Last Friday we got up early, bundled the children onto a bus and set off for Pokhara, roughly 200kms west and six hours of us, a world away from the noise and bustle of Kathmandu.

It is an amazing journey, rich in cultural contrasts, never dull but frequently terrifying in its terrain and the manner in which it is driven!

I was somewhat nervous about travelling on the bus as the Privthi Highway is in parts one of the main highways from India, heavily congested with trucks and buses all of whom compete for every inch of a road carved out of almost vertical mountainsides with scant respect for the void below them.

Leaving the Kathmandu Valley and climbing to its rim the first police checkpoint stops you before you've properly started. Slowly making it's way to the barrier in a queue of heavy vehicles, the bus was approached by masses of street vendors holding their wares aloft to be passed through the windows.

Women squat near the road edge cooking the proffered corn on the cob on metal plates over a small fire. There was fly covered fruit, bags of popcorn, violently coloured sweets, bottles of water or juice all on offer from the sprawling roadside shanties.

A few kilometres on we suddenly crossed the rim of the valley where the road begins its terrifyingly steep descent towards the rivers Trisuli and Mahesh Khola. Twisting around hairpin bends, I was horribly aware of the lack of barriers, nothing to break a slip off the edge but scanty insubstantial trees between us and the river miles below. Zigzagging on down through incredible terracing cut into the hill, we passed a collection of sticks and branches dropped every metre or so in the road. This is the Nepali version of a red triangle and warns other drivers of a disaster round the next bend.

We found a traditional brightly coloured truck obviously broken down, its wheels blocked by rocks and a pair of legs emerging from underneath sticking out into the road, severely in danger of being squished by oncoming traffic. On the spot repairs are the order of the day here, I suppose all the drivers must be mechanics too and patient ones at that judging by the group of helpful onlookers surrounding him.

Eventually we found ourselves at the bottom, much relieved, the river beside us. At this time of the year the river beds seem only half full, the water marks on the rocks giving some clue to what it looks like during the monsoon. Trucks parked perilously close to the water's edge get loaded up with stone, all by hand and further on still a heavily guarded, massive hydroelectric plant produces a third of the country's power.

The river was a wonderful thing to watch as we followed it, sometimes narrow and deep, finding its way through huge boulders, sometimes so shallow that you could see people wading the entire way across. The diversity of its uses marked by very occasional funeral pyres, white water rafting teams flying past, but more often than not people doing their washing, their clothes streaming out through the water.

We stopped just outside a town called Mugling where the crossroads of the main highways to India and the Terai give the town a transient industry in shabby hotels and truck stops. Riverside Springs, where we had lunch was real luxury. The children love stopping off there, glimmering blue swimming pool, ice cold drinks and European style loos, not to mention Mars bars, always guarantee a welcome break! However, much to the children's dismay I had put their swimming stuff at the bottom of our bags which in turn had been buried in the bowels of the bus and wasn't available for a quick stop. I was not very popular, four hot and extremely bad tempered small people followed me down to the caf on this occasion, luckily I was not let down by the Mars bar availability so all was not lost!

Climbing back into the non air conditioned bus was not much fun but the rest of the journey flew by, there is always so much to see, a constant stream of things to catch your eye and absorb your attention. Holding your breath and crossing your fingers and toes helps to pass the time too, the driving really is something else!

The slow ascent on a relatively good road encourages drivers to a sort of dare game where the bus would be overtaking a truck on a corner, be suddenly faced with another coming the other way and it would be a challenge of nerve as to who would pull in or brake first!

Also frequent landslides mean that the road just disappears in some places and you find yourself shrouded in dust and not being able to see an inch in front of your nose.

Arriving in Pokhara, over the rickety bridge beside which they wash the buses in the river, where the countryside is greener, the buffalo and cattle are fatter and the poverty seems less evident than in Kathmandu, I was glad that we'd made the journey, long though it was. I looked forward to a very cold beer and a cool terrace where I could idly watch the ceiling fans and let my senses rest.

(Posted 17th April 03)

April 23, 2003 16:00