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Hello all.
We are back in Kathmandu after a 10 hour bus trip from Pokhara.
We used a different Bus company this time - a much nicer one (despite the catchy name I've given it above).
Now we have re-experienced the road from within a vehicle fitted with actual shock absorbers I have realised that most of the problem on the way to Pokhara was the bus we were in, not so much the road.
Although the road is still bad.
Real bad.
After 3 hours on the road we had a one hour lunch stop at an actual Resort near Ghorka. Can't recall the name of the place but I think ot catered mainly for white water rafting types - there are plenty of opportunities to do this along the road as there are any number of rivers - the Seti Khola being the best known I'd say.
This time our freak out moment was the lengthy climb up to the edge of the Kathmandu Valley.
First clue was when we passed a Bus laying on it's side at the bottom of the climb. Not a good sign I would have thought but our Driver seemed to consider this something of a challenge.
As we climbed higher his ability to position the Bus on the extreme edge of the road (the edge adjacent to the yawning precipice) became even more finely tuned.
I did notice some of the locals looking a bit tense at times - which you normally don't see as that's the equivalent of a QANTAS Hostie screaming 'We're all going to die!'
Much of the problem was not really our Driver, but rather the 'Express Bus' nutters, the motorcyclists who try to fit themselves into non-existent spaces in the traffic and the long distance truckies who look to be drug effected - all of whom suddenly appear out of nowhere causing our driver to make sudden corrections to avoid them.
Anyway, we made it obviously so it's all good.
During the bus trip I had a Bruce Cockburn song called "Grim Travellers" running through my head - the lyrics kind of fit:-
Down on the plain of 10000 smoke stacks
trucks butt each other to establish dominance
the newspaper next to me leans over and says matter-of-factly
"Sacred mountains tower above meadows"
Uh huh - and us.
Heavy indeed.
- comments
Cheers, Marilyn (not the cake making one!) Not quite like going up to Mt Coottha hey???
Allen Back in the big smoke. 10,000 stacks at the very least? Driving licence tests' (if they have them) must be interesting over there? I've worked out what Pumdi Bhumdi VDC means. It's the local Venereal Disease Clinic near Pokhara! They seem to have a lot of VDC's over there?