The story of our first day trekking in Nepal.
This is out of order with the rest of our blog, and so lacks some context, but I thought I’d share the experience now. To spoil the end, we get through it safe and sound, but not without some bumps, in what Ness describes as the worst day of our travels so far. Enjoy the read…
We began the day in the lovely lakeside town of Pokhara in central Nepal. It was a 5am start though, as we had to meet our bus at 6am. We were all packed, a bag each for trekking, and our leftover bits (like our climbing gear) in spare bags. We would leave these with our hotel, a very normal practice here for trekking, yet this is a new hotel owner who seemed rather confused, so we walked out with all of our fingers and toes crossed that they would be there on our return.
We arrived at the bus to find that the modern coach we had been promised was a ramshackle old bus with squeaky suspension and no seatbelts. Our bags were thrown onto the roof, with no attempt made to tie them down, just wedging them. Fortunately we travel with a makeshift seatbelt which we can wrap around the back of seats, making us the butt of many jokes but much safer.
We were the first on the bus so got to chose our seats, and we waited for others to arrive. We were joined by another 6 or so tourists, and then a few Nepalis. The coach set off, and stopped every 5 minutes to pick up more people. Slowly the bus filled up, until all the seats were taken. And it continues filling up until all of the aisle was taken. And the steps to the door. And someone hanging on out of the door. What amused us most was that one guy on a scooter would meet us at every stop and drop off another person, I assume a tactic for getting your entire family to a bus route without a car to get to a stop.
Ness had read a blog by a couple who had been asked to hold a chicken and a rabbit for the journey. I tried to pre-arrange to hold the rabbit rather than the chicken, but Ness told me otherwise. There was no rabbit or chicken, but at one stage we saw a few cows in the queue at a bus stop. Thankfukly these were destined for the bus behind us rather then ours!
The trip was brutally bumpy…. Nepali roads are very rough, and often not tarmacked, but the biggest problem was the suspension which made every bump feel like being hit on the bum with a sledgehammer. At one stage quite early on, there were screams from the locals stood in the aisle, the bus screeched to a halt and we saw that the child sat in a seat next to the open doors had slid under the bar and out of the door of the moving bus. He seemed shaken but in tact.
Nepali people seem to suffer particularly with travel sickness, so early on they handed out sick bags. After only 30 minutes or so, the children sat on the floor next to us were filling their bags with sick…very unpleasent for them and those around, but at least it was all contained, and when we stopped for a break they could dispose of their sick bags.
At this break, Ness and I both went to use the toilet. As I was using a urinal there was a big hole in the wall in front of me. It took be a moment to realise that this hole went directly through to a cubicle of the ladies toilets on the other side, looking down on the occupant. The hole was so big and at the head height of a westerner that the only way to not look was to stare at the ceiling. I looked across to my right and saw that in front of every urinal was a window to the adjoining cubicle. All very weird. I promptly went around and informed Ness who was in the queue.
We continued our journey, and we both plugged ourselves into Netflix. About an hour later I hear a yelp from Ness and look over to see a face of disgust. I’m a little confused, and then start to smell vomit. I look over the chair in front and see that the kid in front of Ness has thrown up over the seat and window. It takes me a few more moment before I realise that he had thrown up out of the window, and that this had then blown back into Ness’ face. As Ness turned around I saw that she has a child’s vomit all over her face. This pushed the day to a low point…. As she bathed herself in alcohol gel we didn’t realise that this was still the good bit of the day!
The road got narrower and more winding, until we arrived at the destination of Besisahar. This was a point at which you could start the trek, though we were still a long way outside of the main trekking area, so most people get into a 4×4 to continue the journey. Some people go a long way ahead by car, to reduce the trek to 10 days or less, while we wanted to ride for just a couple of hours to get into the area with good trails and beautiful scenery.
I gathered a group together to improve our bargaining power. The two of us, two Swiss girls, a Australian couple, a Czech guy and an Argentinian with a funky haircut. With this I negotiated the price per person down to 800 rupees to Syanje, and another 800 to the next destination that others wanted to go to.
3 hours and many mo-mos (a Nepali dumpling) later, the 4×4 arrived to collect us. It didn’t have seatbelts, but seemed reasonably serviceable. We jumped in, I opted to the middle row, hoping it would wedge us in the best. We set off, and after 5 minutes we pulled into a restaurant. The drive wanted to have lunch. Okkkk.
We sat around waiting for our driver. We noticed a goat waiting beside the bus to our left. Someone arrived and tied a rope around it’s horns, and we assumed it was being put on the bus, but not quite as literally as it turned out. The guy climbed on the roof of the bus and proceeded to pull the goat by rope and horns into the roof. This was a big goat and a small man, so it was always destined to fail. I felt relieved for the goat when another guy stood beside him decided to chip in and give him a push. The goat was hauled onto the roof for his journey, and given a bowl of food. Sat watching speechlessly, we later questioned whether it was going to roam free on the roof for the journey, or whether it was tied down in some way. We will never know, but having now done that journey I feel pretty bad for the goat.
By this time the Swiss girls were standing up for their national timekeeping reputation in outrage at the delay, while the Aussies were chilling in the sun, and us Brits were too polite to say anything to anyone.
We finally set off on the worst road I have ever been on. When I did my off road training in military land rovers, I think the trails were better than these. Without seatbelts we were being tossed around the cabin mercilessly. The Swiss girls were in the back with the Czech guy, and had very little to brace themselves against, which must had been really unpleasant.
The road turned from unmade rocky track, to mudslide precipitously above a cliff. While other people had expressed concern about the bumpiness, it was uncomfortable but not especially unsafe. This was downright dangerous, and I was annoyed that I didn’t see it until we were committed onto it…stopping to let us out would have been worse than carrying on.
2 hours later we stopped for the driver to chat to his mates. Just as he was getting back in, he mentioned to Ness that we were about to have the dangerous bit of road. Not a great thing to say.
No part of this was as dangerous as that earlier part, sections which were exposed to a sharp drop were on good road (though occasionally with a river going over the road), and sections which where the vehicle was being thrown around by bumps or deep mud were protected by a bank, but it made for a very scary experience, especially as the driver kept answering his phone. We reached a point where we decided that enough was enough. I tapped the driver in the shoulder and asked him to stop.
(Ness here: Ben is being too polite… What actually happened to result in us ending the jeep ride of hell is my quiet sobbing went to loudly weeping so Ben very kindly ended the trauma there. I felt bad for causing a fuss and making Ben walk for an extra hour when he seemed ok, but he got out and told me that we were walking from here. Wiping my tears as the driver got our bags off the roof, I was a bit baffled when one of the girls asked if it was because I was afraid of heights. No I’m just afraid of dying on this journey!)
I said that we were getting out and walking from here. He seemed pretty confused and objected a little, but we were clear. When it came to paying for our ride, we gave him the amount that had been agreed. He disagreed. I said that we had an agreement with his boss, and he said that there was no such agreement. An argument ensued, and he made a phone call when I asked to speak to his boss, he eventually backed down but insisted that we were bad people. We said goodbye to the others, hoping to see them soon, and I relayed very clearly the arrangement I had made for costs, so that they wouldn’t be ripped off.
We walked for an hour to Syange, where the 4×4 had been due to drop us. It was an easy plod along the road dodging the Jeeps, then a nice wander to the village.
We came to the other side of the village and found the road blocked, with people pushing vehicles up the slope. Wandering through the carnage, we were soon greeted by a loud and cheerful Swiss voice. The driver had refused to take them further, kicked them out, and they were now negotiating another ride onwards. We said hello, exchanged numbers and carried on.
The route was generally really nice, we loved our first suspension bridge, but we’re at one point the oath basically ran out and we had to scramble down a river bed.
We arrived in the village of Jagat just as it was getting dark. We quickly found ourselves a guest house and settled in. I was having a hot drink while Ness was showering, and I heard my name screamed. I went to the shower to find Ness at the end of her tether, having found a leech on her leg. She had flicked it off, and I hadn’t thought properly about this as when I went to the shower I found to attaching itself to me.
I also had my first full experience of squat toilets. I have used them for their 1st purpose, but not for the 2nd, and I must admit that I found it an extraordinarily degrading experience, especially without the spray hose you normally get.
As we laid in bed, Ness summarised that she’s woken at 5am to be vomited on, use a series of grim toilets, be scared for her life on her worst ever car journey, and then be leeched upon… It was the worst day of travelling so far! As we fell asleep we hoped that it would remain the low point of the year, and that there wasn’t a worse day to come!
We woke this morning to a new day, with a shining sun and a hearty breakfast. Just as we were setting off, we saw the Australian couple walking past our guesthouse. I asked why they were here rather than a day further up the road, they explained that the jeep they’d boarded had put them standing in the open back with a group of kids, and they really didn’t fancy a terrifying night ride hanging off the back of a truck, fearing that one of them or a child would bounce off a cliff, so they had stayed where they were. Laughing about the day we’d had, we stepped onto the trail and into what would be a much nicer day!
