We awake early today because we have to catch a bus out of town to a village northwest of Kathmandu called Besishar where the Annapurna trail begins. We are once again overwhelmed by people at the bus station who want to help us find the right bus, carry our backpacks, or do something for some money.
“Where are you going?” “What country you come from?” “You go trekking, yes?” -they all shout as they circle the three of us. Everything is written in Sanskrit so AB just walks to a random ticket window and is pointed to another window which we can see has our bus number written on a sign. We cross a dusty parking lot stinking of diesel and board a rainbow colored bus with various images of Shiva and Om symbols painted on it. There are only a few people on it, all of which are Nepali and they stare at us curiously from head to toe. We sit quietly and stare out at the chaos of the bus station. People are just hanging out and it makes me nervous. What if we get robbed or something, I think. I am putting all my security in the driver of this bus to get me where I need to go and to keep us safe, but he can't even talk to us. I jump out of my fearful daydream when I am suddenly taped on the shoulder by another westerner who asks me how much my ticket was. I hear an accent in his voice, but can’t pin point where he is from. He is very tall with dark eyes and semi-long dark hair, he is definitely European. He stands at the doors of the bus arguing with the attendants which he towers in height about the ticket price. He reluctantly pays the fee and boards the bus shaking his head in annoyance and greets us as he passes for the back of the bus. My eyes are taken back out the window as I watch two cows nibble on small patches of grass that grow between parked buses. Then before my eyes pink flowers fall from my head onto my lap and I look up to find a smiling wrinkly old man dressed in orange sprinkling flowers and planting a red thumb print on my head. He says , “Ah, yes this is very good, yes.” He does the same to Tony and then holds out his hand, “Bakeesh, bakeesh, yes.” Tony looks at the sadhu puzzled and I whisper, “He wants to be paid for doing this I guess.” Tony gets out some rupies and the sadhu kindly says, “Fifty rupies please.” We give him twenty which he seems happy enough with and he moves on down the aisle. Hopefully this sadhu is true to his faith and not someone out for money and his blessing will protect us from driving off a cliff or getting caught in a landslide, which apparently happens a lot in this country.
Sadhu, a holy man who devotes his life to the Hindu god Shiva. He gives up all possessions which sometimes may even include his clothing. They usually congregate near any sacred site related to Shiva. They are pilgrim’s always on the move.
4 hours later-
Okay, if you ever decide to take a long bus trip through Nepal avoid “video coach.” I still have two or three more hours on this bus and I have been reluctantly watching this never ending Bollywood movie with the volume cranked so high that it is distorted through the two tiny speakers that happen to be right over me and Tony’s head. How can I describe this wonderful film that we have been subjected to,,, well, it contains everything you could ever want in a movie, drama, action, murder, comedy, romance, musicals, foreign language, and war. They are definitely influenced by western films, but the only problem is that they crowd everything into one five hour film which I couldn’t tell you what is going on because one minute two people are killing each other and the next minute there is a music video going on. The language is funny also, because they will be speaking a bunch of lines in Hindi and then there will be one English word or a sentence thrown in. Despite my confusion and annoyance with the whole thing the people that surround us are loving every minute of it. We are in the second row of the bus and people are sitting in the aisles and on my arm rest to watch the film which is on one small television at the front of the bus. I find it funny to have people pile almost on my lap to watch the film because personal space is very different here. AB had some Nepalese man sleeping with his head on his lap. He just shrugged and kept reading his Nepal guidebook.
As the bus winds around the corners of the lush green Himalayan foot hills I begin to see the real Nepal. Thatched roof huts surrounded by rice terraces where women with bent backs wash pots and pans in the street and naked children run behind our bus waving and shouting Namaste. Every once in awhile we will stop in road side villages to pick up or drop off people and as we wait to move on villagers come to our windows selling bananas, and cucumbers. There is a young boy on this bus that has been with us ever since we departed from Kathmandu. I’m not sure if he works for the bus or if he is just a passenger who loves to help out. He seems too young to work, maybe only seven or eight years old, but he hangs his head out the window with the other two crew members directing traffic and yelling at pedestrians who get in the way. He has the brightest face that I have ever seen on a child, especially a child who wears dirty brown clothes and crumbling yellow flip-flops. He is so happy and carefree on this long crowded bus ride like a kid on Christmas day. At some point on our ride Tony notices the boy looking at us and waves at him and the boy immediately darts towards us and grins, saying “Hallo.” He asks us where we live and offers us some banana flavored chewing gum. “What caste are you in?” he asks me which I find humorous because westerners don’t have castes which is strictly a Hindu thing, but I guess the tikka markings on our foreheads might be throwing him off. I say I don’t have a caste and he just smiles and points to me and Tony, “ You married?” Tony tries to ask him how old he is but the boy doesn’t understand the question and just sort of shrugs at us and asks if we are going trekking. He sits with us for awhile absorbed in the movie resting his head and arm on my side with finger tips dancing on top of my knee. I smile when I hear his little giggle at the movie. Later towards the end of our journey we notice that the boy is missing and I find myself a little heart broken because I wanted to at least say goodbye to the little fellow.
-Besishar
At last we made it after seven and a half hours we can finally stretch our legs and be rid of the stinking diesel fumes that plagued the buses path. The tall dark haired fellow I mentioned back in the bus park introduces himself to us when we get off the bus. His name is Jeremy and he is from France, but he jokes with us because we thought he might be from Israel because of his dark complexion. The bus is surrounded by villagers who again shove business cards of their hostels in our faces hoping we will follow one of them. There is only four of us who are here to trek from the bus which out numbers the twenty innkeepers begging for our business. Jeremy asks if AB would like to split a room since most rooms only offer two beds it would keep them from being by themselves and save some money as well. We agree to stay with one of the innkeepers who claims that his place is the closest to the trail head..
Unpacking my things I find everything is wet from being on the top of the bus and the occasional down pours we drove through.
I doubt that any of it will dry by tomorrow because the air itself feels very damp and cool. Luckily my sleeping bag is dry and that is the most important thing to me.At dinner I begin to notice that Jeremy is on a tight budget. He constantly complains about prices, like he did at the bus park and he orders the cheapest item on the menu. I guess I would be watching my expenses also if I had been traveling for over three months in Asia and India, but I do get a kick out of it because everything is dirt cheap compared to America. My huge portion of curry potatoes ended up working in Jeremy’s favor because I could not finish it and he offered to eat the rest; you could tell he was really hungry.
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