Up early the next morning for the five-hour drive to Chitwan, in the south of Nepal. A new driver met us along with Raj’s brother (whose name remained a mystery…Jim just called him Raj as well). They helped us track down some mosquito cream before hitting the road. It looked to us like it was only 120kms away, but we soon saw why the drive would take so long. It took nearly two hours to get out of the city, as there was a huge traffic jam on the narrow, two-lane road leading west out of town. The road was a twist, narrow paved road down the sides of mountains, and not far out of town, a bus had broken down. There was no shoulder, and no where to pull over, and no way to get towed, so the bus just sat there, parts on the ground and men working on it, while the trucks and busses headed in both directions took turns going around. We sat in one spot for 45 minutes waiting for our turn. Once past the broken bus, we sailed around the wild curves, down into a deep green valley. Small properties were dug with tiers into the mountainside, with corn and other crops growing on impossibly steep hills. Tiny wizened women carried baskets on their backs, a strap supporting some of the weight wrapped around their foreheads, hauling god knows what heavy things up the hills. Some were filled with bricks, I swear. Little shacks clung to the edge of the road, leaning out over dizzying drop offs, and out front uniformed children waited for their school buses. Jim and I were both agog at the amazing beauty of the mountains and valleys, and the fascinating mini-villages clinging to the sides of the road. We stopped for a stretch and a Chai Masala at a little group of outdoor restaurants and shops (just ahead of two tour buses, whew). I wandered across the road to take pictures of the valley, waving to a family bathing under a roadside water tap. A bus went by with about twenty teenagers riding on the roof rack, who all yelled and waved at me to take their picture. I felt really tickled by that, snapped their picture and waved back, and then couldn’t stop grinning.
Back in the car, the steep winding hills continued, a wide river emerging in the valley below, with the occasional rope bridge hanging across. We also saw cables strung across with cages attached, and people on the opposite side loading rocks and gravel to send across the deep river gorge. Presumably the people would all return using the cages as well. The road continued to be studded with settlements, many with outdoor cooking areas at the roadside, with ovens made of red clay. Eventually, the hills flattened out and we started passing rice paddies again. It was now nearing noon; they weren’t kidding about the time it would take. We’d left the hotel at 7am, farted around a bit looking for mosquito cream, and were now five hours into our 120km trip. We opted not to stop for lunch, thinking we must be getting close. We stopped for a smelly pee break in a busy, dirty city filled with bicycle rickshaws and smoky buses, and apparently no nice bathrooms. We left the city to get on the river road that would take us into the Chitwan area, and to meet a boat that would take us to the island resort.
We would have arrived to the boat in a bout 30 minutes, but we were stopped in a roadblock, which turned out to be a Maoist strike. To us it seemed like we were just randomly stopped in a lineup on the road, but it transpired that the strike was in a small village up ahead, and it’s better to not be too close in case violence erupts. We saw none of this, just had a wearying and hungry two hour wait in the sun. By the time we got through I had to use the loo again, but there was nowhere to stop. I had to endure an excruciating half hour on a very bumpy dirt road before arriving at the boat dock and running for the bushes. The road, when I could concentrate, was pretty cool, with one- and two-storey mud houses that looked like they could have existed just the same way centuries ago, complete with wandering goats and chickens, tethered cows, dusty children, and corn drying in the sun. Everyone we passed stared in frank wonder at Jim, the giant white man in the front seat of the car.
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