Riding the Bus to Heaven
By D.L. Wechner
“Yes, you will board a tourist bus – very nice, y’know? Then after rafting the big river – 2 days – you board another tourist bus – very nice, to go to Tadi Bazaar, then for some shopping, y’know? Very nice, you go Jungle Express Lodge, where you ride elephants, see tiger, see rhino, and see crocodile in the river. Have good food. It is all arrange, our guide professional, not like other tour company. Very nice, yes? You see the real Nepal.”
To be honest, Ram was right about that last part. But the rest… well, I actually bought that, too. Ninety-nine dollars worth. From the hotel in Kathmandu, Friday began with the usual rooster-crow awakening, which seems odd for an urban setting, but I suppose that portends fresh eggs in the café, then a walk – four blocks to the Immigration Office to meet our ‘tourist’ bus. The tour company’s assistant Ram met us there, wearing the same dirty suit he wore in the office the day before. There was bad news already: “a day must be removed from the trip” – and (reluctantly) he had a small refund in hand for our troubles. “Oh, and by the way, the bus from Tadi Bazaar will be ‘public’ bus – it cannot be helped, you see?” My traveling companion Jan looked over Ram’s shoulder at his clipboard, and noted the hotel on the new itinerary was different from what we had booked, too. But we passed it off. When in Rome…or Nepal, just go with it.
The Trisuli River winds a milky ribbon through a canyon of steep peaks, flowing down from the Himalaya to the Terai plain below, where it slows and spreads out onto the flatness of India. Not as big as some of our rivers back home in Oregon, but technicalities. Not a place for novices, but there we were: two Brits, three Americans, a Canuck, two Swiss and an Israeli. We were led by our Nepali guides: Namba, a capable 24-year old lead boatsman and Padi, who looked to be skipping his 6th grade class that day. We pushed off around noon, thirty-some miles upstream from our take-out. The river turned to rapids in the first few minutes, tossing the leaky rafts sideways as much as carrying us downstream, wicked hydraulics sucking our boats in dangerously close to large boulders before the backwash gently waved them away, to start the cycle again. The rafts weren’t set-up with oars and rowing frame, like the typical outfit on rivers I had run back home; these were supplied with wooden paddles and a makeshift gear pocket in the rear – a large, mesh tarp bound around the edges, where the dry bags were stashed with our camping gear. It was all such a Hindu-inspired throw-your-fate-to-the-Gods kind of trip, we just hung on and hoped for the best. The crew was cheering and tossing about the river the rest of the day, energized by the rollers and rocks, breaking waves and spray. We cheered less in the last two hours, as the sun passed behind the mountains above us and the water gripped us with a cold hand. Camp that evening was sedate, the customary drumming and singing lasted only a half hour after dinner. The Europeans produced bottles of wine from their packs to pass around, and the smoke from Namba’s pipe wafted over the group like a warm blanket.
My night was long. Something set out for lunch in the previous day’s hot afternoon sun had gone bad and rumbled through my gut. After spending hours lying on the sand only steps away from the outhouse, I welcomed the sun’s warmth in the morning, and the chance to bathe in the river. Jan rescued me with Imodium and a cup of weak tea before packing our gear in the dry bags.
The river calmed its course on Sunday it seemed and the cool breeze off the water wasn’t enough to dilute the heat of the lowlands, where smaller hills bowed to the mountains behind us as we neared the Terai plain. In three hours we were landing the raft on a gravel bank near a bridge outside of Mugling, then unpacking slowly, savoring our time on the river. The half-mile walk to town was our second mode of transport that day, to await the bus Ram had promised would take us to Tadi and beyond to a village in the jungle for the night. The town of Mugling could win a prize for third-world decay. Some enterprising businessman could sell it as a destination, maybe on a budget adventure-tour titled: “Worst Places in Asia.” With dramatically pretty hills as a backdrop, the ramshackle squalor below laid on either side of a dust and diesel exhaust-choked street, its citizens, livestock and the bus transport companies succeeded in creating a contrast that words can hardly describe. Despite my travels in far-flung places for the past month, the public facilities here even challenged my newfound tolerance for putrid bathrooms. Mugling had an ugliness that made you stop and stare – like a seeping boil on a beauty queen.
After two hours of waiting for the tourist bus to Tadi, the collective goal of our little group narrowed to a singular purpose: to leave Mugling as fast as any transport could take us. Luck found us in the form of Ram, who descended from the local bus toward us with arms outstretched, suit shining with oil. He excitedly hugged and slapped each of us on the shoulders – picture Stanley finding Livingstone in the African bush, but different: Stanley is trying to sell a used car, not rescue a British subject from the jungle. Ram nodded vigorously at our prompts to get the bus arranged for the trip south, and disappeared into the store/restaurant that served as Mugling’s bus terminal. He was the first person I had seen brave the foul odor emanating from the restaurant and stay. After twenty minutes Ram exited and gathered the group around him, eyes cast downward. Here it comes.
“There has been a problem with the ‘tourist bus’ – it is not arrive.” The public bus is very slow to Tadi, it may not have room, as you did not buy ticket. You would mind getting on the truck, yes?” The truck he pointed toward was only half-full of goats. Well, yes, we do mind, Ram. You see, the difference between nine tourist-bus tickets and the goat-truck may buy you a better suit in Tadi, but that’s not our goal here. He was rather dismayed that we were being so uncooperative – after all wasn’t he being so helpful to arrange this nice goat-truck for us? “It is a good truck, yes? The goats are healthy, yes?” The Israeli bailed first, finding an unoccupied seat on the public bus, and pouring himself into it like concrete. The rest of the group swarmed over to haggle with the bus driver, who agreed to let us onto the roof after assurances that we would leap off at the first sign of police, who would stop us for a safety inspection down the road.
The trip to Tadi was a slow one, as the local bus stops for everything. We stopped for all potential passengers standing along the highway – even those who didn’t need a ride, and showed no signs of wanting one. We stopped for the bus driver’s extended family, who had a load of firewood to be ferried to the next village. We stopped so the driver could haggle over a few chickens from a roadside stand. I assumed the price was right, as we helped load them, clucking and clawing, into the bus. But the highlight of the trip was an impromptu pause to let all the male passengers pile off, as if on some internal cue, to go pee in the woods. Well, there used to be woods. The scene of thirty Nepali men running pell-mell toward a patch of small shrubs pulling at their crotches made me laugh hard enough that my own system went off – the last one off the bus – and I damn near was left on the side of the road, trying not to wet my feet. It bears mentioning: the women never got off the bus to urinate. Not one of them. I am convinced that Nepali women have bladders of iron.
The rest of that day was a blur of buses, of rickshaw carts pulled by mini-horse to the market-place, and chasing Ram through the streets of Tadi with children tugging at us as he rounded up the next form of transport – a small fleet of taxis to cross town. Then on into the night, where those hearty few that saw this pinball-ride through to the end: three Americans and the two Brits, stood silently on the banks of the Rapti River waiting for a jeep to take us across the water and to the village of Sauraha.
Of course, the jeep that brought us to the northern bank an hour before was not big enough to ford the river. (And why not create opportunities for a wider portion of the local jeep-driver economy?) After unloading our luggage, the driver shrugged dramatically and turned his tired, small jeep to home. It was becoming apparent why the Chinese and Indians never bothered to invade Nepal. A large, deuce-and-a-half materialized from somewhere out of the jungle that night, picking up our dusty load of bodies and bags, then splashing through the river and chugging into the village, all told, our eighth mode of transport that day. Of course, the reservation for our accommodations had changed, so we shouldered our bags again, to walk 300 yards to another lodge, driven by the hope that five actual beds were waiting for us. By the pale glow of the bell-boy’s lamp, Jan and I bumped through the doorway of our bungalow to collapse quietly on the cots without ever lighting a candle.
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Getting up early the next morning, I padded softly out the door, closing it gently so as to not wake Jan, sleeping soundly against the far wall. Despite the heat coming later that day a cool mist was apparent at 6 am, while buildings of the compound slumbered on their haunches in the gray air. I walked toward the main lodge, hoping for a cup of tea and a pastry, as my appetite was back, recovered from its foul journey on the river. Passing through the compound, I looked around to assess the place. Several low-lying structures, a storage barn of some sort with thatched roof, a 30-foot tower built on stilts with stairs to a covered platform, a grass court and erected net, where a large, dark shadow stood in the fog on the near side.
Ducking through a low corridor between the main lodge building and a lean-to shed, I found myself at the main road through the village. Two women bent low in front of their grass-thatch houses across the street, sweeping their entrances with hand brooms. A small group of goats were trotting down the center of the dirt avenue before a running boy, who clucked and waved a stick with yarn tied on the end to herd them. A stand of forest behind the buildings rose above the fog, and deep within it, voices of the village elephants could be heard braying for food. I leaned against the wall, allowing the quiet sounds of the morning to soak into me. Sauraha village was a calm and peaceful place, smelling faintly of flowers, like only heaven could be.
Feeling the ache of hunger stirred me out of my reverie, and I entered the main lodge. No one was in attendance at the main desk, so I poked around through doors until finding the kitchen. Kettles were on the stove, cups and tea bags in the third drawer I tried, biscuits in the fourth. After making tea, I slipped out and found the trail back to the bungalow, carrying my cup and stepping quietly past the animal that hadn’t moved on the grass.
Jan awoke when I tripped over the threshold of our room, cursing quietly at the hot water seared my hand. “What’s it like out there?” she implored in her morning voice. “Not much going on. Had to make my own tea,” I said. “There’s a rhinoceros on the volleyball court.” That news cleared the cobwebs of sleep out of our girl, for sure. She sat up quickly, swinging legs to the floor, hopped to the door pulling on her shoes, then back for a brief wrestle with luggage for her camera, then out. I sat alone with my tea, enjoying the stillness of the cool air. I hoped the animal was obliged to allow photos; otherwise, the day might prove to be more than we planned.
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D.L. Wechner lived in the Pacific Northwest most of his life; its rain, trees and geography influencing many of his short stories, poetry and essays. He currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with his partner Tilda and two dogs who can talk him into just about anything.
Photograph used in conjunction with Flickr’s Creative Commons Agreement. It can be found, in its original form, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderlane.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 2:05 am and is filed under Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
