Priscilla drops the ball again. I realized that I had to go back to Bhattawara bus station to cetch the bus to Pokhara (This was my original station of my trip, which means I should have went from there to Lubhini to Chitwan to Pokhara, but everything happens for a reason). If I went to Lubhini first, I would not have met Dhruba who introduced me to my nice family and then met the second nice family-things would be different.
I walk into the bus stand chatting with the bus friends and the police. I walk behind the window to drop off my bag and while I am bag there I ask to borrow the bike as I have some spare time ha!
I ride around looking for a book store (a difficult find in the main cities of Nepal). Mission not accomplished, but I manage to find some amazing fish again. Score!
Of course, the lights are out again so here I am riding on the streets in pitch darkness. It is so dark you can not even see huge animals in front of you. I grace the side of a cow and stumble around on the bike. I find my way back and then sit in the bus station behind the window eating my fish and typing on my computer. People are coming up to the window and I ask them where they want to go, “Kathmandu or Pokhara.” The police wear uniforms, which have a standard army pattern of dark blue, gray, and white. They carry big, black guns sitting on their shoulder tops. They all sit in front of the window watching me and laughing. People are acting to buy tickets with me and I tear them off, but do not really give them out. The police are entertained and I manage to entertain myself.
The small, twenty four seat bus arrives and the bus is jam packed. I already reserved my seat number five by the window so I hop over all the suit cases and bags in the aisle to get to my seat. This bus is the fullest I have ever seen a tourist small bus. The suitcases are high up above the seats almost smacking people in the face. To get off the bus, people are climbing like monkeys over the bags and standing on the seat rails. Here comes an adventure…
With the thousand bags on the tiny bus, they had to stop to make some organization to this mess. I had just eaten so I figured this was a great time for me to take a walk/jog. I jogged around the town area in the pitch black making sure to keep arm movement-moving my arms up in the air consistently. The people on the bus looked at me like I was crazy and I was happy to get a nice little workout in before my overnight circus bus.
As I was watching them tie all this luggage to the room, I heard the sound of roosters and realized they had also managed to get three cartons for roosters up there! As if we did not have enough luggage, we have roosters too!
Off we go with the roosters, the luggage, and more people getting on the bus. They are hanging half way out the window, sitting on the bags, and more and more keep piling on. The bus driver is driving Nepali style, which makes stops for a few seconds and then hits the gas and speeds off down the road. You can hear the roosters talking to one another at the top ha! Even with all this commotion, the Nepali buses are comfortable to sleep, but with all this commotion I get no sleep and just sit and stare at the stars above me. When I begin to dose off at around midnight we stop the bus for food. This always happens where I am just about to fall asleep and we make a stop. Off the bus they go for food at midnight and I am wondering why we could not make this stop at a normal hour. The local men are concerned that the American girl is not eating and I explain I already ate earlier and this is time to sleep. One man has a big stomach and the other is a small, thin man with white hair-they both look Hungarian, but they are Nepalese-confusing. With many more stops with locals getting off the bus to smoke and them dropping off roosters and picking up chickens ha. At 5:30am the bus arrives and the Bus adventure comes to an end.. Hello to Pokhara!
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