Journey to Kathmandu

The train pulled into Gorakpur station and after the stampede to exit clears I manage to make my way through the dense fragrant crowd camped on the platform. The noise and heat are intense. This is the hot dry pre-monsoonal season in India when temperatures can reach 50degC or more.

Opposite the station exit, a dilapidated coach revved its engine sending bellows of black exhaust into the air. ‘Yes’ the fellow in dirty white trousers and shirt with a torn epaulet on one sleeve assures me when I ask if the bus would take me to Sunauli on the India/Nepal border. I intended connecting with another coach to Kathmandu to where I was returning before flying on to Thailand and more adventures. By this time I’d been backpacking alone around Nepal and India for about 5 weeks and I was feeling quite comfortable with the whole thing.

I relinquished my rucksack after a brief struggle to an agile young bloke who scaled the back of the bus to the luggage rack on the roof. I usually do this myself to ensure it is safely secured but this time I was given no chance. Later an argument occurred when he demanded R2 for this unrequested service and after much grumbling settled for R1. Yes I know its petty to bargain over what was essentially 10c but as Lonely Planet kept exhorting us “it expected that you will bargain – if you don’t you are only making it harder for other travellers”. Life is a constant series of negotiations in this part of the world and its best not to equate to currency to home.

I settled in my seat and a few minutes later am joined by a young Nepali man of about 20 who I had spoken to briefly on the train. He said his name is Deepho and he is a resident of Kathmandu returning home after travelling for some time on business through India and Siri Lanka.

I ask if he knows the bus times from Sunauli to Kathmandu - a long tedious 10 hour trip. Deepho says there is a night bus which I can catch but due to the state of the roads and calibre of the drivers it is rather hazardous.

The alternative is an overnight stay in Sunauli’s somewhat dubious facilities and the early morning bus. He goes on to offer to run me to Kathmandu on his motor bike which is stored at Sunauli which will put me in Kathmandu in only 5 hours as he is going a more direct route. I consider it briefly and then thank him and agree.

Experienced travellers will tell you that one of the most important tools you can carry on a free-wheeling trip self-managed trip are your instincts. Properly consulted and used regularly they will usually protect and advise you in all sorts of situations. They are a combination of intuition about people and a realistic weighing up of the risks and benefits. Without trusting your instincts you could either end up mugged and robbed (or worse) in some back alley or be so terrified of accepting any opportunity offered that the trip turns into a nightmare of paranoia.

We arrive in Sunauli about 3 hours later. During that time Deepho had questioned me intently about women and sex! He says they don’t get any sex education in Nepal and he has heard that Western students are taught these things and so he wants to pick my brains. It wasn’t the slightest bit salacious. I guess he viewed me as a safe person to ask because I was nearly old enough at 34 to be his mother or at any rate her younger sister. Most of it involved women’s cycles and how babies happened (medically speaking).

I had been Assistant Editor of Forum Magazine (the Journal of Human Sexuality) in London during the early 70’s so I wasn’t at all uncomfortable about sharing what I knew about it all despite never having been pregnant myself!

We were passing through a small village somewhere when suddenly the bus slowed and ahead I saw a couple of uniformed men standing beside the road flagging down the bus. As it came to a halt all the men (with the exception of Deepho who I suspect was attempting to appear cool and sophisticated on my behalf) got up and clambered to the front of the bus around the driver.

The doors opened and two police officers – or at least I took them to be police officers – boarded the bus. There was much talking to the driver and gesticulating and bits and pieces of paper were handed back and forth with the rest of the men providing their own commentary both to each other and the officers.

The driver stood up and came out of his cabin area and next thing the police officers, the driver and all the male passengers climbed down from the bus and started walking down the street and then climbed through a wire fence and headed off across a field towards a set of low buildings in the distance.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked Deepho. ‘Oh, don’t worry. The driver doesn’t have a licence’. He stopped and resumed gazing out the window after delivering what I thought was not just surprising but also rather alarming news. ‘Where are they taking him?’ I asked ‘Just to go and get one’ Deepho answers nonchalantly. You would think after 2 weeks that I’d be used to how things are done in India. Fifteen minutes later everyone trooped back and we headed off again.

At Sunauli I was able to have a welcome cold shower at the Nepali Guest Lodge where Deepho had stored his bike and after checking that all was in working order we strapped my rucksack to the bike and we were off.

The road is straight and flat here and the bike zoomed along. We passed a woman leading a large black bear on a chain 2 elephants grazing the lower leaves of a large mango tree – their driver fast asleep sprawled across his beast’s back.

A short way ahead entering the large village of Bhairahawa we splutter to a halt after running out of petrol. Fortunately there is a service station about 2 kms away. I stay with the bike while Deepho takes the can in his pannier and treks off. Finally we move off again having lost a valuable hour of daylight.

For the next couple of hours we pass between tall forests of twisted Sal trees whose leaves the Nepalese skewer together with small sticks to make food plates. I’d seen these in use along every bus route in India as they are shoved through the windows every time the bus stops, little morsels of tasty food held in them in the hands of roadside hawkers as the passengers pass back a coin or two.

I’d learned through bitter experience of sitting near bus windows that the Indian women and children have the weakest stomachs on the planet so you sit near a window at your peril. The sides of buses are often sprayed with vomited up food that was only purchased a stop or so back.

Cart after cart passes by each pulled by 2 straining buffalo and filled with timber. I count at least a hundred of these before I tire and give up. The drivers perch on their loads with long whip like sticks in one hand and large black umbrellas to protect from the hot sun in the other.

Ahead and on either side are steep hillsides, their once heavily forested flanks now sparse due to the desperate need for fuel in a country where only major cities or towns are connected to electricity.

The sun sinks lower behind us and the road is busy with villagers escorting their buffalo cows and goats back to their home pens. The animals are almost as unpredictable as their owners and great care must be taken on the road. The penalty for killing a person is only a fine but that for killing a cow is a long prison sentence.

Deepho sounds the horn continuously as we pass but even so the villagers amble onto the road in front of us and children dart in and out with scant regard to their safety.

A troupe of large brown monkeys parade across before us and Deepho shakes his head and blasts his horn impatiently at their unhurried progress.

We have covered some one hundred of the two hundred and eighty kilometres to Kathmandu when suddenly a brown cat runs across in front of the bike and we scream to a halt. We wait for another vehicle to pass us by since Deepho says he will not be first to cross its path ‘I will not take chances’ he tells me and I am pleased by his reassuring road caution.

We reach Narayangarh at about 8pm in total darkness as Deepho has discovered that his headlights don’t work. We are unable to replace them here and so after a discussion we decide to stay here the night and go on early in the morning.

The first lodge we inspect I refuse to stay in. It is filthy and I can see fleas on the beds. The second is a little better but a few minutes later Deepho comes to my room and says he cannot stay here because he has just killed a cockroach and now can’t bear to sleep there. I try not to look amused.

We pack up the bike and move to a third lodge which while by no means being one star quality is still relatively clean. We eat a meal downstairs and swap stories and photographs from home.

I sleep well but awake at my usual 5.30am. I dress and breakfast and go to wake Deepho at 7 who tells me he needs to ‘rest his eyes’ and to bring him tea at 8 and he will get up. We finally get away at 8.30am.

We start to climb the narrow winding road over the steep hills surrounding Kathmandu. There are frequent rock falls littering the road and we are both very glad we did not attempt the journey last night without lights.

A fast broad river accompanies us beside the road, its waters brown with the mud from slides. It has rained steadily this morning and the air is full of ozone. Just then a brief shower hits us, the drops stinging our bare arms and faces.

Just as suddenly it stops and the road ahead shows there has been no rain here at all this morning. From there on the road is intermittently wet and dry which is weather typical of this area and this time of year Deepho tells me.

We pass straw thatched huts, some on tall stilts and paddy fields of impossibly green rice. Ahead what appears to be a bright green bush with legs plods beside the road. I look back as we pass and see a village woman peeking from beneath it, the tumb line of her basket piled high with rice firmly across her forehead.

Children carrying school books wave enthusiastically and the villagers stare without embarrassment at the unusual sight of a western woman passenger astride a bike driven by a Nepali man.

We stop around noon at Naubise for an early lunch of dahl baht. I have become used to eating with my right hand.

A door at the back of the outdoor eating house opens and a man carrying what I took to be a pot of red dye passes to the street. I look away quickly when I see that in his other hand he carried 4 black goat legs still dripping freshly.

A coach pulls up opposite and I notice 2 western women looming hugely over their fellow Nepalese passengers. I spare them a moment of sympathy since Nepalese buses can be excruciatingly painful on long Western legs.

Deepho informs me with a worried frown that the road is now very steep since we have to climb up onto the Kathmandu plateau. The way has become busier now and we pass many of the slow, foul smelling public carrier vehicles laden with everything from lumber and scrap metal to bags of rice. Their cabins are garishly decorated in mirrors and tinselled ornaments with framed paintings of the Nepalese equivalent of St Christopher. They hog the centre of the road and belch black smoke into our faces as we pass by, our horn blasting continuously.

After much gear changing and engine straining we reach the top ‘Good bike’ I shout and Deepho flashes me back a quick smile He is very proud of the Honda 175cc bike which has been in his family sixteen years.

Ahead villagers place threshed sheaves of wheat flat across the road so passing traffic can render it into chaff. The smell of it as we pass takes me back to the shed at home which stored the horse feed but the dust of the chaff makes me sneeze!

Finally we round the last corner and ahead lies Kathmandu. With a triumphant blast of the horn Deepho revs the engine and we fly like birds down the long straight slope into the city as exhilarated I throw back my head and let out an unbridled scream of joy. I'm alive!