When backpacking around the world, there are numerous modes of transportation that put your life at risk. Among these dangers are navigating two-cylinder motorcycles with an unbalanced backpack; traveling in a teetering three-wheeled tuk-tuk over sandy dirt roads while inhaling fumes from a dirty engine; riding trains with a record of frequent derailing; flying in planes which land at dicey runways; and any being in motorized multi-passenger vehicles, driven by a crazed driver with a chip on his shoulder. I barely survived some of these unwanted thrills in Nepal, starting with the initial harrowing landing at Kathmandu Airport.
Due to unexplained weather delays, the plane from Bangkok airport left five hours later than planned, which has us landing in Kathmandu around 11:00 p.m. The ride was bumpy all the way, but the last fifteen minutes added a swaying motion, in addition to the felt sense of a steep nosedive. Since it is pitch black outside, there is no way for me to know when the landing is imminent. A bigger bump and screeching brakes reassures me we have, indeed, finally landed.
Due to the late arrival, I’m nervous about finding a taxi driver willing to take a sole traveler to the Apple Guest House, a future rendezvous point for meeting up with my daughter and friends for a planned Himalayan Trek. It takes only ten minutes to get from the airport to the guest house, but those ten minutes have taken ten years off my lifespan. The driver was practicing for a Grand Prix race, zigzagging countless turns at a speed which had the car engine whining. I’m not sure if the car had brakes, since the driver never touched the brake pedal. He had only one speed – the maximum the car could go.
I plan to use Nepal as a pause in my itinerary, deliberately arriving four weeks before the rest of my party. I intend to spend a few days checking out Kathmandu, then to take a jungle tour which allows me to ride elephants and see rhinos, tigers, sloth bears and other exotic animals in the wild. After that, I will head to the lake town of Pokhara in the foothills of the Annapurna Mountain Range. There I intend to stay put for three weeks and build up my stamina for our upcoming trek. I’m 49-years-old with cranky knees and will be trekking with nine other people in their late twenties.
The local tourist office arranged my animal experience with Island Jungle Resort, in the Royal Chitwan National Park, a five-hour car ride to the south of Kathmandu. Having heard horror stories about local busses, I made sure the tour provides tourist transportation from Kathmandu to Chitwan and back, as well as food and lodging in the Park Camp.
On departure, I meet my companions for this adventure, an elderly couple from England, another from Germany and a young female backpack traveler from Denmark. We seem an affable group as we get to know each other during the long ride through the Himalayan mountains. Conversation is punctuated by glances out the windows at the grand scenery around us, vistas of tall, snowcapped points seemingly rising to disappear in a lowered sky. Broad valleys below show more greenery than the stark rocks which hug us on the inward side of the road. Although I didn’t plan it, I end up in a middle seat, so I am spared the harrowing sight of no guard rails as the van driver deftly manages the snake-like “S” curves of the two-lane road. However, I am not spared the comments estimating how far below the cliff edge the valley appears. The consensus is that it could be a mile or more to the bottom. Thankfully, no one mentions seeing the tiny bus carcasses abandoned on the valley floor, victims of not making the S-curves.
Our three days in camp swiftly blur, with choices of morning walks, canoe rides on the crocodile infested river (I passed on that one), birdwatching or jeep rides to high platforms to watch game above the danger. I opt for elephant rides most of the time, fascinated by the unusual deliberate gate of the elephant, coordinated in an unexpected cadence left hind foot, then left front foot, then right hind foot, followed by right front foot. We climb twelve feet up to a platform which allows us to step carefully across the gap to the howdah, the carriage which holds three persons sitting in a partial circle, legs dangling out of the cage structure. The trainer sits on the elephant’s head and carries a stick to guide the elephant in the desired direction. While we wait for the whole group to ascend to their elephant’s howdah, I watch in amazement as a butterfly lands repeatedly on my elephant’s shoulder, with the elephant shuddering its skin to dislodge the annoying intruder.
On another occasion we hoof it and are awarded with a sighting of a rhino near our cautiously approaching group. Before venturing out, our guide gave us explicit instructions to keep our distance and to move slowly. A rhino is very near sighted and depends more on the senses of smell or sound. However, if in doubt as to what is moving near it, it will charge first. A tourist who ignored his guide’s warnings had been killed a few months previously. Heeding our guide’s warning, I try to put myself toward the back of our small group. Nevertheless, I suddenly find myself in the very front and the rhino is less than six feet away. The guide sees this and starts pounding on the ground with a walking stick. This distracts the rhino enough for me to return to the very back of the group, heart pounding.
On the fourth day, after a final leisurely breakfast, our departure is chaotic with our tour guide placing us in vans going in different directions. When he comes to me, I learn I am the only tourist headed back to Kathmandu. He then swiftly ushers me into a local bus, placing me in the honored left side shotgun seat. Before I can protest, the bus jumps to a start like a jackrabbit. I turn around to see the rest of the local riders with their produce and animals, all staring at the novelty of me.
Turning back to face the front, the first thing I notice is how the center mirror is precariously dangling vertically amidst a clutter of pictures of Hindu saints narrowing the driver’s vision. There is no side mirror on the driver’s side – only the remaining hardware from where it was sheared off. The side mirror on my side was so cracked and coated with dirt, I couldn’t see anything out of it. The open window cannot be closed, so I can’t escape the fumes and road dust from the trucks which is arm’s length in front of us. I have just enough room for my bent knees
and have a spring coming through the seat targeting my right buttock. The windshield is barely twelve inches from my face and has more saints protecting the drive.
Nepalese bus drivers are known for macho aggression on the road and my driver earns that award. His pattern is to drive up to within two feet of the truck in front and then pass with no visibility of what is ahead (perhaps the reason for all the saints). I don’t think we stay behind any diesel truck more than three choking minutes before he passes – regardless of the turns ahead. After each successful escape from a near head on collision, he touches a picture of a saint in gratitude.
By the time we make it to the three-hour half-way rest stop, a wider open area at the side of the road, I am more concerned about my bladder bursting than dying in an accident. The males just go off to the side, turn and release. The females look for sparse bushes to shield them as they raise their saris. I, however, have pants on and no such fabric shielding. I do what I can. The driver and his assistant spend the time trying to fix some engine problem. Their tools are three wrenches and a pair of pliers.
For the next three hours I have a companion sharing my single person shotgun seat. The man ignores me as he spreads his legs wide for his maximum comfort. The spring is now attacking my left cheek as I struggle to stay on some patch of support.
When we finally arrive in Kathmandu, the driver pulls up to the mad house bus terminal on the far side of the city from the tourist section. Somehow, I must now find out how get back to the guest house to recover and say my own prayer of gratitude for surviving the bus.