It was originally planned that I would stay at Bhim's home for three nights. However, Bhim's cousin, the nurse, advocated for taking me down the mountain after the second night. She felt that because I was sick that I should be sleeping in a bed, rather than in the loft above the animals. I was grateful to her for this.
Bhim told me he had a friend who would drive us down the mountain and, to get to our pick-up point, we had to walk to the main street of the village which was two or three miles away up the mountain. We left about noon and I made my good-byes. After Bhim and I had walked about half a mile his wife caught up with us. I didn't realize she was coming with us. Bhim explained that she wanted to come and see us off, but that it was considered unlucky for three people to leave for a journey, so she let the two of us leave together and she joined us later.
We climbed up the mountain to a street where there were some houses and businesses. This was where we were to meet our ride at one p.m. Bhim made some inquiries and came back with the news that our ride wasn't leaving until 4 p.m. Now if this had happened back home in the U.S. I can just imagine my reaction: "What?!? What do you mean, we're not leaving until 4 p.m.?" However, I simply said "O.K. I'll just get a coke and do some writing in my journal." I almost surprised myself at this. Seriously, I have learned so much regarding how to simply take things in stride.
It had been my understanding that Bhim and I were the only riders; however, when our ride pulled up, the car was already full. Once again I just took the situation in stride and squeezed my way into the car. Seriously, the car could've held maybe eight people - two in front, three in the middle row and three people in the back. But - get ready for this - there were 15 of us in there!!!
If you've read the story about coming up the mountain, then you have some idea of what it was like going down, except someone once said that going down was more dangerous than coming up. If you've seen the movie, "High Anxiety" with Mel Brooks, perhaps you remember the opening scene with the jet coming into LAX and the close-up shot of the airplane window and Mel's look of absolute terror. I was sitting by the window and I could just imagine that was what I must've looked like.
The car was full of chatter and laughter and they thought the word "bumpy" to be hilarious. "Bumpy, bumpy, bumpy," I said, acting out the word, which resulted in more laughter. Needless to say, going down was pretty terrifying — once again we were driving on the edge of the road with just inches separating us from steep drops down the mountain — swinging out wide so as to make the sharp turns in the road, dipping down deep in the ruts, making our way through mud and then we got stuck!
Yes, we got stuck in mud so deep that it was up to the bottom of the car. It was deep. The men got out and put sticks, rocks, leaves, dirt, more rocks and sticks and large rocks and whatever they could find to give us some traction. They worked for a good half hour and the driver went back and forth and burned lots of rubber and finally got us free.
We made it into the provincial capital of Dhading (where we had spent the night before we went up the mountain to Bhim's home). We walked to a rather dumpy, dingy hotel in the dark, ordered some supper in the restaurant and called it a night.
The next morning at breakfast Bhim told me that our driver couldn't make it to Kathmandu until noon. "Let's take a bus," I said to Bhim. I had noticed many buses with "Dhading - Kathmandu" on the roads, so I knew there was a direct route there. Instead, Bhim made arrangements and hired a taxi. Fortunately, the ride was not nearly as terrifying as the other days. Part of this was due to the fact that the festival was over and there wasn't such heavy traffic. Another reason was because the driver was much more restrained and didn't push it so hard. And finally, there was the fact that I had survived the horrendous drive down to Chitwan. That ride, as well as the rides up and back down the mountain had made me somewhat inured to the drama of driving in Nepal.
We got to Kathmandu and I checked into the Hotel Moonlight, where I was to meet the Habitat for Humanity group a few days later. Bhim went off and bought me my ticket for the mountain flight over Everest for the next day. I was excited. I was going to see Everest!
