14 July 2010 8:00am Maitikhan
So, a continuation from last time…
We had to meet the bus to Pokhara in front of Himalayan Java at 6:30am sharp, so I got up at the ungodly early hour of 4:15am to shower and finish packing. However, as that was too early I hit the snooze until about 5am, and then finally got up to finish packing, shave and get dressed. I was too tired to shower, felt fairly clean, and figured since I was going rafting anyway it wouldn’t matter.
Kaka and Kaki got up to see me off at 6am and then I left in the car with Ram (our driver whose name I finally learned). I got there in good time and dropped some of my stuff off at Blue Horizon. I left some stuff at the host family’s; I’ll pick it up when I get back from this trip. It was raining when we got there, so luckily the bus had a tarp to cover up all of our stuff on the top.
I think the bus ride out to the rafting spot was an adventure in itself. We drove for awhile, and then hit this gigantic line of cars/busses/trucks/etc. As we were sitting there for some time, we got out to see what was going on. As it turns out, we got to see how a bandh gets formed. The story of what happened as we compiled it later: the night before, a power pole crashed down onto a house and a power line snapped. The villagers called NEA (Nepal Electrical Authority) to have them shut the power off. After that, someone died. So, that morning some of the locals decided to call a bandh to demand their right to power and compensation for the victim’s family. Apparently they also wanted NEA to come out there immediately to restore power and that they would block the road until NEA did so. They put a table in the middle of the road and also threw across the broken power line and some large pieces of wood. Basically, this stuff continues because those with the biggest sticks make the rules, and here the locals had the biggest sticks.
A couple of extra-interesting things happened while we were in the midst of this bandh. First, Dee ran into our driver from the Tibet border, who drove us to Kathmandu. Second, somebody tried driving through the bandh, and then everyone started running towards the car, shouting and picking up sticks. Apparently, they were shouting something along the lines of “Let’s go get him!” because he was breaking (or trying to break) the bandh. Luckily, that didn’t go anywhere much and after about another 10 minutes or so they were convinced to end the bandh.
We got back on the bus and continued to move, so glad that it was all over and we were back moving on the bus. Then after about a half hour or so, we hit another long line of vehicles- this time way longer. Here, as we found out, there was a landslide and possibly a bus stuck in it, and there were only a few people working to clear it. We sat there for quite some time, waiting to move. In the meantime, we came across this crazy bridge that allowed people to cross the river. It was basically a chair on a pulley system. There were two large steel cables running along the top, which the carriage (thin, with two seats facing each other) was attached to. Then there was a rope for a pulley. People would sit in the carriage and pull the rope, basically pulling themselves across. Ashe went down to investigate first and took himself out there. So, of course most of us ended up trying it. It was actually pretty cool.
The landslide situation seemed like it wasn’t going to change so Ashok had us grab water and our cameras so that we could walk to the rafting place (only 3km!). As we got to the landlide they seemed to be letting through some vehicles, as half of the road was cleared by then. We climbed over the landslide, which was just a gigantic pile of mud and grass. Past the landslide there was a rock wall along the side of the road that we climbed on to avoid a lot of the mud on the road. Eventually we had to get off the wall and crossed to the other side, where it was so hard to avoid the mud. I think just about everyone fell in the mud (my flip flops were filled with rocks and mud), but poor Aya lost both her flip flops. She found one, but it wasn’t hers. Luckily, there was a truck meeting us just past that point, so she didn’t have far to go one-shoed.
The truck was another one of those things that was an adventure in itself. First, the truck was tiny. Second, there were about 15 of us. Third, the back was covered in a tarp. So, most of us managed to squeeze in the back of the truck, and the rest rode on the tailgate. Oh, and that 15? Just our party, not including guides, helpers, or anyone else (and there were more than a few of them). I ended up way in the back, not even sitting on an actual seat- it was a bar. It was so incredibly hot I was literally dripping sweat. I don’t think I’ve ever been that hot in my life.
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