THE PHOTO ESSAY

IN NEPAL, DON’T SIT AT THE BACK OF THE BUS

By Michael Doherty

Michael Doherty is a film and television editor based in Toronto. He is also an avid traveller. The photos and commentary are from his visit to Nepal in 1989.

The seven-hour ride on the night bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara takes 12 hours, but the sevenhour return journey takes 10. The distance is about 200 kilometres. Why the difference? It depends on the number of flat tires, the number of times the bus completely loses oil pressure as it careens along the edge of the impossibly high cliffs, the number of times it runs out of gas, or the number of accidents it must try to skirt past. If your bus is in the accident, the trip takes even longer.

We passed one such mishap. People were milling about the smashed-in front of a truck, generally looking moody. I read about the accident a few days later. The night bus right before ours had driven around a corner and run head-on into a truck that had stopped, its lights off. Apparently, the truck driver had decided to go to sleep, so he halted his vehicle and napped – in the middle of the road.

The bus clipped the truck and rolled over the cliff, plunging 60 metres into the river below. Eight people sitting on the roof were thrown clear and survived. All 40 or so people in the bus died. The actual number of dead was unconfirmed because, at the time the story was written, they still hadn’t found the bus. I swore off night buses for the remainder of my trip.

THE SPECTACULAR BASE CAMP

I arrived at the base camp, a spectacular site surrounded by the 8,000-metre (26,000-foot) peaks of Annapurna, Annapurna South and Machapuchare. I managed to spend a few hours exploring the area, but ended up in the stone hut rather early. It was just too cold.

I was given yak blankets to supplement the rented down sleeping bag I had carried with me from Pokhara. While lying down to rest, every once in a while I could hear the ice cracking and small avalanches tumbling down the mountainsides. It was a wonderful experience.

By the way, never sit at the back of the bus. I knew this before I booked my ticket back to Kathmandu from Pokhara, and specifically asked for a seat in the middle. The agent understood and promised that I would be smack dab in the middle. When I boarded the bus I found my assigned seat: the last one at the back. In India and Nepal, they tell you what they think you want to hear, then do whatever they want.

GOING BACK TO KATHMANDU

I endured the long ride back to Kathmandu, feeling every single pothole, rut and crack in the road. The suspension, or lack thereof, caused passengers at the back to be violently thrown upwards, their heads striking the metal roof, every time the bus ran over a dip in the road. It felt like your whole body was slamming repeatedly against the roof. More than a few times, the general frenzied din on the bus was augmented by the shouts of people reacting to the pain of their head smashing into the metal. I was one of them. We yelled and swore at the driver to slow down, while making mental notes to bring enough cash the next time for the 45-minute flight. My neck hurt for days afterward.