Kathmandu
NEPAL
Satan's Bus Ride
By AARON
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
How do you get to Kathmandu from Delhi you ask? Well there’s two ways to go: one is by plane, the other is by bus. A plane to Kathmandu will cost you about $100-$130USD depending on the deals available, and the bus will cost you about $35-$40USD. Flight time? About 2½ hours. Bus time? Around 30 hours. So what’ll it be travelers?
Well if you know anything about Lyndi and me and have bothered to glance at the title of this blog, then you know we chose the bus. Let the games begin.
Dimples (the guy who sold us our train tickets) hooked us up with a tourist bus to Kathmandu, so we really couldn’t complain when the taxi dropped us off to find a bus chocked full of Nepalese. Eager to get this 30 hour marathon started, we took our seats in the very back and were soon on our way.
Here are some things I noticed on the first leg of our trip:
1. India is a world renowned for its smells. These smells can range from the most acrid, putrid stenches you’ve ever had enter your nostrils, and then can magically change in a heartbeat to some of the richest, sweetest smells ranging from cinnamon, incense and coriander to rich wafts of buttered masala and curry. The first of these smells will likely make you want to vomit, and the second set will make you walk around like an idiot with your nose in the air sniffing incessantly. Regardless, over the course of our trip to the border, these smells were constantly drifting in and out of the open windows of our non-a/c bus.
2. Our bus had no shocks. The last 4-5 rows of seats extend beyond the back axle of the truck, so when we encountered anything from a pebble to a speedbump, Lyndi, Daniel (the only other non-Nepalese tourist on our bus), a random monk and I would be jettisoned out of our seats to astronomical heights. Add a thin, paper-like layer of “cushioning” between your butt and the metal below your seat and you have a recipe for “bruised ass a la mode” in no time.
3. Our monk friend in the back seat had a cell phone. Awesome.
So after leaving at noon the day before, we rocked up to the India/Nepal border around 10am the next morning. Time count: 10 hours. As we crossed the India border, we were then told by the India border officials that we would need permission to re-enter India since we were re-entering in less than 2 months on our MULTIPLE ENTRY VISAS. This would end up costing us another $12USD each and a full day in Kathmandu by the way.
For those of you who have already gotten one, and those of you trying to get one you have my sympathies; India visas are to put it quite simply, a pain in the ass. Oh, and here’s the kicker – after our lecture about this, one of the border officials then tried to sell me weed. No joke.
So as we waited at the border while the India officials checked through every piece of baggage on our bus, we then waited some more while they tag-teamed the Nepalese officials who then proceeded to do the same thing. This would then happen again about 5 minutes outside of the border town of Sunauli where other Nepalese officials would again check every piece of baggage. I say 5 minutes after we left the border, but we didn’t leave the border until about 5pm, due to there being a Maoist strike in Nepal and the roads were being shut down. Time count: 17 hours.
When we finally did get back on the road, we were told that it was about 6 hours to Kathmandu from where we were. Sweet! We should get in around 9pm tonight! Oh if only that were true….
Here are some of my thoughts while on the road in Nepal:
1. Apparently you need a crew of 5 for this long bus journey. Normally you would think that at least 2 of them would be drivers, swapping back and forth and sleeping while the other drives. Wrong. One guy drives, 3 guys sit around and the last guy comes all the way to the back seat and falls asleep with his head on your shoulder despite your gentle nudges to get him off.
2. I mentioned there was only one driver, so this means that there are a number of “tea stops”, where the driver will sleep for about 1 ½ hours. We stopped about 3 hours outside Kathmandu for a dinner break where the driver slept, then proceeded to stop for about an hour each hour after that until we arrived in Kathmandu.
3. We arrive in Kathmandu at 4am. Time count: 40 hours
“Bus-lagged” and with sore butts, Lyndi and I hopped in a taxi at 4:30am and headed to the Thamel district in Kathmandu. Known as being the touristy section of the city, we had no trouble finding a hotel, and after a well deserved hot shower, we quickly proceeded to fall into the deepest sleep I’ve had in a while. The nightmare was over – we were in Kathmandu.
We woke up refreshed at around 11am, and after eating an amazing breakfast for about $3USD, we went out to shop! Kathmandu is legendary for its “knock-off” brands of North Face, Mammut, Mountain Hardware and any other name brand trekking gear you can think of. The difference between these fakes and others you might find in scattered parts of the world is that these are actually quite well made. Well made and cheap – now that’s a bargain. So after buying some things needed for our trek through the Annapurna Circuit, we ended our first night with some decent food at a reggae bar and listened to some live music.
Next day was spent at the India Visa Center (aka “Embassy”) where we had to pay for permission to re-enter India even though we already purchased Multiple Entry Visas. I’ll spare you the boring details, just know that it sucked.
We were supposed to leave for Pokhara on our third day in Kathmandu, but since there was another Maoist strike, we ended up having another day in the capital city.
Lyndi and I checked into a new hotel, which was nice because we were getting eaten alive by some of the noisiest mosquitoes ever at the old hotel, and went out that day to the main Stupa in Kathmandu. Taking advice from a fellow on TripAdvisor, we avoided the entrance fee and simply walked one block further to another free entrance.
The Stupa itself was impressive and we even learned a bit about the local religion – apparently you always walk clockwise around a Stupa, never showing Buddha your left-arm side. We were told this (as we of course were walking counter-clockwise around it) by a very friendly local monk who happened to be walking in the correct direction.
That night we enjoyed some pizza and even had a few laughs about yet another bus ride from hell. With the horror over, it was much easier to look back on the bus ride without ripping our hair out, but if you want my advice? Take the plane.
