"Asian drivers different from everybody else," Bhim had said to me on our first day driving around Kathmandu. "Yes, I've never ever seen anything like it" I had replied. Little did I realize the full significance of those words until the day that we made our way on a drive down to Chitwan. "Harrowing" doesn't begin to describe it.
We got in the private car Bhim had rented with a driver who appeared to be no more than about fifteen years old. At least this time we had seat belts. Umesh and I climbed in the back and buckled up. (Umesh is from Chitwan - his family lives there and he is a university student there. He had come to KTM for the porter job, so he, too, was returning home for the festival.) "It will take about four hours to get to Chitwan," Bhim said.
Well, this was THE day that everyone was trying to leave Kathmandu to go home to begin the festival and the city traffic was a.pall.ing. Absolutely unbelievable! With all I knew and anticipated about Nepal, I had not expected that every vehicle would be powered with filthy diesel. We moved ever so slowly until we began to approach the outskirts of the city and became embroiled in a traffic jam of horrendous proportions, in which the fumes were overwhelming.
Nepalis drive on the left and as it turned out, we were first in a middle line of traffic trying to merge into the left lane. The traffic on the right side of the road was slowly inching its way in, but the two left lanes sat for about two hours before the far left lane began to inch along, bit by slowly bit. The big van next to us wouldn't let us in. Some people were standing on the tops of busses and waving and calling and trying to direct traffic. One motorcyclist on our right stopped to give the non-relenting van driver a big piece of his mind. He gesticulated and yelled and pointed at us - saying (I assume), "Let them in!" However, the van wouldn't give an inch. Then a pedestrian stopped to give our young driver a piece of his mind. He ranted and waved his arms around for quite some time. I assume he was telling us that we had no business being where we were — that we were part of the problem. Finally, someone distracted the van driver just long enough for us to squirm our way in, and this caused Bhim and Umesh and our driver no end of laughter and excited conversation.
We found a detour out of the city to avoid more such traffic; however, once we got out of KTM, I looked down into the deep valley and saw switchback after switchback after switchback, all with traffic that was just sitting for miles and miles and miles all down the mountain and along the valley
road far below.
Bit by bit the traffic lightened up some, and after a couple of hours we became free from the congestion and began to travel at a pretty fast clip. But then another kind of adventure began. There were not only cars with reasonable amounts of people; there were huge, colorful buses jammed with people inside and on top of the vehicles ("bagels"). On the tops were also suitcases and goats (being taken to the villages for the ritual slaughter). Approaching us on the other side of the highway were large tourist buses and huge trucks; truck after truck after truck bringing in goods of all sorts from India. The trucks were painted in many bright colors and adorned with colorful streamers and many had incense burners on their front grilles. There were tuk tuks and motorbike after motorbike after motorbike and everyone was in a race to see who could reach their destination first.
Fortunately, we were on a paved road that was in fairly reasonable condition; however, it was winding, winding, winding, with many blind curves. There were only a relatively few stretches where you could actually see what was coming, and there were steep drop-offs at every stretch of the road, all the way until the end of the journey when we arrived on the Terai, the extension of the Indian plain, where the jungle in Chitwan is located.
It was wild. We were passing people while others were trying to pass us, just as an oncoming vehicle was approaching with someone trying to pass it. But somehow, at the last moment, everyone sailed into two lines, just missing each other by literally inches. Sometimes the large, over-packed busses would lean and veer into us as they made the sharp turns; however all of the goats placidly maintained their footing while gazing straight ahead and they didn't seem fazed at all.
Vehicles would ride three alongside, all veering for the first position, and as an oncoming vehicle approached, order would somehow be restored in an instant. There was no rhyme nor reason as to who would go first, but split-second decisions were made and there were two single files again. There were times when I felt I was watching a road race and times I felt I was in a road race. I found myself silently rooting us on — "Come on! come on! come on! you can do it!" — and other times when I just put my face in my hat — not only to avoid watching, but to give my lungs some respite from all the diesel fumes as well. It was tragic to see all the greenery along the roadside all dust-covered and white and the pall of diesel fumes filling the beautiful countryside.
Over eight hours later we arrived in Chitwan. This was a drive that was to have taken us four. Perhaps I might have been able to avert the cold with my echinacea (it often works for me); however, eight hours of breathing diesel fumes had sealed the deal. I was going to be sick with a cold. And as it would turn out, it was to be a pretty bad one.
But I was alive. And that was good.
We got in the private car Bhim had rented with a driver who appeared to be no more than about fifteen years old. At least this time we had seat belts. Umesh and I climbed in the back and buckled up. (Umesh is from Chitwan - his family lives there and he is a university student there. He had come to KTM for the porter job, so he, too, was returning home for the festival.) "It will take about four hours to get to Chitwan," Bhim said.
Well, this was THE day that everyone was trying to leave Kathmandu to go home to begin the festival and the city traffic was a.pall.ing. Absolutely unbelievable! With all I knew and anticipated about Nepal, I had not expected that every vehicle would be powered with filthy diesel. We moved ever so slowly until we began to approach the outskirts of the city and became embroiled in a traffic jam of horrendous proportions, in which the fumes were overwhelming.
Nepalis drive on the left and as it turned out, we were first in a middle line of traffic trying to merge into the left lane. The traffic on the right side of the road was slowly inching its way in, but the two left lanes sat for about two hours before the far left lane began to inch along, bit by slowly bit. The big van next to us wouldn't let us in. Some people were standing on the tops of busses and waving and calling and trying to direct traffic. One motorcyclist on our right stopped to give the non-relenting van driver a big piece of his mind. He gesticulated and yelled and pointed at us - saying (I assume), "Let them in!" However, the van wouldn't give an inch. Then a pedestrian stopped to give our young driver a piece of his mind. He ranted and waved his arms around for quite some time. I assume he was telling us that we had no business being where we were — that we were part of the problem. Finally, someone distracted the van driver just long enough for us to squirm our way in, and this caused Bhim and Umesh and our driver no end of laughter and excited conversation.
We found a detour out of the city to avoid more such traffic; however, once we got out of KTM, I looked down into the deep valley and saw switchback after switchback after switchback, all with traffic that was just sitting for miles and miles and miles all down the mountain and along the valley
road far below.
Bit by bit the traffic lightened up some, and after a couple of hours we became free from the congestion and began to travel at a pretty fast clip. But then another kind of adventure began. There were not only cars with reasonable amounts of people; there were huge, colorful buses jammed with people inside and on top of the vehicles ("bagels"). On the tops were also suitcases and goats (being taken to the villages for the ritual slaughter). Approaching us on the other side of the highway were large tourist buses and huge trucks; truck after truck after truck bringing in goods of all sorts from India. The trucks were painted in many bright colors and adorned with colorful streamers and many had incense burners on their front grilles. There were tuk tuks and motorbike after motorbike after motorbike and everyone was in a race to see who could reach their destination first.
Fortunately, we were on a paved road that was in fairly reasonable condition; however, it was winding, winding, winding, with many blind curves. There were only a relatively few stretches where you could actually see what was coming, and there were steep drop-offs at every stretch of the road, all the way until the end of the journey when we arrived on the Terai, the extension of the Indian plain, where the jungle in Chitwan is located.
It was wild. We were passing people while others were trying to pass us, just as an oncoming vehicle was approaching with someone trying to pass it. But somehow, at the last moment, everyone sailed into two lines, just missing each other by literally inches. Sometimes the large, over-packed busses would lean and veer into us as they made the sharp turns; however all of the goats placidly maintained their footing while gazing straight ahead and they didn't seem fazed at all.
Vehicles would ride three alongside, all veering for the first position, and as an oncoming vehicle approached, order would somehow be restored in an instant. There was no rhyme nor reason as to who would go first, but split-second decisions were made and there were two single files again. There were times when I felt I was watching a road race and times I felt I was in a road race. I found myself silently rooting us on — "Come on! come on! come on! you can do it!" — and other times when I just put my face in my hat — not only to avoid watching, but to give my lungs some respite from all the diesel fumes as well. It was tragic to see all the greenery along the roadside all dust-covered and white and the pall of diesel fumes filling the beautiful countryside.
Over eight hours later we arrived in Chitwan. This was a drive that was to have taken us four. Perhaps I might have been able to avert the cold with my echinacea (it often works for me); however, eight hours of breathing diesel fumes had sealed the deal. I was going to be sick with a cold. And as it would turn out, it was to be a pretty bad one.
But I was alive. And that was good.
