Nepal: Car Rides and Marigold Adventures
One morning in Nepal we got up at 5am and hired a driver to take us out to Sindhupalchok, a region near the Himalayan mountains about four hours outside of Kathmandu. We wanted to visit the families of our friends Rabin and Binita. They each grew up in tiny neighboring villages out in the mountains and could walk from one village to the other to visit each other. They met, fell in love, got married, and moved to Kathmandu but their families all still lived in the tiny villages and they loved to go back and visit when possible.
5am came early. We’d been on the rooftop the night before talking and stargazing and drinking warm beers we hunted down at a mini storefront until midnight so we were all a little sleepy when we stumbled downstairs and out to the street to meet our driver and start the day. Our car was a weirdly tall, boxy version of a Land Rover with room for 8 people and our driver was a short, aggressive looking guy who looked like he was about 15 years old. He had spiky hair, furtive, darting eyes, and we couldn’t communicate with each other at all, because we only knew a few local words by then, and he didn’t speak English either. We relied on Rabin and Binita to translate for us. We piled in the car and began our road trip, comparing notes on the kinds of car snacks we brought and music to listen to. Our driver’s choice was local Nepali music which he blared joyously and then once in a while, Justin Bieber would come on the air and we would all would erupt in cheers and sing along as loud as we could.
This was all going very well for about 20 minutes until the car sputtered to a stop along a busy road heading out of town. We sat there wondering what was happening while the driver alternated between making phone calls and peering into the engine with his rear end and feet sticking out into the road like some ridiculous cartoon. He didn’t want to admit it, so we didn’t find out for about 20 minutes that the problem was that we ran out of fuel. FUEL. We ran out 20 minutes into an all day road trip into the mountains when we’d hired a car and driver specifically for the job. Fun!
What made this even more interesting was that at the time, there was a block of imports from India into Nepal, including fuel, so just stopping by a gas station was not an option. People who needed fuel lined up sometimes for weeks just to buy a little bit of fuel. They parked their cars in the lines and left, coming back to slowly move it forward one day at a time. Their cars would be in the lines for weeks. Unless we could get some fuel delivered to us, our road trip was already done. I started to wonder at this point where on earth this driver came from and if it was even wise to keep going even if we could. What professional driver doesn’t fuel up before a 10 hour road trip? Especially during a fuel shortage? Was this guy literally crazy? We sat there for a while longer, trying to figure out what to do and trying to get answers from our teenage dream of a driver. We couldn’t manage to get much more out of him than a baffled stare. Sometimes he even seemed surprised we could talk. Finally, after many phone calls and waiting around, another guy showed up with fuel and just like that, we were off again, misgivings and all. With a fresh tank of gas, our driver discovered the joy of speed and we hurtled through the curves and corners at a stomach churning pace. He seemed to think we were in a video game and nothing could hurt us. We asked him to slow down but he didn’t understand and sped up. I told Rabin and Binita to translate and he slowed down for a minute and we all cheered, and then when he thought we weren’t paying attention again, he sped up even more. This went on for a while and meanwhile outside the car, pedestrians leapt out of the way with terror on their faces and we blasted through the mountains like some terrible, runaway train blaring Nepali remixes of Justin Bieber.
Just as fast as he sped, our driver would sometimes slam on the brakes to say hello to anyone he knew along the road, and once, abruptly stopped at a roadside cafe and announced he forgot to eat breakfast so we had to stop for a break. We all sat around a table of a cafe that seemed to be carved into the mountainside and stared in stunned silence as our driver devoured a plate of stew with meat and bones with a wild appetite. We were too far in to quit now but none of us knew what to think anymore. Did we cry? Laugh? Hitchhike back? I was just happy I made sure everyone signed the waiver so I wouldn’t get sued for emotional damage or death. I got up and wandered out to the hillside to get a break. Compared to the chaos of the car ride, the scenery seemed so calm and peaceful. This was how Nepal was to me. Peace and calming beauty mixed in with intense chaos.
Finished with his stew, our driver waved at us to get back in the car and we high-fived each other nervously for courage and piled back in. The roads got steeper with time as we headed higher into the mountains and he drove ever faster and faster. We took to yelling out loud every few minutes ‘SLOW DOWN!!!” and asked for the translation, but I think he maybe thought we were cheering him on and only drove faster. Goats went bounding off the side of the road bleating their panic. Entire families ran to escape, bikers literally bailed off their bikes to get away. We were unstoppable.
Despite the extreme stress of the moment, or maybe because of it, we also found that we couldn’t stop laughing. Every sharp curve, every bump in the road that sent us hurtling up to bang our heads on the roof had us hanging on to each other for dear life while laughing so hard we cried. We took pictures and video’d our way through the drive of death and marveled at the amazing scenery outside the windows. The twists and turns of the roads had us literally gasping with fear. We climbed up and up through the mountains and passed busses on narrow roads with over a 100 people crammed inside and on the roof. It didn’t seem possible, but there they were. They dipped sideways down the mountain and we thought each time they were going to tip over, but they didn’t, and we cheered for them and their newly renewed lease on life.
Finally, with many hail Mary’s and prayers, we arrived in the mountaintops, the very same place where six months earlier, the earthquake hit. We stopped at the same little roadside shelter and leapt out of the car, happy to be alive and free from the driver. Rabin and Binita told us their villages were just down a pathway so we set off through the mountains. We got to Rabin’s village first and were greeted by his family with the most beautiful marigold flower wreaths over and over again until we were covered in bright gold and felt like we’d stepped into a dream. We wound the flowers through our hair and around our wrists and ankles. We fed them to goats and took a million pictures. Families invited us in to tiny little houses and fed us fresh cucumbers from their gardens which were delicious, and warm goats milk which we drank politely, eyes watering at the freshness and trying not to gag. It must be an acquired taste.
Next up, we were going to Binita’s village. She said it was about a 15 minute walk across the rice field and we set off, loaded down with a thousand marigolds and feeling like we were in photoshoot for Free People. We walked along paths cut into the rice fields, with mountains on either side and the sunshine bright and hot on our backs. It was one of the most magical walks I’d ever been on, with streams that came down across the path and forests full of butterflies and valleys of flowers. But after an hour, we started to wonder what happened to the 15 minute estimate. We started getting thirsty, and the marigolds started to itch. We huffed and puffed down and up the mountains, and then just up and up and up. Binita kept cheering us on but we went slower and slower as the mountains got steeper and steeper. Soon we were climbing almost straight up and two hours had passed. We stopped for a rest. Some of us stubbornly insisted it was still magical, but some were close to mutiny. We almost got run off the path by a buffalo at one point, and dowsed ourselves in any stream we came across, getting more and more itchy. Three hours had passed when Binita finally stopped, pointed up the mountain at a little blue speck and announced proudly that it was her parents house. I felt like Gus Gus in Cinderella when he looks up the stairs and they go fuzzy for a minute. It was straight up the mountainside and would take another 30 minutes to hike up. Steeling ourselves, we kept going. Up and up we forced ourselves, clambering up the stone and grass and goats. Sweat dripped down the marigolds and my neck itched from sunburn. Huffing and puffing, I was about ready to reach for my inhaler when we finally made it to the little blue house and Binita ushered us in to meet her family. The house was cut into the hillside and was very narrow. We had to climb up a ladder to get to the living room and it was so narrow we all sat down on a bed side by side and faced the wall. Bonita’s sweet, welcoming mother came in and brought in a jar of pickled hard boiled eggs and proudly passed us each one with a huge smile. Such incredible generosity, but I about fainted when she opened the jar and the aroma wafted out. I was hot, sweaty, dying of thirst and the though of scarfing down a pickled, hard boiled egg made me start sweating even more. I gave her the brightest smile I could muster and said THANK YOU!! and held on to the egg in my sticky, sweaty palm, in a mild panic about what might happen next. Rabin happily ate his egg and smiled at us. We all paled a bit but smiled back bravely. And then, Binita suddenly announced that our visit was over and we could go back out to the car, which was parked outside. We sat there stunned for a minute. Were we really leaving after a three minute visit, when it had taken us three hours to hike in? And how on earth was the car right outside when we had to hike three hours to get here? I glanced at the others and I knew they were just as confused. Obediently, we filed outside again and and down the ladder, and sure enough, there was the car. A road jutted in almost right to their door. Apparently, we’d gone the scenic route.
At this point, we just couldn’t stop laughing. Still holding our eggs, we hugged Binita’s family goodbye and thanked her for her kindness and generosity. My friend volunteered to eat my egg for me and I’d never been so grateful. We forced ourselves to get back into the car of death and prepared for an even more terrorizing ride back to the city. It was starting to get dark by this point and our ride in the morning paled in comparison to the horrifying experience it was to get home. Along the way, we stopped at a wooden swinging bridge over the river and ran as fast as we could back and forth, shaking the bridge and whooping and hollering just for fun. Then we got cold cokes and sat looking at the river thinking about our day. Despite our near death experiences in the car, this had been one of the funniest and best days yet. Hard boiled eggs, marigold wreaths, rice fields, wild buffalo standoffs, three hour hikes and magic butterfly forests made for memorable times and we smiled, said cheers with our cokes, and steeled ourselves for the rest of the journey back to Kathmandu. It was a good day.
