Bus Rides from Hell

When my friend Tammy came to visit me in India, we took one 5 hour bus ride on a local bus - the cheap way. We started at 5 am, when the bus was almost empty - though not for long. The whole point of the local bus is to cram as many people in as possible and charge very low rates, so the ride only cost us a few dollars. Unfortunately, in India, the local bus can be a bit overwhelming. On one side of the aisle there are two seats, and on the other side three seats, though people commonly insist on squeezing four on one side and three on the other. They are also very old and dirty. Sometimes the windows don't close, or two seats have to be tied together to keep one sitting upright. Sometimes I am surprised they still run at all, because they look like they have been through a war.

A few hours into the trip, the people started piling in. Our giant backpacks were in the aisle, but it didn't seem to phase anyone. Even the very large Indian women just pulled up their sarees and climbed over the piles of luggage, passing bags of crops and small children over our heads into the nearest open space. For Tammy, it was very overwhelming. "Sensory overload," as she put it, and she couldn't understand how I actually enjoy riding the local bus. When I used to go to the village in Dhariawad for my first project at KVK, I rode the local bus for four hours there and back. For me, it's a fabulous way to immerse myself in India and everything I love and hate about it: I can feel the invasion of my senses from all around me and still be able to look out the window and enjoy the beautiful landscape.

This week, Megan, Michael, and I left Varanasi on a night bus to the India-Nepal border. It was a local bus, but very cheap and our only option for traveling at night. We sat on the right side in three seats next to each other. I volunteered for the middle, since I had a blow-up neck rest that I was sure would enable me to sleep. We were also told that since it was a night bus, it would probably not be full, so we could each claim several seats to ourselves and lie down.

Soon after the bus started, it began to rain. Of course, right above my head, there was a leak in the ceiling, and water came plopping down on me. We rode for several hours, it kept raining, and people kept coming on and off of the bus quite regularly - standing room only. I had to wear a raincoat to keep dry, which was quite comical but also very hot. As we got very tired and wanted to sleep, not only did the seats not recline, but also they were not wide enough for all of us to sit with our shoulders squarely forward. Someone had to shift sideways a bit for us to be comfortable.

At some point past midnight, the bus seemed a bit empty. I got up to check out the empty seats, and realized that everyone else had claimed a row of seats for themselves, and we were stuck still sitting three across and squished like never. Around 2:30am, there were rows available and we all spread out. The rain was still trickling down onto me, so I still had to sleep in my raincoat, but it was a bit better. Every 20 minutes or so I woke up when we went into a huge pothole, but it was better than sitting anyway.

We arrived at the border around 5:30am. There were two separate arches to walk under - first the one that said "Indian Border" and the second that said "Nepal Border." I'm not sure what was in between. We had our passports stamped at the Indian immigration office, and bought our visas at the Nepal immigration office. Somehow I expected the offices to be sterile, A/C ed, brightly lit cement buildings, but they were nothing of the sort. Instead it was like walking up to a hole-in-the-wall chai stall. The men yelled, "Going to Nepal?" from across the street and we walked over to their wooden tables and they gave us the stamp. Easy as pie.

We spent the day in Lumbini, Nepal, the birthplace of Lord Buddha. We visited some the monument marking his birthplace and some nearby temples. We planned to leave Lumbini the next day, but were stranded due to strikes and roadblocks all across the country. So we rested for a day, then caught an early bus the next morning to Pokhara. Actually, we were at the bus stand at 6:30am, but there were technical problems, so we waited until 8am for the bus to start. Then we switched to another bus at 9am to take us to Pokhara.

Our bus to Pokhara was nice. It was a minibus, with cushioned seats and curtains on the windows. It was supposed to be a 7-8 hour bus ride. At 11am, however, our bus stopped on a road lined with buses and cars. Up ahead we saw black smoke and an ambulance drove by. A few hours later, we learned it was a strike. It was very hot and sunny outside. We had a chowmein lunch out of someone's kitchen. Around 2:30 Michael and I walked up the road to see what was going on. There was a long iron pole laid out across the bridge over the river, and on either side of the pole were two black tires on set on fire. Everyone around was just kind of staring at it, talking, watching kids jump back and forth over the pole. Finally someone told us the student protesters would clear the way and let us through at 4 or 5pm.

So we sat around some more. I read in the shade of a tree, sweated a lot, drank a coke, played word games with some Swiss girls on our bus. It was a long day. At 4pm we finally got back on the road, only to be stopped again at another road block at 6pm. We waited there for another hour, then proceeded on to Pokhara.

The bus went through the mountains to Pokhara at lightning speed. I was a bit scared when we passed several overturned buses on the side of the road. Eventually I was so tired I nodded off to sleep, but every few minutes I was awoken as we flew over a bump and I literally bounced so high I got air and came completely off the seat. One time when we went around a sharp curve, Megan flew out of her seat into the aisle. Sleep was not possible.

We finally arrived in Pokhara at 11pm. It was a long day, and my booty was quite tired. We have a lovely hotel set back in a garden on the main road through town. Today we are going hiking to try to catch a glimpse of the Annapurna mountain range. Besides the hellish bus rides and stomach bug I'm currently nursing, I like Nepal very much so far.