Everest -- Part III

The bus ride from hell:

We boarded the bus in Bhandar at 6:00 in the morning.  It was the local chicken bus deluxe.  Probably 30 years old, worn and jalopy.  Marigolds strung across the windshield.  Crammed to the gills, the human spillover splayed on bags on the roof of the bus.  All locals headed to Kathmandu, except for Erin, myself, two dudes from Belgium and one from England.  Indian music eerily similar to Alvin and the Chipmonks Sing Christmas Carols at Rockfeller Center blaring on the fuzzy stero system.  We were in the second to last row.  The dude in front of us must of just finished rolling around in yak shit.  Everyone else emanated an odor reminiscent of the New York subway tunnels in the summertime, including ourselves -- the collective fetor was akin to the miasma wafting off a Mumbai cesspool.  A little after 6:00 am the bus driver started the engine and put it into gear.  10 yards later we were stuck in a mud bog.  Villagers tried to help push us out but to no avail.  Not making any progress, the driver put the bus in reverse without alerting the villagers and at least one that I could see nearly got run over as the tires broke free and the bus charged backwards.  Free of the first mud bog, the bus trundled down the muddied road for another 1/4 mile, jostling us about, at which point we hit another mud bog on a steep incline, this one much worse then the first.  The driver gunned it twice, trying to power through, throwing all of us a foot or two out of our seats, Erin banging her head on the collapsing overhead compartment.  Passengers started getting off the bus.  Erin and I got up too.  I was out of the bus before I realized Erin didn't make it out in time -- the bus driver firmly told her to stay put.  Before I knew it the bus was backing up again for another attempt, Erin staring out the window with abject horror written across her face.  The driver gunned it again, barreling through the mud, but yet again the bus lurched into the massive hole and came to a screeching halt, tossing the passengers about like rag dolls.  Erin and the other passengers were able to get off the bus while the driver and his twelve-year mate assessed the problem.  The solution:  a rope tied to the front bumper with all the passengers tugging with all their might.  After a half hour later, everyone muddy up to their elbows, the bus finally broke free and we were on our way -- much to our chagrin.

The road between Bhandar and Jiri is about 10-miles and is a rough, pot-holed, muddy, four-wheel drive road, only as wide as the wheel-base of the bus.  It winds and hairpins on steep mountain slopes with 3000-foot drop-offs.  It took us 6 hours to negotiate this stretch alone.  It was, in all honesty, the most terrifying 6 hours I've ever experienced.  I once road a bus on the so-called world's most dangerous road in Boliva.  That road doesn't hold a candle to the road between Bhandar and Jiri.  It was unrelenting in its scary moments.  At one point we tilted so far towards the chasm below the passengers were trying to use their weight to make sure it didn't flip over and tumble down the mountain.  At that point we had come to a dead stop.  Erin and I were begging to be left off the bus.  Most of the Sherpas on board -- a people who are completely unphased by any hardship, who can suffer the utmost travail or burden with an equanimity I find totally incomprehensible -- looked a little concerned.  When we came to a stop I turned around and looked quizically at Ram who was sitting behind me, still wearing a smile on his face -- probably one of three or four of us on the bus who was still in a good mood.  His grin grew and said:  "Someone fell off the bus."  I turned around and looked out the back window.  One of the fifteen or so locals perched on the roof was slowly peeling himself off the ground.  He then grabbed hold of the rear ladder and climbed back on top of the bus.

It was 6 hours of staring down at the depths of fiery doom, the bus lilting from one side to another, dangerously balancing on the edge of the road, the driver's devil horns glinting with sunlight, Erin and I grasping with white knuckles at anything nearby to keep ourselves in our seats.  She cut her thumb in her efforts.  The guy behind us, totally unprepared for the jarring bump that sent him flying out of his seat, slammed his head into the overhead compartment, cutting it open, blood spilling down his forehead.  At one point I had resigned myself to serious injury or death and became calm -- then the next hazard, the next evil lurking along the road, presented itself and I freaked yet again.  By the time we got to Jiri Erin and I were utterly spent, nerves completely frayed, breathless.

It turns out we could have walked to Jiri from Bhandar on a trail in the same amount of time it took us to drive that hellish road.

But that was not the end of our little bus ride.  We still had 9 hours to go, all on a single-lane paved (but pot-holed) road on steep precipitous mountain slopes, back to Kathmandu.  Climb tortuously up, go tortuously down.  At about hour 8 we got a flat tire.  Every so often we'd come flying around the corner only to find another bus or truck coming the other way.  The driver would slam on the brakes, sending us all flying into the seats in front of us, and then pull over to the side of the cliff, half the tires hanging over the edge, to let the other bus or truck get by.

There was one pit stop the entire 15 hours.  It was at a shit-hole on the side of the road where they served dal bhat grool en masse, all the locals slopping it up with their dirty hands.  The whole scene was vomit-inducing, the toilets even worse.  We bought a can of pringles from a vendor and that's all we ate the entire day.  We rolled into Kathmandu at 9:00 pm and spent the next hour walking from one guesthouse to another trying to find a room.  We were both completely out of our minds but thankful to be alive. 

We're now back to a relatively peaceful place -- as peaceful of a place one can inhabit in Kathmandu -- the city of absolute chaos.  To those of you who care about our welfare -- we are ok and we promise not to willingly board another death bus.