"Please go slowly!" I called out, even surprising myself as the ambulance driver made a fast, ultra-sharp turn on our way up the mountain. Bhim spoke in Nepali to the driver then said to me "You are frightened?" The driver turned to me and smiled. "Yes, a little," I said.
I was riding on the bench in the back of a small ambulance large enough for perhaps four people, maybe five, but there were nine of us with backpacks, luggage and packages. We were leaving the town of Dhading where we spent last night after yesterday's ride up the mountain to the Manakamana Temple and we were heading up into the hills to Bhim's village to stay at his home with his wife and children for a couple of days. Bhim had said the ride would take "about a half an hour" but here we were, well over an hour later, tediously maneuvering deep ruts, mud, and eroded sections of the steep dirt road that wound up the mountain.
At first it was just the ambulance driver and his companion along with Bhim and me, and in a way it was worse than being crowded with all the others who joined us midway up the mountain. With every bump and steep ascent and twisting, winding turn I was jostled, shaken AND stirred. I was bouncing up and down and then trying to hold the end of the seat so as to avoid sliding into Bhim's lap. For the longest while I braced myself against the little white metal medicine cabinet opposite me. Whenever I would try to sit up to stretch my neck we would invariably hit a major bump and I would hit my head. Whenever I would think that it couldn't get any worse it did.
In many instances the smoothest part of the dirt road was far over on the edge which is where the driver drove most of the time. The steering wheel was on the right side of the car and I was sitting on the left side of the vehicle so from my vantage point it always appeared as if we were nosing ourselves directly over the edge of a steep drop to far down below. When we reached the points in the road where the drop-offs were on the left side of the car I could see that we were indeed nosing ourselves directly over the edges.
We stopped and picked up a family — a mother, father, teenaged son, a girl, and a baby. The two teens and the baby sat in the front seat next to the driver and the rest squeezed in the back with Bhim and me after piling in their suitcases and gear. The woman spoke in a high pitched, constant chatter to the driver who kept the conversation going over the loud Nepali music that was blaring over the radio.
It was just under two hours of this until we arrived at our destination — Bhim's house up at the top of the mountain, where Bhim's son, Abdi, was waiting for us at the drop-off point, and his daughter, Bhwani (16) was waiting at the entrance to the yard with a bouquet of flowers. They both spoke to me in English. Bhim's shy wife, Apshara, spoke no English, but she smiled at me in welcome.
Many people were sitting — either on one of the porches adjacent to the house, or on a small wall surrounding the courtyard in front of the house, or on the hard-packed dirt floor of the courtyard itself. Bhim explained that they were relatives who lived nearby. "They will come back tomorrow for the festival," he said, "and many more people will come too."
The following photos are of Abdi, Bhim, Apshara, and Bhwani (whom I ended up sponsoring in school In Kathmandu for three years), and Bhim's family home.
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Around nine o'clock or so I heard the sound of a conch horn and the ringing of bells. Bhim answered my questioning look with an explanation. "It's my father," he said. It was apparently part of the old gentleman's routine of prayers before bedtime.
Finally the time came for me to climb the steep ladder to the loft above the water buffalo and goats where my bed awaited me. Like most other Nepali houses, the windows had no glass panes and I was to sleep with my head next to a large open window leading out into the cold, black night.
The bed was a typical Nepali bed. It was a box-like, wooden structure, with some padding on the top. The bed's comfort is dependent upon the amount of padding, and in this case, there was very little - the equivalent of a couple of quilts, perhaps.
Two of my best investments were my Petzl light and my beautiful turquoise silk sleep sack. The sack provided me with my own little cocoon and the silk provided a surprising amount of warmth. I literally climbed into the sack and, by the light of my Petzl, read my companion book, "The Snow Leopard" by Matthiessen. I finally turned off the light and tried to make my way towards sleep.
Unfortunately my cold was getting much worse. My head was very congested and I found it very difficult to breathe while lying on my back. But I couldn't sleep on my side either - the surface was just too hard on my arthritic hips. Needless to say, it was a long night.
Earlier Bhim had told me not to worry about the mice and "other things" that run around on the metal roof, and when the pitter patter began I reached for my wax earplugs and put them in. It was quite an unusual feeling, lying there in complete darkness and lack of sound.
When I got the urge to go to the bathroom, I made my way out of my sleep sack and carefully climbed down the ladder and walked across the yard to the latrine. Afterwards, coming back towards the house, I stopped and looked up at the stars that shone with such clarity and brilliance in the deep black sky. I searched for familiar constellations and found the Big Dipper which appeared to have cartwheeled to its current position, upside down on its handle. It was a magical moment, standing on a mountaintop in Nepal, alone in a night of such silence. After a few moments I made my way back up the ladder to my silky cocoon on hard wood and struggled with sleep until dawn.
