Monthly Archives: November 2012

Waking up at 4am to the sounds of people creaking their doors open, and wandering about outside past the paper thin walls, we fell in and out of consciousness for another two hours before succumbing to the noise. Also, we ordered breakfast to be served at 6:30am so we needed to wake up anyways. Breakfast was a delicious apple pancake, omelette and a type of Nepalese naan bread while sitting atop a verandah, with clear views of a snow-capped mountain far off in the horizon. Compared to other hiking trips we’ve had, this is luxury! Continue reading →

Too excited for our trek, we barely got 3hrs of sleep before waking up in a daze at 530am. Our porter met us at our hotel, and a short taxi ride got us to the bus station which was already jammed pack with people. As the Dasain festival continues, workers in Kathmandu begin the journey back home.

The bus station was hustling and bustling, and it felt like we were at the heart of it all, weaving between locals yelling for tickets and carts selling bananas. So far we’ve seen two fruits available for sale, bananas and apples. We were glad we had a porter to guide us through this as all the signage was in Nepalese, if there were any at all. The buses don’t have any specific numbers, or signs telling you where they’re going, but people hopped on and off, paying the bus attendants whenever they were asked.

Bus attendants have earned our respect. Hopping around in flip flops, he’d climb to the roof of the bus to pack people’s baggage, and the bus would just drive along at a slow speed. He’d climb down the ladder and hop onto the ground continue calling for more people to get onto the bus (no tickets required). Once full, and we don’t mean all the seats were full kind of full, but that every nook and cranny was filled from end to end and people were literally standing at the doorway, before the bus would start moving. The bus would reverse out into the nightmarish traffic while the attendant helped leading the way with rhythmic pounding on the sides of the bus. And once the car starts moving forward, the attendant would hop onto the moving bus and stand at the doorway, with his body being outside of the bus. All of this was done in a natural, fluid motion like a dance of sorts. Hop off, run around yelling for passengers, and catch the forward moving bus if nobody would come. Continue reading →