L'Arte di Viaggiare - Art of Travel - Francis Galton

Half an hour before it is due to leave, I'm already seated on the bus, which is filling up little by little. At a certain point, and when all the seats are taken, a Tibetan woman with a small baby boards. Seeing that no-one shows any sign of giving up their seat, I get up and signal to her to take my place. She accepts with a smile and once seated starts breast feeding the baby. She seems rather concerned, though, regarding the contents of a sack she has left in the gangway and she is quick to shoo away anyone who tries to sit on it. She has told me she runs a shop so it's likely that she's come to Janakpur to stock up and the sack could well be full of such things as packets of crisps, pop-corn or other junk food of the kind which, alas, is becoming popular even here.
After we've been travelling for a couple of hours, we stop to take on huge sacks of Nepalese cucumbers. Judging by the huge effort it takes to heave these sacks up onto the roof of the bus,I guess they must weigh a total of several hundred kilos. "Let's hope the tyres are good and strong!" is the comment of one of my fellow passengers. I can't help thinking that in fact the bus is already packed to overflowing and considering the condition of the roads . . . . .
Unfortunately my fears prove not to be unfounded! Less than half an hour along the road one of the rear tyres literally explodes. Two or three men take advantage of this unscheduled stop to get out and go for a 'comfort stop' taking a torch with them. Not one of them stops to provide some light for the poor devil who has to change the wheel in the pouring rain and pitch darkness. I get off to provide some light and find I have to get into the most uncomfortable, twisted position in order to shine the torch beneath the bus to where the spare wheels are chained right in the middle under the floor of the bus. The operation of releasing and fitting a spare wheel takes the best part of half an hour and by the time it's done I'm soaked to the skin. Unfortunately the tyres will deflate and have to be replaced four more times. Since we don't have so many spare tyres, we're obliged to stop twice at service stations to get the tyres mended on the spot. However, on these two occasions I merely hand my torch over to those involved without leaving the bus. Kindness is okay, but not at the cost of catching pneumonia.
Despite the dangers and being beset by accidents, this mainly nocturnal journey was wonderful; going through villages lit only by candlelight or oil lamps was like being in one of those Christmas crib scenes.
When we stop at Bardiwas, a very sick woman comes aboard; she is being taken to hospital in Katmandu. The youths and men around her are chain smoking showing no regard at all for this poor woman who can hardly breathe. By the way, I'd like to suggest that the saying "to smoke like a Turk" be rephrased to "to smoke like a Nepalese". In all the countries I've visited so far I've never seen such dedicated, persistent, hardened smokers as the Nepalese.
It continues to pour with rain and I can't see anything through the bus windscreen. It suddenly dawns on me - this bus has no windscreen wipers! The bus carries on blindly through a wall of water. There seems to be nothing for it but to close my eyes and try to sleep to avoid further shocks. It's not long, however, before I can feel I'm being shaken by someone. Opening my eyes I see a man, looking and sounding upset, saying: "Foot down! Foot down!". At first I can't quite understand what he's getting at, but then I realise that he wants me to move my feet which I had put up to rest them. In the Hindu religion feet are considered to be the most impure part of our body and therefore they are to be kept in a low position as far away from the head as possible. Religious taboos frequently coincide with rules of hygiene, or in any case with life conserving rules, but in this case the opposite was true. Anyhow, I do as asked and close my eyes again.
But I am fated not to sleep. At one of our many stops a rather well-made woman gets on who, having pushed my luggage even further away, plonks herself down on me and on the passenger seated next to me. At first the whole thing seems just too absurd to be true; there's simply no room for a third person on these small seats and she can hardly expect to travel on our laps for the rest of the trip. I first attempt to make her understand this with a smile, but, when I see that she has no intention of moving, I push her away. I'm usually kind to the Nepalese to the point of self-denial, but I can't stand arrogance either here or anywhere else. And in this case I don't even have any qualms about depriving a local of a seat. The bus is privately owned and there is a no-charge booking service. I wonder what kind of woman she is: she boarded the bus alone in the dead of night; she is talking, laughing and joking with the male passengers, in a country like Nepal where women do not go out and about alone, even in daylight and near home, and they would never dream of speaking to strangers, let alone men . . . . .
When she finally goes away I try to go to sleep again but the precipices I can make out just inches from the bus wheels are not inducive to relaxation.
Evidently, though, my final hour has yet to come since I arrive in Katmandu safe and sound. It's eleven o'clock and I've been travelling for eighteen hours. The sacks of cucumbers are unloaded; the fish, which has travelled with us hung out of the bus window, is delivered and its receiver sniffs it repeatedly before finally carrying it off; the sick woman, looking even more deadly pale, is helped into a cycle rickshaw.
And it is with these last images in my eyes that I go off in search of a three wheeler, happy for once to plunge into the traffic of the capital.

17 July Janaki Mandir

19 July Tourists in Katmandu