The Adventure Begins

Day 1: Monday October 7th 1996

Kathmandu to Turture

Picked up at Potalla Guest House at 06.30 by agent from Himalayan Waves and driven to the bus stop. Didn't feel very good this morning, should not have eaten that food last night. Took Lomitil and will not eat because will be on a bus most of the day. The bus stop was a zoo, many buses loading up. Nepali and trekkers wanting to go all different directions. We were glad we had a guide as it would have been very hard to find the right bus. The luggage went on top, plus a lot of people.

Very busy traffic getting out of Kathmandu. Rough road for about 30 km. The road follows the Trisuli river valley.The driver is amazing, passing going up hills and on curves, tooting the horn constantly to let the oncoming traffic know we were coming!!! All this on roads that have drop offs of hundreds of meters.

Very pretty. Banana trees growing wild, amazing views of the mountains, terraced fields in all directions, people living under tarps, villages with mud houses and thatched roofs, people in the fields collecting the rice, men, women and children with huge baskets bringing the harvest up or down the trails to the villages. Nice music playing. Seems like I am watching a movie. I still find it hard to realize my dream of many years was actually happening. Saw the spot where the landslide knocked the bus over the bank earlier this year.

In Dumre caught a Tata bus for the next part of the trip. Because of all the rain the buses were only getting near Turture instead of Besi Sahar where the road ends. We squeezed into the drivers cabin with seven other people. A tiny Nepali women was squeezed between us and the window, smoking up a storm. She laughs throughout the whole trip and talks to us in Nepalese.

We had a grandstand view of the worst road I have ever seen and one of the best drivers. These buses are incredible the stuff they went through. A bit scary almost thinking they were going to tip over, no place to go many times but straight down if they did. When the road becomes impossible to negotiate or when the bus is almost on its side, everyone gets out of the bus, all the passengers sitting at the back and on the top. Then the driver could manoeuvre the bus out of a mud hole. I got out once, went on to take a picture and thinking others were ahead of me went on walking. Surprised when the bus passed me, hurried after it, finally it stopped and I got on again.

This trip, the town of Turture and the hotel we stayed at could have been a movie set for Raiders of the lost Arc. The shower was a tap with cold water out on the balcony over the main street. Across the muddy street, through a narrow doorway, up steep slippery stone steps, past a big fat pig in a pen and there was the village toilet. Not flush believe me. We were told there was a town down by the river that was nicer but this was worth the price of admission.