Catching up: The Road to Narti, February 28, 2009

At 6:50 a.m., Anita comes to get me. We schlep all of my luggage to the boys' house and load it onto an empty microbus. Anita, Michael, three girls, & I climbed in. The three girls are ex-kamlaris who are making the long trip with us in order to visit their friends or relatives for less than one day.

We take the microbus to a bigger road, where we transfer to an old tour bus. The front of the bus has a large cabin in which, behind the driver's seat on the right, there are two passenger seats, and on the left, there is a long bench. When a long pillow is leaned against the dashboard, the bench looks like a bed -- or at least a fainting chair. The front cabin is separated from the rest of the bus by a wall with windows and, in the middle, a door that also has a window in it.

With 37 seats and only 6 passengers, I assume that I will have two seats to myself. Sangita has other plans, however. She sits beside me and rests her head on my shoulder, then curls up and puts her head in my lap. It is all very sweet -- except the part where she periodically sits up and leans over me to spit up out the window, blasting me with cold air every time she does it. Soon we switch seats. When she gets tired of lying down with her head in my lap, I pull out my trusty travel pillow and make her more comfortable leaning against the window. She is very grateful and holds onto the pillow for most of the trip, even when she is lying down. Each time she sticks her head out the window, she thoughtfully wipes her mouth on the window curtains to avoid siling my pillow.

Michael wonders why we need six drivers for this trip. When we stop for a road permit (which should have been obtained the day before), the number decreases to four. A few minutes later, we stop for petrol (which also should have been done the day before) and the number of drivers falls to three.

We go through two checkpoints and, a little while later, we stop for a snack. I try to steer Sangita towards plain biscuits or lemon cake, but she is not interested. She gets Michael to buy her some sort of fruity snack, but I don't see her eat it. After I eat my potato pancakes (not like the ones that I have at home, but still quite good) and lemon cake, I cringe as I see Anita buying Sangita a spicy, crunchy treat served in a cone made of paper (eating off of newspaper or paper that has been written or printed on is common here). Sangita is still eating her treat when we get back on the bus. Soon, however, she throws out the last third of it and out the window -- and her head follows shortly afterwards. Round two has commenced. This time, I am a little more prepared, having grabbed a fist full of napkins while I ate (Nepalese napkins are, however, made of a waxy paper that is not at all absorbent). I turn around and tell Anita, who is sitting behind me with Michael, "no more spicy food for Sangita".

A short time later, we stop again for quite a long time. I have my first experience with an outhouse in Nepal, transitioning away from the relative luxury of life in Kathmandu. Anita is hungry and orders a big, spicy rice and vegetable dish. I cringe again when Sangita eats some of it. I give Anita a disapproving look and suggest that she ask for some napkins (there are none in sight), but Anita just shrugs her shoulders and continues eating. Luckily, round 3 did not start when we got on the bus -- though it occurred about an hour and a half later.

After Anita eats and we are all standing around, I ask Michael what is going on. He says that he doesn't know, but he guesses that the drivers were hungry or needed a break. With three drivers, I would think that they could manage taking turns driving, resting, and eating. Plus we had only driven about 20 minutes after the previous stop. For those who are counting, that's two short stops, two checkpoint stops, and two long stops during the first three and a half to four hours of a 12 hour trip!

As it turned out, one driver did the vast majority of the driving, with a second driver pinch hitting during the last few hours. The third driver didn't drive at all, but he was very busy opening and closing curtains on the windows between the front cabin and the main part of the bus, sometimes opening and closing the windows, and wiping the windows with a cloth a couple of times (not to be confused with actually cleaning the windows). He also had another job: Opening overhead compartments in the front cabin, taking out gym bags (presumably filled with the drivers' clothes for the overnight trip) and then putting them back up again. Finally, he alwasy got on the bus last and was supposed to close the door behind him. Usually, however, he forgot to do that. He would go into the front cabin, close the door between the cabin and the rest of the bus, and then Anita would yell for him to close the door as we took off with the door wide open. Sometimes he would come out to close the door and other times he shut it by pressing a button in the front cabin. Perhaps his union requires a certain number of breaks for men who do this arduous work (I just hope that American unions don't look to Nepal for inspiration).

During the afternoon, it becomes clear that we front-loaded all of our breaks in order to get them out of the way during the first part of the trip. After the second long break, we stop once to pee by the side of the road and twice to wait for settlements of traffic accident cases to conclude, during which time, we remain on the bus (luckily, we arrived near the conclusions of both of cases and do not have to wait too long). When I was very hungry and really wanted to stretch my legs without being thrown all over the bus, we just kept plowing ahead. Rather than a front-loading of breaks strategy, however, I start to think that perhaps the reason that we aren't stopping is that the third driver's union break rules only apply when the driver is actually working. During the afternoon, while we are driving without any breaks, the third driver takes a nap on the bench. About a half hour from Narti, however, he wakes up and starts working again. A few minutes later, we stop so that the drivers can rest and have tea.

Michael buys water for everyone and offers snacks. I get GLUCOSE biscuits: "more milky, more energy". Sangita opts for mango juice (very popular in Nepal) and a bag of spicy, rice based chips that look something like CHEETOS chips. When we finally get back on the bus after a long stop, driver number 2 turns around and mouths to Sangita, "Don't eat anything", which she thinks is hilarious. Michael then hands out chocolate wafers to everyone, showing that he really does know what women want!

Shortly after we get back on the road, we come to a bridge. It appears that a group of people bearing lit torches are about to walk over the bridge toward us. It makes me think of the Ku Klux Klan, though I don't see any white hoods. I asked Michael what was going on and he said "I don't know. A riot." Then the bus stops and he gets off with his camera to take photos. He begins walking across the bridge, ignoring Anita's shouts for him not to do so. None of the rioters started to cross the bridge, so the bus ended up following, and then passing, Michael. When we reached the other side, I saw a circle of people standing around a fire. As best as I can tell, the torches were pieces of wood that were all thrown into a single bonfire, though I can't actually be certain that people were originally walking with torches was accurate. The bus drove quickly past the group and then stopped and waited for Michael. When he got back on the bus, I asked whether he had gotten any good photos and said "no." Then I asked if he had figured out what was going on and he said "No. It is some kind of orderly protest." And we were off again, reaching the Lawajuni hostel in Narti a short time later.

In summary, I drove for 12 hours on a bumpy road, in an old, dirty bus, with a sick 15 year old girl's head in my lap (when it was not out the window), stopping at places that had no real bathrooms and served food that clearly was not prepared according to US health department standards, waited for the settlement of two traffic accident cases, and passed through a riot/orderly protest. It was great!! Oh, and the scenery was nice too.