Through the Looking Glass...

[John R]

just to keep you in the loop...

Hello friends!

I'm off to the mountains for a few weeks, and will begin sending you my writing again when I return on November 12. In the meantime, you can continue to read my column on Tuesdays in the Telluride Watch newspaper, available all over the San Juan region and online at www.telluridewatch.com.

Happy fall!

Cheers,

Liz

 

[kathydwells]

JohnR, I love reading your friends writings. I just feel like I am right there with her. Thanks for posting them for us to read.

 

[John R]

Through the Looking Glass
By Liz Lance

Published October 31, 2006 in the Telluride Watch


"How do you like Nepal? Is it fun?" the woman selling vegetables on the side of a busy street asked me. I was returning from the bazaar just after dark and had stopped for some fried mutton momos (dumplings) served up on a leaf plate from a street vendor. The woman caught my eye and I offered her a momo. "Of course it's fun," I replied. "This time of year, especially, with people running here and there celebrating Tihar."



Along with a few fruits I recognized (guavas, amlas) she was selling hxxxxxx, a fruit I had never eaten that was alternately described to me as delicious, sweet and astringent. I found it to be none of the above. The woman was also selling makhamali flower garlands, made from a small purple thistle-like flower, that are a necessity for Bhai Tikka on the last day of TIhar.



Bhai TIkka literally means "Brother Tikka," or "Brother worship" and on that day, sisters invite their brothers into their homes to complete a puja ceremony to pray for their brothers' long life. In return, brothers give gifts of money and clothes to their sisters. Many legends tell different stories of the advent of Bhai TIkka, and one in particular speaks to the cleverness of a sister matched up against Yamaraj, the god of death.



A young girl, Jamuna, was with her brother, who was ill and near death. When Yamaraj arrived to take the brother away, Jamuna pleaded with him not to take her brother until she had finished the elaborate puja ceremony she was performing to her brother. Yamaraj agreed to wait, and Jamuna performed the puja, which included placing a garland of makhamali flowers around his neck, anointing his head with oil and placing dubo (Bermuda grass) behind his ear. When she was finished with the puja, Yamaraj started to prepare to take the brother away. Jamuna again pleaded with him, asking Yamaraj to wait until the flowers died, the brother's hair dried and the dubo withered before taking him away. But of course, the makhamali flowers never died, the oil in her brother's hair never dried and the dubo never withered. When Yamaraj came to find that out, he conceded his loss to the clever Jamuna and her brother was granted a long life.



Now on the occasion of Tihar, sisters still perform an elaborate puja, which includes giving brothers a garland of makhamali flowers, anointing their hair with oil, and placing dubo behind their ears. In the final part of the puja, sisters paint a seven-colored tikka on their brothers' foreheads, which the brothers then do in return to the sisters. Bhai Tikka and its focus on strong bonds between brothers and sisters plays such an important role in the Tihar festivities, that if women don't have their own brothers or men don't have their own sisters, they ask a close friend to stand in to perform the puja, creating a strong bond between those friends.

The vegetable seller asked me if I had any brothers to give tikka to, and I told her that I had no brothers of my own, but that I had a few brothers in Nepal that I would be giving tikka to. One of those brothers is a very close friend, Rajman Bajracharya, who I came to know eight years ago. Three other American friends and I rented rooms in his neighborhood and we all began spending time with him, having tea at his house in the afternoon or visiting the small Newari snack houses to eat bara (lentil pancakes), chiura (beaten rice) and piro aloo (spicy potatoes).



Rajman is the middle brother in a very traditional Newari Brahmin household, where his elder brother paints thangkas and he and his younger brother make silver jewelry. The brothers and their wives, along with Rajman's mother and unmarried sister lived together in one house, sharing all aspects of household life, from raising the children and cooking meals to performing the many puja ceremonies Newari families must perform in a year.



On Tuesday morning, I awoke at Rajman's house and went upstairs to the kitchen to help the Bhaujus (sisters-in-law) prepare the elaborate bhoj (feast) the family would be eating after Bhai Tikka was performed. The women sat on straw mats around the kitchen chopping cauliflower, grinding garlic and ginger, and cutting up pieces of a buffalo I had never seen before. The most senior Bhauju manned the stove, first frying mushrooms in a gravy sauce, then boiling meat in a pressure cooker. I stood behind Bhauju watching her spoon in varying amounts of turmeric, ground cumin and salt, making mental notes so I could prepare the same foods myself. I made the choyella, a spicy dish of boiled buffalo. While the youngest Bhauju stood over me, I spooned in ground garlic and ginger, salt, turmeric and cayenne pepper as per her instruction.



After I finished the choyella, I stuck my head out the window to look down at the street where I saw Rajman and five of his neighborhood friends sitting in front of the newsstand. While the women were toiling in the kitchen, Rajman and his friends were hanging out. That is the holiday season in Nepal ? women work hard in the kitchen and men play cards. I brought up the inequality with the women in Rajman's family, but they all just smiled and said, "Tyesti chha." ("That's how it is here.") They had their own fun, too, laughing when I asked questions about the different animal parts sitting on a plate on the floor. "Dherai sodhnu hundaina," I was told. Best not to ask too many questions. So I relented, not pressing about the pieces of meat that looked suspiciously like intestines and ears.



A few hours later the family was ready for Bhai Tikka. Straw mats lined the perimeter of the kitchen, and mandalas had been drawn in sand in front of where the brothers of the house would sit to be worshipped. They sat in a line according to seniority, first the eldest brother, then Rajman's brother-in-law, then Rajman and his son, and then his younger brother and his son. Each of the women, including me, took turns showering our brothers with chamel (uncooked rice) and marigold petals, offering dried fish and hard-boiled eggs, and then placing a red tikka on their foreheads. After the puja was finished, we then served the ten-plus-course feast to our brothers, including many meat dishes, mushrooms, cauliflower, spicy achaar, beaten rice and special yogurt from Bhaktapur. We took our turn to eat next, and then the celebration was finished.



I joined Rajman in his living room afterwards and we talked about the new bond we had formed. Eight years before we had been friends and neighbors, and now we had become brother and sister, one of the most cherished relationships in Nepali culture. "It's a nice feeling today," Rajman said to me. "We are beginning a new relationship from today, of brother and sister. One of the most important moments of a life, to get a younger sister like you."

 

[Jdarg]

Keep 'em coming, John! This is good reading.

 

[John R]

Through the Looking Glass
By Liz Lance

Published November 7, 2006 in the Telluride Watch newspaper

Many Westerners have become enchanted with Nepal since it opened its borders some 50 years ago. Before I first traveled here in 1998, friends talked of having 'fallen in love with' Nepal. I didn't quite grasp the concept of falling in love with a country, until I fell in love myself.

Nepal is a poor country, ranked 200th of 233 countries in terms of GDP per capita, with an unemployment rate of 42 percent. The roads in Kathmandu are pock-marked and littered with trash; the roads leading out of Kathmandu are worse, and many people die every year when buses fall of precarious cliffs. Cities are dusty and polluted, and drinking the tap water can bring on intestinal distress that can last for days. Politicians are believed to be corrupt and bureaucrats nearly impossible to deal with. So why is it that we love Nepal?

The Himalayas are a huge draw, especially for us Telluriders used to the jagged peaks of the San Juans. Even from Kathmandu, the Himalayas shine majestic on clear mornings. When you travel close enough to touch them, their grandeur renders people speechless. Many travelers also came to Nepal on their search for the mythical Shangri-La, especially in the 1970s, lured in by the free-flowing hashish and mystical Hindu holy men inhabiting the temples. Others than are drawn here to give something back to the world by volunteering for various social causes in a country where the need for such help appears endless.

But much like in Telluride, where we came for the skiing and stayed for the summers, in Nepal it is something else entirely that keeps drawing us back. It is the people ? ever smiling, ever hospitable, ever willing to share with someone they've known only a moment. That's what makes us fall in love Nepal and keep coming back again and again. Nepalis are a fun-loving people, able to overlook daily hardship to share a joke, a dance or a song with friends. This is especially prevalent during the Tihar festival.

On the third day of the festival, Kathmandu is alive with light. It is the night of Laxmi Puja, and Kathmanduites light candles and butter lamps in every window and doorway in their homes to invite the Goddess Laxmi to bless their homes with prosperity. The legend behind this holiday tells the story of a selfish king who became angry with her daughter and banished her to the forest to live as the wife of a penniless man. One day the king removed his priceless pearl necklace while bathing and a crow picked it up in his beak and flew away with it. The crow flew to the forest and dropped the necklace near the princess's home. The princess recognized the necklace as her father's and promised to return it if he met one condition. On the night of the Goddess Laxmi's annual tour of the kingdom, every house was to sit dark except for the princess's. The king agreed to the condition and on the night of Laxmi's visit, every house in the kingdom was dark except for the princess's small hut in the forest. Laxmi was drawn into the princess's house by the light and bestowed endless prosperity on the princess and her husband. The king ultimately became poor himself, while the princess reaped the benefits of Laxmi's charity.

Laxmi Puja is also the night that groups of women visit houses in their neighborhood to play Bhailo, which is similar to the American Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating, but with much more theatrics. In modern-day Kathmandu, non-profit organizations have started playing Bhailo to raise money, and I have joined the Buddhist Child Home, an orphanage in Kathmandu, on their Bhailo tour.

A handful of adults leaves the Buddhist Child Home in the afternoon with 30 young children, some in costume, all clambering to hold the adults' hands. Santosh and Sonam, boys of about ten years, lead the procession with a banner proclaiming their Bhailo program. The orphanage staff lugs speakers and a sound system along, while a few adults play the madal drum. We make our way to the first house and the group begins by singing a traditional song, and the whole group joins in singing the chorus, " Bhaile Re," a phrase meant to spread good wishes of prosperity. Then the children take the stage, performing the dances they have been practicing for weeks, all to traditional Nepali folk songs. First Saru and Sapana perform the most traditional Bhailo dance; then Sapana and Sarita are joined by Saroj and Sudip to do a couples' dance; finally Sanjay, Sabin, Samir and Suman perform a comical men's dance where they flaunt their strength. The dancing and singing continues for another 30 minutes, and then the homeowner emerges from her home with a bamboo tray stacked with fruits, rice and money. The children sing a thank-you song and we pack up and move on to our next destination.

This pace continues until well into the night, and as the evening wears on, the children become a little more weary. The adults do too, and so at one home, the orphanage chairperson's husband Rudra puts a different Nepali folk song in the CD player and the adults have their turn at the dance. I am sitting on the ground with the children, and demure when they ask me to come up, just like a good Nepali girl would. It is only after they insist for the third time that I stand up and join the group of dancing men. I let my arms flow to the music, and jump and hop about, doing my best imitation of a Nepali dance. The crowd loves it and I am told later than some neighborhood spectators went to get more people to come watch the kuirini dance like a Nepali.

After visiting a few more homes, the group finally calls it a night at midnight and returns to the orphanage for dinner, where the staff serves up obscene quantities of rice, dal and greens and the exhausted Bhailo participants eat it up quickly before turning in. Throughout dinner, though, the joke-making and laughing continues, among the adults and children. As long as there is food to eat and fun to be had, this group is happy. That is the lesson that Nepalis teach Westerners, and that is what draws us back time and time again. The chance to laugh freely with friends and enjoy a moment for the moment itself, without worrying about worrisome things.

 

[John R]

Through the Looking Glass



By Liz Lance

Published in the Telluride Watch November 14, 2006


I love Kathmandu. I have spent hours and days and weeks and years learning its every curve, every blemish, every sharp edge and every soft corner ? which gullies to duck into to avoid congested intersections, which soda shop the locals are loyal to and for what reasons, which neighborhoods offer hidden nooks of surprised silence. Those nooks of silence, however, have disappeared loudly and the city offers more chaos than I remember. And there is more that I have forgotten ? that the screeching brakes and blaring horns will unsuspectingly seep under my skin, the thick miasma of dust and swampy black bus exhaust will fill my pores and the leering eyes of men on the street will make me want to disappear.

The effects emerge slowly, gradually building in magnitude. First, I ask for exact change from taxi drivers, down to the unnecessary last rupee. Then I start seeing through waiters at restaurants, speaking in clipped Nepali when the food takes too long to come. Finally, when Prayag, the technician at Ganesh Photo Lab who taught me everything I know about using a darkroom, has forgotten a small request I made of him and I belabor the point for a good five minutes, I know the city has gotten to me and I need to get away. With my friend Kate, I hire a guide and we're off to the mountains, with a brief layover in a village named Gerkhutar, a stone's throw from the banks of the Trisuli River just west of Kathmandu.

We set out for the bus park early on Friday morning. We walk still-deserted streets from Naya Bazaar to Balaju on the northwest side of the city. Milk trucks deliver 14-rupee plastic bags of milk to shopkeepers just opening their shutters, and health-conscious middle-aged Nepalis make their rounds of the city on morning walks, men in warm-up suits and women in thick cotton kurta surwhals. We come across a few cows sauntering along the path and Nepalis stop to offer brief worship by touching the cow's forehead and then their own; the cow, as an incarnation of the goddess Laxmi, is sacred in Nepal. Kate and I are quiet on the walk. We'd been up late the night before packing, and the 5:30 AM alarm has still left us groggy. Our friend Ripu who will see us off at the bus station jabbers incessantly. Kate and I exchange glances and she rolls her eyes. Later she will tell me of her intense distaste for exuberance like Ripu's before 8 AM, or whenever she's had an appropriate amount of caffeine. This morning both criteria remain unmet.

By the time we round the base of Swayambhunath Hill and near the bus park, city life is in full swing. Vegetable hawkers crowd the sidewalk, as do vendors selling cheap Chinese bandanas, backpacks and shoes. I haggle over the price of a kilo of apples with a Terai fruitseller. When he refuses to drop below 40 rupees for his Chinese apples, I move to the next one down the line, who happily gives me a kilo of Kashmiri apples for 35 rupees. Kate and I stand off to the side of the road waiting for our bus to arrive, and I look up to see my friend Pasang heading in our direction. She is returning from the campus where she teaches English literature every morning from 6:00 to 7:30 AM, and stops to chat for a few moments before she heads back into town to her office job with a Nepali NGO.

Our bus arrives and we climb on, stowing our backpacks on the massive transmission box to the left of the driver. I had made a point to get seats in the front of the bus, hoping my long legs would fit more comfortably on this local bus. They do, but I've learned the price Kate and I will be paying for the leg room. Our seats are directly behind the driver on the right side of the bus, and he lays on his horn every 30 seconds or so to alert drivers in front of him to let him pass, or to alert oncoming drivers while rounding a bend. Three hours of this screeching, we both say to each other. "Can't wait to get to the village," I add.

And so we're on our way. I have taken the necessary avomin to prevent motion sickness, and it leaves me not wanting to talk to anyone, an unfortunate condition to be in when everyone on the bus wants to talk to the foreigner who speaks "such clear Nepali." The old woman to my left will only be on the bus half-way to Trisuli, she tells me, grasping onto my elbow when the bus rounds a particularly hairpinned turn. The man in the seat behind me leans over my armrest to ask me where I work, where I learned Nepali, whether I'm married. Typical conversation, really. He begins asking more personal questions, where I stay in Kathmandu, what my mobile phone number is. I ask him why he needs to know that, and he persists. "I don't have a phone," I lie. Usually this kind of excuse is seen for what it is: an untruth and a clear message of not wanting to give information, but without insulting someone by coming out directly and saying that. Again, he persists. "And what about when your friends want to reach you? How do they do that?" I don't answer him, and he gets off the bus after a few more minutes.

Our next stop is Paintis Mil, at the 35-km mark from Kathmandu. This spot is famous for radishes, and when we all climb aboard the bus again after a short tea break, many passengers are now cradling bunches of long white radishes with their greens still attached. Only 20 or so kilometers more to go from here, and with most of the hairpin turns behind us, we're almost to Trisuli. When we reach the main bazaar and get off the bus, I realize that although the Pandey family of Gerkhutar knows we are arriving on the 7:45 bus from Kathmandu, we didn't actually discuss where we would meet. It has been five years since I've stayed with this family, and I can't instantly recall the faces of either of the brothers who might be coming to meet us. I walk up and down the 300-meter length of the bazaar a few times hoping someone will recognize me and take us up to their village. When this doesn't happen, we decide to walk up the road to Gerkhutar.

I don't remember the walk being very long, but once we start up the hill east of Trishuli in the full mid-day sun with our packs on our backs, I realize I was wrong. After 30 minutes walking, I smile sheepishly to Kate and say my memory may have been mistaken. And just as I say that, I hear a motorcycle puttering up behind us, and Rami Hari Pandey comes to a stop. We greet each other in a flurry of namastes, and he explains that when he came out of a meeting, a friend told him he had seen us walking up to the village, so he knew to catch up with us on the road. I hop on the back of Ram Hari's motorcycle for the rest of the way up to his house while Kate and our guide Shiva sit in the shade and wait for Ram Hari's friends to come retrieve them.

The flurry of namastes continues at Ram Hari's house when I greet the family I hadn't seen for five years. I reacquaint myself with the six children of the joint-family home, remembering which children belong to each of the three brothers of the house. Kate and Shiva arrive and we sit in the quiet of their front porch, joined by the youngest brother Ram Chandra and a German fellow named Tom who is volunteering at a local school.

Time slows down, coming to a virtual stop. A girl walks two buffalo down the road in front of the Pandey home, their tails swishing away at flies. A breeze rustles the flowers growing in the front yard and the conversation dies down for a moment. It is quiet in Gerkhutar and there is no dust or bus exhaust clogging my lungs. Rather than feeling the incredible sense of urgency that is Kathmandu, I find myself noticing every breath I take and my ears willingly opening themselves up to take in the sounds around me. Ram Hari's eldest daughter Pooja comes onto the porch offering freshly-picked papaya from their land. I exhale and taste the sweetness of the fruit.

 

[Bob]

I love the smell of singed goat hair in the morning.

 

[John R]

Through the Looking Glass
Published by the Telluride Watch Newspaper on November 28, 2006.

By Liz Lance



Time remains at a standstill in Gerkhutar village, a three-hour bus ride and 40-minute walk west of Kathmandu. I think of the film Pathar Panchaali, the first of Bengali filmmaker Satayjit Ray's renowned Apu Trilogy. Ray takes the viewer to a Bengali village and focuses on a leaf rustling ever softly in the breeze, while a stream gurgles softly in the background. Apu's older sister Durga sits in soft focus on a swing in the background, singing a song to herself. Ray holds this scene for what seems like a good three or four minutes, expertly conveying the slowness of life in an Indian village.



In Gerkhutar I am living that slowness. The afternoon I arrive in this village I spend some time talking with the brothers of the house, sharing news of friends I first visited Gerkhutar with five years ago. After 20 minutes of catching up, I look at my watch to see that it is still only early afternoon. Ram Chandra Pandey suggests taking a walk around the village, and we head down the path that runs between the Pandey's buffalo stables and their neighbors'. The path continues through fields of millet to the village's school where Ram Chandra is a teacher and around a Kali temple that appears to be growing out of the side of a pipal tree. Behind the school and temple is a local shop where the men of the village congregate to drink tea and discuss politics. I notice Maoist slogans on every wall. "Maobadiko mukti morcha jindabad !" Long live the Maoist movement! Ram Chandra is not a Maoist; he is of Brahmin lineage and his family owns plenty of land, a mill, a cow, three bulls and two water buffalo. But in Nuwakot District, where Gerkhutar lies, and to the north, the Maoists are active, in virtual control of more remote villages.



We pause to have a cup of tea with a few of Ram Chandra's friends before we continue on to the Gerkhu Khola, a stream that runs through the small valley, and where families are cutting and threshing their rice harvest. We watch some teenage boys and their grandfathers bundling the rice stalks to prepare for threshing. They have laid down a few large tarps sewn together and placed a flat rock in the center. In turns, they pick up bundles of rice, lift them over their heads and bring them crashing down on the rock to let the kernels of rice loose. Four people stand in a circle around the rock, lifting their arms up and bringing them banging down in a round sequence. After three or four times, a bundle is tossed to the side, and another one picked up. I fight the long shadows of the afternoon sun and take photographs of them at work, hoping to press the action of rice kernels bouncing off the stone into the black and white emulsion inside my camera. I'll know later if I am successful.



Our group of Ram Chandra, the German Tom, my Telluride friend Kate and our trekking guide Shiva continues walking up the valley, and 15 minutes later we meet the same group that was threshing rice before at another patch of their land. This time, I am told, I must do the work myself and not just watch and take pictures. In good humor, I tie a bandanna around my head, leave my camera with Kate and pick up a bundle of rice. They do not know that I have done this before, with friends near Kathmandu, and are surprised when I expertly twist the bundle of rice each time before bringing it down on the rock again. Soon Tom the German and Kate have joined me, and this time it is the Nepalis who are resting, watching us at work. We carry on for 20 minutes or so, working the muscles in our arms, backs and legs. "In your country it is all done by machine, isn't it?" they ask. I honestly don't know how rice is threshed in America, but I presume it must be done by machine, for who could afford that labor? "Yes, it is all done by machine in America."



By now the afternoon sun has sunk behind the western ridge and we begin walking back to Ram Chandra's house. On the way, we pass by another stream with a water-powered mill perched atop it. A fine dust flutters out through the cracks of the roughshod wooden walls, and a tall, thin man walks out, also covered in this dust. This is a pani gatna, a mill to grind corn that is powered by the rush of the stream. A large, flat round stone is turned by a turbine below, while a small piece of wood bounces off the vessel holding dried corn kernels, causing three or four pieces to slide out at a time.



This simple technology is ingenious. No polluting source of energy, no electricity to worry about being turned on or off, no firewood from the forests cut down, and no manpower needed, aside from the owner who watches the mill himself. Families bring their sacks of corn, millet, rice, and barley and place them in a queue, returning when their grain has been converted to flour. Tom the German tells Ram Chandra that when he sees this simple technology, he becomes angry at the patronizing view of undeveloped countries like Nepal that is prevalent in the west. "This is simply genius," Tom the German keeps insisting, even as we reach Ram Chandra's house.



Back at the house, the youngest sister-in-law is preparing dinner, this cooked over a wood stove. She grinds the achar by hand on a large flat stone, adding a green herb related to cilantro to ginger, garlic, salt, red pepper and fire-roasted tomatoes. This is a small condiment to the main meal of rice, vegetables and lentil soup that we eat off of brass plates. As is customary, Bhauju insists on serving us seconds, although it seems impossible to consume that much rice on one occasion. After dinner and a heated discussion on the corruption of development agencies in Nepal (the money stays in Kathmandu, we all agree, never reaching the villages where it is needed most), we go to bed. By nine o'clock, the village is quiet again, and the house soon sleeps, too.

 

[John R]

Through the Looking Glass #9

By Liz Lance

Published Dec. 5, 2006 by the Telluride Watch

I don't need an alarm clock in the village. Before even the rooster crows, I hear the women of the house moving around, one milking the water buffalo, one making morning tea, one feeding her crying child.



Kate and I have spent only one night in Gerkhutar, and now we move on to begin our trek into the Nepali Himals. The road to Syaphru Bensi, from where we will begin trekking, conveniently passes near Gerkhutar; we only need to walk 20 minutes to meet the fork in the unpaved road that heads north. We thought ahead and booked our tickets from Kathmandu, although we would be meeting the bus in transit. Our hosts, the Pandey brothers, had an even better idea. They made arrangements with a restaurant owner in Dunge, where the bus stops for an early lunch about 30 minutes ahead of the Gerkhutar fork, to call the their house when the bus left Dunge. According to this plan, we could leave the house after the phone call came and still meet the bus with time to spare.



I spent the morning at the water tap behind the house with the Saili Bhauju (middle sister-in-law) while she and her niece washed the week's dirty clothes. At 9 AM we moved into the kitchen for our morning meal of dal bhat, and sat on the front porch to wait for the call to come from Dunge. Conversation continued to focus on rural development in Nepal, and the efforts Ram Chandra Pandey has undertaken with other men in the village to help neighbors in more isolated areas. Saili Bhauju's daughter sits on my lap and plays with my watch. Kate asks what time it is.



"Ram Hari Dai?" I ask. "Why don't you think the restaurant owner has called from Dunge yet? Do you think the bus is late?"



"I'm not sure," he replies, and he asks his younger brother to call the restaurant owner to find out.



One minute later, Ram Chandra rushes down the stairs and says, "Jaum! Let's go! The bus has already left from Dunge!"



The stillness of the village has been shattered and the ten or so people sitting on the porch spring into action. Kate and I, along with our guide Shiva, grab our packs and start towards the front gate. The Pandey brothers mount their motorcycles and go ahead of us to head off the bus at the fork. The children begin waving goodbye and the Bhaujus begin their simultaneous obligatory and heartfelt requests of us to come visit again, but next time stay longer!



In 15 minutes, Kate, Shiva and I reach the fork in the road and Ram Hari tells us the bus had already started on the road to Syaphru Bensi. I climb on Ram Hari's motorcycle, and Kate on Ram Chandra's. Ram Hari has already sent one friend ahead to reach the bus first, and has sent another one back to Gerkhutar to retrieve a motorcycle to transport Shiva.



At 25 mph, across an unpaved rock- and dust-filled road, I am on a high-speed bus chase in Central Nepal. With a full trekking pack on my back and my daypack slung over my left shoulder, my right hand is desperately gripping the back of the motorcycle seat behind me. I am futilely holding a bandana to my mouth and nose to keep the dust out, but with every vehicle that passes us, I feel more grit in my teeth, more dirt in my eyes.



We continue on, and I wonder how long Ram Hari's Honda Hero motorcycle is going to be able to withstand the combined 400 or so pounds of cargo over this roughshod road. Some potholes can't be avoided, and the motorcycle bottoms out a handful of times. We still can't see the bus in front of us. Every three minutes, I ask Ram Hari if we'll catch up to the bus. At first he says, of course, of course. After four or five times, he begins to say he doesn't know. Ram Hari slows the motorcycle down to ask another driver coming in our direction where he saw the bus going to Syaphru Bensi. "Oh, it's just ahead, just ahead," the man says. Ram Chandra and Kate, about 50 pounds lighter, overtake us and zoom on at a lightning speed of 30 mph.



The road rounds a bend and we start to see the telltale red dust hanging in the air. Just ahead, the bus to Syaphru Bensi has stopped in the shade and Ram Chandra is speaking heatedly with the driver. I will find out later that the bus driver had been told to stop at the Gerkhutar fork, but that our seats had already been sold to others, so they saw no point in waiting for us. For now, though, Ram Hari has pulled out his camera and asked the bus driver to take a picture of our group. Kate and I thank the Pandey brothers, and begin to climb to the top of the bus.



"What? You won't sit inside?" the conductor asks incredulously.



We tell him, of course not, the view is better from up top, and besides, Kate says, "Wouldn't you rather die on top of a metal box than inside a metal box?" The conductor doesn't understand this, so we smile and climb up. The top of the bus is lined with steel grates, and the front half is filled with luggage covered by a tarp. Five or six boys sit on a metal box facing the front end of the bus, and they yell at us to come forward and sit with them. "Didi! Agadi aununa!" Kate and I nest ourselves among the backpacks just behind the boys and grip the steel rods tightly as the bus begins to accelerate. To our left is the Trishuli River, which we will follow for the next four hours on our way to Syaphru Bensi. The sky is clear and the sun is high. The air is clean and the mood is light. We all laugh, for the fun and to mask our fear. It has been four years since I have traveled on top of a bus on these rough Nepali roads. It has been too long.

 

[Mango]

She writes so well that I felt the sand in my nose. :clap_1: