We caught a tuk tuk near Patan Hospital to a bus chowk where we caught an extremely crowded bus to Banape. It was absolutely insane! And so much fun at the same time. Katie had warned me that I would likely not be able to stand on the bus as I am too tall and this was the case. Even though the bus was beyond crowded, the people made room for me to sit down. I had a small piece of a corner of a bench to sit on facing the door of the bus. A woman came on and found a spot behind me which actually meant that she was sitting on me. She was sitting on my lower back / butt! I couldn't believe how much everyone just worked together to make everyone fit and be relatively comfortable. This would NEVER happen at home! Another woman got on with a small son and another stranger took her son on her lap because he was whining a bit and tired. Eventually this kid ended up sleeping while leaning on my back. Pretty cute.
This bus ride was at least an hour and a half by the way...
In Banape, we had to get on another short bus where we got off and met Katie's friend Sham on the road. He walked us over to his house.
I think I need to elaborate on my description of this bus ride and trip to try to get across how chaotic this may look on the outside, but how coordinated and efficient it is when you are in it.
Everyone working on these buses is yelling their destination at the top of their lungs and you just have to find the one that you want. They drive by stops, hanging out the side door yelling their destination - in our case Banape - as we drive quickly by. There is also a lot of whistling REALLY loud. If someone indicates that they want the bus to stop, this helper who is hanging out of the bus hits the side of the bus once to ask the driver to stop. If there is no one who wants the bus he hits the side of the bus hard twice so that the driver will just keep driving. He is also constantly yelling onto the bus to see if anyone wants the upcoming stop. He is also collecting the fare at the same time. And somehow it all works!
Back to our adventure. Sham walked us over to his house and we went up to the third floor and into a small bedroom / office. We talked and visited with him, his wife Sarita and his son Sadbhav. What a nice family, such generous people and a very smart 6 year old. He talked literally non-stop in perfect English at a really high volume. Likely because in school they are asked to recite English together and very loud. Apparently he just did his exams and he did very well in English but is not doing very well at all in Nepali! Too funny! He was reading to us from a reader that had both languages and he had trouble with Nepali!
We had a great dinner of dal bhat with pickle and curd. I could not bring myself to drink the curd. It smelt SO strongly of goat! Sham and Sarita did not eat with us. They waited until we were done to eat. We stayed the night at their house.
We woke up before sunrise to walk up to a temple. It took us about 20 minutes straight up. There was a tower and we had a fantastic view of the Himalaya and the valley in the area. The sunrise was beautiful! We walked over to the Shiva temple and then headed back down. We had breakfast of a small omelette with onion and veggies and toasted bread with a marmalade. We also had dudh chiya!
We then walked through the rice paddies to Kathmandu University where we were meeting up with Katie's friends DG and hind wife Laxmi. They live in the hostel at KU. They wanted to feed us breakfast again! Thankfully we were able to say no! I don't think I could have handled any more rice! They ate breakfast and this was so interesting to watch! They had dal bhat, of course, and greens. They completely ate with their hands while sitting on the floor! I thought of you the whole time Amy! Their place is tiny.
So do you now have a monthly bus pass? :)
ReplyDeleteI love the first 30 minutes of those rides! Then it starts to get a little cramped...