited.

One of the Finns produced a bottle of Vodka so we took a couple of swigs each. People chain-smoked, argued...stood around. Some tried to sleep, I couldn't. With absolutely nothing to do and no idea how long we'd be there I retired to my seat and stared into space. It was dark by now and where there was light it was headlamps of idling trucks or moving motorbikes piercing the dusty air or orange glow from candles by the roadside - no electricity in evidence anywhere, my bored mind noticed. I got off the bus several times, walked around the road, looked at the stalls and got back on, waited for a while then repeated. Time seemed to stand still and everytime I saw movement I quietly hoped it was the end of the blockade, the only benefit from the disruption was to a couple of happy cows who emerged from the paddocks and grazed on the cargo of an overloaded straw-carrying truck. They were the most interesting thing to watch, so I watch cows gorge themselves for a half hour and wondered what thier bovine brains were thinking ('Jackpot! Woo Whooo!' was about the best I could come up with).

After about three hours the angry-mob chanting stopped and shortly after an inaudible message seemed to go to everyone that it was time to move again. Without being told everyone walked back to thier cars, tractors, busses and trucks. Angry-man felt the need to reinforce this knowledge with a good bit of yelling anyway. The cows got scared off by the straw-truck starting up and our massive convoy started to move. I napped intermittently for a while, waking up cold and realising that the Finn's bags were tied to the roof we split up what warm clothing I had between the three of us. The constant rattling of the bus shook the windows open, there was no heating and we were, after all, in the foothills of the Himalayas.

After a couple of roadside stops (cafes cooking dahl on clay, wood fired ovens - unspeakable toilets, even by developing world standards) a four hour drunken argument between a family sat next to us, more unnecessary angry-man yelling and countless ass-jarring potholes we arrived in Katmandu 34 hours after we left Varanasi. Someone from our hotel met us at the bus station and we crashed out.

Katmandu is much the same as any city in India, there is the poverty, hard-to-find hot water and intermittent power supply but everything is on a smaller scale, less noise, less hassle. I felt such a sense of relief walking the streets here, there are still beggers and trinket sellers and unnecessary use of vehicle horns but its so much more bearable. The air is more breathable and the city on the whole its more traveller-friendly. There have been some interesting moments since we arrived here but I think all thats for a later entry.

After arriving here I've decided to go on a trek in the Himalayas - When else would I have this chance? Me, Otto and Matti have hired a porter and guide (guide is required by the government, porter because none of us have been to altitude before and we may need help at some point) and will be walking the Helembu Track. We'll be staying in little villages along the way, not camping or anything hardcore like that. With good weather we'll have views of some 8000+ metre peaks (including Everest) but wont be going too high ourselves. It's a relatively easy trail but should be challenging enough. The whole thing, including guide, porter, food, some equipment hire, accommodation in guesthouses along the way and transport to and from starting point is costing less than $US220 each so it'll be healthy, cheap way to spend 8 days.

All of a sudden the end of this trip is within sight, after getting back to Kathmandu I've only got a few days before I fly out of Delhi - it's been a bit of a shock to realise that.

Greg
Kathmandu, Nepal
21 Nov 2008